2012 Mentors

Independent Board Member and Advisor

Charlotte Burke is a business leader, corporate director and advisor with 25 years of experience building and operating high growth businesses in the Internet, mobile and personal computer industries.  She spent over a decade as a senior executive and officer with Bell Canada where she lead three major technology transformations: launch of digital cellular, wireless data services and the roll out of broadband Internet. Formerly the Senior Vice President and leader of Bell’s Consumer Internet business unit where she was responsible for the expansion of Canada’s largest ISP and Portal from less than a quarter billion to over $1 billion in revenue. She has held senior executive positions with Asurion Corporation, Sony and HP/Compaq helping them scale their operations in Canada and across North America.

Charlotte’s passion is mentoring high potential talent and driving innovative high growth businesses.  Under her leadership Bell Canada’s Mobility business received the CDG Award for Most Innovative Wireless Carrier (2000) and the Internet business received both the Top Ten Places to Work (2006) and the North American Safety Leadership Award (2007) for programs launched to protect the abuse of children on line. Over the past three years she has been an Advisor with the MaRs Discovery District, a member of the venture capital group with the Business Development Bank of Canada and an advisor to Next 36 where she has helped early stage companies accelerate innovation, raise capital and scale commercial operations.  Charlotte has been an active board member for over a decade and held director positions with the Canadian National Ballet, Canadian Women in Communication and numerous early stage companies. She currently serves on the Boards of Postmedia Networks, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, Acadia University and is an Advisor with Polar Mobile.

Ms. Burke holds a business degree in accounting from Acadia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

President, Diamante Urban Corp    

Julie is a leading Toronto builder and developer . She and her company were awarded Project of the Year an unprecedented three years in a row by the  Greater Toronto Home Builders Assoc.  Julie led Toronto's development boom following the recession of the early '90s with One Balmoral.  She also built One City Hall - one of the largest residential projects built in Toronto in this last business cycle at 550 residential units. She has served as President of the Greater Toronto Home Builder's Association (now called BILD) and has served on the Board of The  Ontario New Home Warranty Program now known as Tarion.  Julie is past board member of the Canadian Urban Institute, Canadian Club and The Harbourfront Centre and presently serves on the St. Michael’s Hospital Board, the Board of Havergal College  and CISEPO.  The Florian condominium project which broke ground in summer 2009 is one of the only residential projects to obtain construction financing in the difficult climate of 2008-9. Julie is about to launch a residential project in North York  in 2012 where a church was re-constructed as part of the re-development. Julie has advised various levels of government in her 30 year career in Toronto from the Mayor's Office, to advising the Minister Responsible for Women's Issues and The Minister of Economic Development in the early 90's and including working closely with the Provincial Minister of Infrastructure on Growth Management in the last 5 years.   In 2011, Julie was a participant in Finance Minister Flaherty's annual Policy Retreat.

President & CEO, RHB Group

John Kelleher is President & CEO of RHB Group LP, Canada’s leading designer and retailer of school uniforms operating under its trading brands of R.J. McCarthy, Halpern's, and Beatties. RHB Group is partnered with Birch Hill Equity Partners, a leading Canadian private investment firm. John was previously President & CEO of Black’s Photography, Canada’s largest specialty photo retailer. Under John’s leadership a major turnaround program was planned and executed at Black’s that reinvigorated same store sales, aggressively cut operating and capital costs, while launching hundreds of new digital products proving that Black’s could be about more than “just photography”. Before joining Black’s, John was a partner at ReichmannHauer Capital Partners, a Toronto-headquartered private equity fund that he helped to launch with several McKinsey colleagues and Canada’s Reichmann family.  Prior to launching RHCP, John was a consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked for over 5 years. Prior to McKinsey, John worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in investment banking and equity research in New York. John has also worked on several occasions as a research associate for Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School. John’s writing on strategy, finance, and corporate governance have appeared in the McKinsey Quarterly, Canadian Business Magazine, the Toronto Star, and the National Post. John is a member of the Board of Directors of Covenant House, Canada’s largest youth homeless shelter. John has an Honours BA in business administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business where he graduated as Gold Medalist; an MA in public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government; and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction.

Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Defyrus Inc.

David F. Masotti is a business leader, corporate director and entrepreneur with extensive experience in numerous industries including telecommunications, aerospace, bio-defense, and venture capital. Currently, David is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Defyrus Inc, a life science biodefense company. David is also a Managing Director at Tancho Innovation Capital, and the President & CEO of DFM Consulting Inc. Previously David was President and Chief Operating Officer of Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund and before that President of Rogers Telecom Inc. David was a founder and Chief Executive Officer of Skulogix Inc, a business-to-business ecommerce service provider. Before that David was President of Spar Space Systems managing a business most widely known for designing and building the Canadarm in addition to numerous communication and earth observation satellites. David also held senior positions at Rogers Communications where he managed Customer Service Operations for Rogers 2.5 million cable customers and led the entrepreneurial team that developed and launched the world's first high speed internet service over cable. Before Rogers, David worked in Management Consulting, and held sales, marketing and engineering positions at Northern Telecom. David has an Electrical Engineering Degree from Queen's University, an MBA from the Harvard Business School and was a recipient of the Top 40 under 40 national business award. David is on the Board of Trustees of Queen's University and has served as a Director of several public and private companies.

Senior Advisor, MaRS Discovery District

Ryan is a Sr. Advisor and Practice Lead at the MaRS Discovery District where he helps startup and early-stage technology companies design business models, connect with investors and build for scale.  He is also a mentor in the JOLT accelerator program and has 12+ years of leadership experience with growth oriented, technology-focused organizations in the areas of strategy, business development, marketing, M&A, customer support and product management.  Most recently, he was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development leading the post-acquisition turnaround of Customer1, an enterprise software company in the CRM space.  Previously, he established the Canadian operations for eStara/ATG (purchased by Oracle), a SaaS-based Click to Call/Click to Chat provider, growing their customer base and country revenue.

Ryan’s experience includes speaking on Multi-Channel Customer Engagement; co-founding and leading Cobblestone Value Chain Management, a marketing technologies start-up; guiding Matthew Scott Data Marketing, a marketing services provider, through a period of rapid growth while developing a new technology platform; and, channel marketing management at Amex Bank of Canada. He was part of the leadership team that built the Framework Foundation, a national non-profit that promotes volunteerism and community involvement through its Timeraiser and Civic Footprint programs, and has served on its board for the past 5 years.

Ryan is a graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, and lives in Toronto with his wife and son.

Founder, Sprouter.com

Named by Inc Magazine as one of the top entrepreneurs in North America, Sarah Prevette has captured attention as a passionate and pioneering web entrepreneur. Sarah is the founder of Sprouter.com, an online platform facilitating knowledge exchange between startups and business leaders that was acquired by Postmedia in 2011. Sarah is frequently in the media and has been profiled by numerous prestigious publications including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Wired Magazine. An advisor to several startups, her advice can be found regularly in the Financial Post and live on BNN's hot, new show "The Pitch".

President, Ryerson Futures Inc.

At Ryerson Futures, Matthew manages a seed stage investment fund and oversees an acceleration program for early stage technology companies. He also provides business development and advisory services to companies in the Ryerson Digital Media Zone. 

Matthew has over 17 years’ experience as an entrepreneur and executive working with various companies in the technology and service based sectors. He brings operations, finance, business development and strategic planning experience. Over the last ten years Matthew has held progressively senior roles that have focused on managing the day to day operations and finance of companies in the following sectors: hardware/software; telecommunications; HR; and marketing and communications.

Matthew was a founder and co-CEO of NRG Group, (which consisted of: a consulting firm; internet based incubator; and investment fund) which he ran between 1997 and 2001.  During this period NRG raised over $30M in financing, (including NRG’s IPO) and invested in several start-ups and early stage Internet based operating companies.

Matthew has an undergraduate in Marketing and Management and MBA in Finance from Northeastern University.

Deputy Chairman, GMP Capital

Kevin M. Sullivan has been at GMP since October 1995 and cofounded GMP Securities. Mr. Sullivan served as President from 1996-1999 and Chief Executive Officer of GMP from June 1999 to September 2010. Kevin has 25 years of experience and relationships in the capital markets industry. During his tenure as CEO at GMP, Kevin oversaw the creation and growth of Richardson GMP, GMP Europe and GMP Investment Management. In addition, he successfully oversaw GMP’s IPO in 2003 and has since helped the company grow from a market value of $300M to over $1B in that time. While Kevin has now transitioned from his role as CEO, he is actively engaged at GMP sitting on its Board of Directors and on the Board of Richardson GMP. During his career, he has also spent three years in the European capital markets as well as a lawyer in general practice in Calgary, Alberta. Mr. Sullivan has been involved in a number of charitable endeavours and community organizations, including co-chairing The Ride to Conquer Cancer, Canada’s premier cycling fundraiser. He is a past member of the Ontario Securities Commission Industry Advisory Group and past Board member of The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, and a member of the Canadian Advisory Board of Right To Play.