Shelley is an accomplished and highly successful entrepreneur. Her first start-up experience, Merak Projects, provided valuation and management software for the petroleum industry and was acquired by Schlumberger in 1999. In 2000, she co-founded Stormworks – a software development and online marketing firm, which was acquired by Solium Capital, a publicly-traded financial software company ranked among the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.

Jim has 28 years of capital, technical and executive experience in the technology field throughout Canada. Recently he was one of the founders and CEO of PURUS Technologies which established one of the world’s first Collaborative Decision Management platforms in the industry. He started his entrepreneurial career at 27 co-founding an information management and health care technology platform company which he sold 10 years later with 80 people.

Sharon M. McIntyre specializes in high-tech industry marketing and branding strategy. She also researches, writes, teaches and speaks about the intersection between location, creativity, innovation and technology. She has held senior marketing positions and consulted in a variety of domains including software, telecommunications, energy technologies and others. She has lived and worked internationally and holds dual Canadian and EU citizenship.

Richard brings over 12 years of experience in the software industry in a variety of senior leadership roles. Through most of 2010, Richard was also the Communications Director for the recent successful Naheed Nenshi for Mayor Campaign in Calgary, Alberta. He was responsible for the strategic direction and execution of the campaign’s highly effective social media engagement program that has gained worldwide recognition.

Chris is a serial technologist with 16 years of experience running development teams large and small. An experienced manager he specializes in growing early-stage technology companies, most recently with Paygea Israel Inc. Chris’s engineering successes range from broadcast-hardware to cryptographic primitives, financial-transaction engines to seismic data management. Chris holds a Honours Bachelor of Mathematics from University of Waterloo.

Randy is a serial entrepreneur who has lead numerous startup companies to success. Most recently, Randy was President and co-founder of RPM Communications, which created innovative mobile blogging/social media services. Previously he was founding VP of Marketing for SoundBite Communications (IPO 2007), and for Quack.com, which launched the world’s first voice portal in March 2000 and was subsequently acquired by America Online later that year.