Advisors

Adam Schlesinger is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in transformation and revenue growth leadership roles across the banking and technology sectors. He currently advises startups in the FinTech, Payments, and AI spaces and serves as an independent board director for a federally chartered U.S. Bank.

Adam has successfully built and exited startups to major companies like Zoom and Bumble and taken others public on the TSX, Nasdaq, and NYSE. As the former Chief Transformation Officer at First Republic Bank, he developed client-focused technology offerings and innovative solutions that challenged industry norms. Prior to this role, he led Breakout Ventures at the National Bank of Canada, creating $1B+ revenue streams and spearheading digital and data platform transformations.

With a decade-long tenure at Microsoft, Adam managed significant financial services relationships and drove over $1.5 billion in revenue. His diverse expertise includes investment banking, M&A, and software sales.

Adam holds a Master of Engineering from MIT and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University. He splits his time between Miami, Los Angeles, and Montreal.

Alexander has 30 years of experience as CEO, President and Executive Chairman at public and private global businesses covering a broad range of sectors. Prior to taking on executive roles, he was a Partner of McKinsey & Company and worked at the Toronto, Brussels, Montreal, and Stockholm offices. Alexandre is primarily focused on developing the Firm’s executive and advisor network as well as serving on the Inovia Capital Investment Committee.

Allyson Letteri is a marketing executive and startup advisor who’s spent her career building marketing teams at fast-growing tech companies in Silicon Valley (Intuit, Thumbtack, and Handshake). She now advises founders and leaders at VC-backed startups so they can create powerful marketing growth engines and build teams that deliver results.

Allyson began her career at the Boston Consulting Group, creating marketing and growth strategy for consumer goods companies. At Intuit she led market entry strategy in Asia, go-to-market for Intuit’s mobile payments products in Canada and the UK, and retention marketing globally for QuickBooks Online. At Thumbtack, Allyson built and led the Pro Marketing team, significantly increasing the number of small business owners getting hired on the platform. As VP Marketing at Handshake, Allyson launched a new brand identity and led significant growth in college students using the platform to get hired for internships and jobs.

Allyson lives in San Francisco with her husband and two kids. Allyson holds a BS in Business Administration and BA in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (‘03)l.  She received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (‘07). Allyson loves to hike and is an avid watercolor artist.

Andre joined Inovia Capital as a Venture Partner in November 2019. Most recently, Andre was an operator at Hired as VP of Strategic Development and also raised his own fund called Maple VC. At Hired, Andre was one of the first 15 employees and led the company’s expansion to 16 markets across 6 countries.

At Maple, Andre is focused on investing in exceptional Canadian founders (regardless of location) and partnering with them on talent and growth. Maple has invested alongside top Silicon Valley funds including Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock and Sequoia. Previously, Andre was one of the first 25 employees at Uber and led new market entry for the company into Canada. Prior to tech, he started his career in investment banking at Wachovia Securities. Andre holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Toronto.

Bernard Paradis has been active in the venture capital industry since 1985, mainly as Senior VP of Desjardins Capital de Risque. Recently, he has focused his activities on advising SMEs as well as managers of VC funds. Bernard played a key role in the launch of Capital Régional et Coopératif Desjardins, Desjardins Innovatech and Fier Partenaires. Bernard has been a Board Member or Advisor with Inovia Capital since 2004.

Colleen is Chief Client Officer at Osler. She is responsible for implementing Osler’s client-focused business development strategy. Colleen works closely with the Managing Partner and the members of the firm’s Client Relations Committee to deepen and strengthen existing client relationships and also provides advice and guidance on new markets and business development opportunities.

Colleen has extensive experience building successful companies and valuable brands. She is a respected business leader with senior management experience in financial services, technology, business and web-based services. Colleen has held a variety of corporate leadership positions and has a deep understanding of business development strategy in the services sector.

Colleen has had a long successful career in the financial services industry that spans over 20 years. She began her career at Merrill Lynch and CIBC. Colleen was a co-founder and President of E*TRADE Canada — building the firm from its pioneering roots as an e-commerce start-up to its position as the largest independent on-line investment firm in Canada. She also served as Vice President and General Manager of E*TRADE Financial Global Corporate Services. In her role as President and CEO of Nexient Learning, Colleen successfully restructured and recapitalized this company, transforming it into Canada’s leading corporate learning and skills development provider. As Entrepreneur in Residence at the private equity firm Signal Hill Equity Partners she worked to identify and evaluate new Canadian mid-market investment opportunities and also assisted portfolio companies with strategy execution. Colleen is a Board member of Merrco Payments Inc.

Since 1981, Dan Freedman has founded, grown, sold, integrated, managed, and financed software companies, primarily in the networking and security sectors. Dan served as VP of Security Products at anti-virus giant McAfee Corporation, and has established successful companies in the networking, security, financing, and Internet Telephony spaces. Dan joined Inovia Capital in 2008 as a member of our Investment Committee, and has since moved into an advisor role. His leadership roles today include executive coaching, corporate governance, strategy development, negotiation, and advising on complex sales/marketing scenarios.

François Gauvin is a CPA, CA with over 35 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions, international tax planning and venture capital. He has provided Inovia Capital steady, diligent leadership for over more than a decade, ensuring that transparency and rigour remain core to the Firm’s reputation.

Prior to joining Inovia in 2007, François was the Investment Director at the Fonds de Solidarité FTQ (FsFTQ), a $16B Montreal-based labour-sponsored fund, where he was responsible for FsFTQ’s investments in venture capital funds. After investing in Inovia’s first fund on FsFTQ’s behalf, he joined the Firm as Partner-CFO and has been involved in every single transaction Inovia has ever done. He is a board member of Réseau Capital and an active member of the CVCA CFO task force.

Françoise Brougher is a senior executive and board director with decades of experience in technology, engineering, finance, operations, and sales. Throughout her career, she has specialized in both strategic and operational roles, helping to scale organizations from dozens to thousands and creating marketing, sales, and services models for new innovative technologies. She has extensive expertise in building end-to-end go-to-market functions and corporate strategy: Sales, Marketing, Biz Dev, Corp Dev Customer Success and driving Corporate Strategy.

Françoise most recently served as Chief Operating Officer at Pinterest, where she grew revenue, increased the advertiser base, expanded operations to 20 countries, and helped take the company public. Prior to joining Pinterest in 2018, she was the Global Business Lead at Square where she built and ran go-to-market functions, including sales, marketing, account management, business intelligence, customer success, and business development, and assisted with Square’s IPO.

Françoise previously worked at Google for eight years, most recently as Vice President of Global Sales and Operations. She was formerly Vice President of Business Operations in the late 2000s during a time of exponential growth for the company. Prior to joining Google, she was Vice President of the Business Strategy Group at Charles Schwab.

Françoise currently serves on the board of Sodexo, a French multinational food services and facilities management company operating in over 70 countries, and is a member of their Compensation and Nomination Committees. She also serves as a member of the board of Velocity Global, a private international Professional Employment Organization, and an advisor at both The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Venture Growth Fund and Inovia Capital.

Françoise earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Masters in Engineering from Institut Catholique d’Arts et Metiers in France. Originally from Marseille, France, she came to the United States in her mid-twenties. She lives in Silicon Valley with her husband and three children.

Jan Peeters is the President and CEO of Olameter, which he founded in 1998. Olameter is a leading meter service and data management company in North America. Jan was also the founder (1988) of ƒONOROLA Inc., a highly successful long distance telephone company, and the main developer of inter-city fibre-optic-based networks in Canada and northern United States. The company was sold to Sprint in 1998. He has served on the Board of Intersil Corporation (2000-2016). He is a Governor Emeritus of McGill University, having served on that Board from 1999 to 2008. While there, he helped launch MSBi (now Inovia Capital). Jan is a graduate of McGill University with degrees in Engineering and Accounting.

JP Chauvet, with over 25 years of technology leadership experience, is Inovia Capital’s new Executive in Residence. He played a pivotal role in transforming Lightspeed Commerce into a global tech leader. JP joined Lightspeed in October 2012 as Chief Revenue Officer, became a board member in September 2013, and was named President in April 2016. He served as CEO from February 2022 until February 2024, guiding the company through significant milestones, including strategic acquisitions, listings on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange, and the launch of Lightspeed Payments.

Under JP’s leadership, Lightspeed grew to employ nearly 3,000 staff worldwide and became a one-stop commerce platform for merchants globally. Before Lightspeed, JP held various leadership roles at Atex Group, Nstein Technologies, and IXIASOFT Technologies.

Now, as an Executive in Residence at Inovia, JP brings his wealth of experience and strategic insight to support portfolio companies, offering guidance on growth, M&A, and sales strategies.

Mike has 20+ years of industry experience working as a Staff Engineer.  He has worked most of his career at Google building scalable and reliable SAAS solutions.  His contributions to many domains include Observability, Experiments frameworks, Ads and CI/CD.  He is really passionate about delivering scalable solutions that exhibit operational excellence.

Mike holds a BMath from Waterloo University with a Double Honours degree in Combinatorics & Optimization and Computer Science.  Outside work, he enjoys spending time with family, hiking, fishing and camping.

When brands like Google, Starbucks, Shopify and GE want to leverage technology to better connect with their consumers, they call Mitch Joel. He has been called one of North America’s leading visionaries and the Rock Star of Digital Marketing by Strategy Magazine, but he is much more than that. Mitch Joel is Founder of Six Pixels Group – an advisory, investing and content producing company that is focused on commerce and innovation (although he prefers the title, “Media Hacker”). Prior to Six Pixels Group, Mitch spent close to two decades building, running and (eventually) selling his business. He was President of Mirum — a global digital marketing agency operating in 25 countries with close to 3000 employees. Mirum is owned by WPP.

Mitch has been named one of the top 100 online marketers in the world, and was awarded the highly prestigious Top 40 Under 40.

Mitch’s first book, Six Pixels of Separation, named after his successful blog and podcast is a business and marketing bestseller. His second book, CTRL ALT Delete, was named one of the best business books of 2013 by Amazon. Mitch is frequently called upon to be a subject matter expert for publications like Fast Company, Strategy, Forbes, The Globe & Mail and many others. He is a columnist and journalist for the Harvard Business Review, Inc. Magazine, The Huffington Post and many other magazines and newspapers.

Mitch speaks frequently to diverse groups like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, Twitter, Unilever and every organization and association in between. Since 2005 he has given anywhere between 40-60 keynote presentation a year.

Mitch is also the host of Groove — The No Treble Podcast, where he is slowly trying to build the largest oral history of electric bass players in the world.

Mohamed Musbah joined Inovia Capital in 2023 as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR). He previously served as Vice President of Product at Maluuba, a renowned AI research startup focused on natural language understanding, until its acquisition by Microsoft for $160M. Following the acquisition, Mohamed took on the role of Director of Product at Microsoft Research, where he led the development of machine learning technologies across Microsoft products, including Xbox, Bing, and Microsoft Office. After dedicating time to travel, Mohamed has set out on a new journey to help build companies with a lasting impact.

Mohamed earned his Bachelor’s in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Nithum has almost a decade of experience in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. At Google, he contributes to efforts to better understand Machine Learning, Responsible AI, and Large Language Models. Prior to this, he worked on Perspective, one of the world’s first content moderation systems in use by global content platforms like the New York Times and taught Natural Language Processing at the UC Berkeley School of Information as well as working for and advising a number of startups.

Nithum has over 40 publications at venues like NeurIPS, JMLR, EMNLP, and ACL. He holds a PhD in Mathematics from McGill University and an MBA from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes scholar.

Rasool is a serial entrepreneur with experience in the software, healthcare, and organic grocery industries. He continues to maintain his passion for technology as an active angel investor with a focus on b2b, consumer SaaS and health tech. Rasool maintains an active role with CEO’s as a board member, mentor and advisor. He currently serves on the boards of the Victoria Foundation, VIATEC, and Checkfront Software.

Robin Bienfait was the chief enterprise innovation officer and senior advisor for Samsung, responsible for building strong partnerships with large global customers to deliver enterprise class services. Robin joined Samsung with over 30 years of experience in mobility, security, business development, enterprise sales, wireless network operations and engineering. As a global intrapreneur, Robin launched Samsung Business Services and advised on the B2B investment strategy. Now as CEO for Emnovate, Robin is advising and providing software solutions to emerging businesses. Prior to Samsung, Robin served as chief information officer for BlackBerry, where she led the enterprise business unit and software development team, end to end product security, tier 3 technical customer service, global network services, corporate security and corporate IT. For the majority of her career, Robin held senior leadership positions across AT&T including Bell Labs, Global Network Services/GNOC, business continuity and disaster recovery, and compliance. As an officer at AT&T, Robin’s last role was leading global network services and chief compliance officer, environment, health and safety.

Robin holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Central Missouri State University and a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in management of technology. A global influencer holding 15 patents, she is the recipient of several awards and was named as one of the top 100 CIO’s in STEM. Robin currently serves on multiple boards as an independent director, Empower Retirement, Putnam Investments, GW Lifeco and MUFG.

Shyam is a seasoned Product leader with 25+ years of experience across enterprise, consumer, telco and Google infrastructure products.  Most recently, he was at Google where he led efforts to protect users from malicious ads and built on-device counter-abuse infrastructure for Gen AI applications.  He has a history of applying a pragmatic approach to solving complex interdisciplinary problems that require navigating product, engineering, regulatory, privacy, legal and PR concerns.

He previously co-founded Fixmo (backed by Inovia), built a R&D centre in Pune (Redknee, India), and started a Product Management consulting practice.

Shyam lives in Waterloo with his wife and three kids.  He holds a BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.  When not working, he can be found coaching baseball or hiking with his family.