Emerging Tech Companies And How They Are Owning The Future - Presented by MaRS

Krista is the Founding Executive, Momentum and a Vice President of Ventures Services at MaRS Discovery District. She has been the driving force behind the creation of Momentum, a MaRS program supporting the executives of high-growth companies on their way to reaching $100 million in revenue in the next five years. Krista has been a passionate innovator and builder of technology-based businesses for over 30 years. She has spent her career working in and advising over 200 innovative and entrepreneurial organizations including public companies, high growth firms and startups. Krista is an engineer, entrepreneur, mentor and an expert at solving ambiguous problems. She has a unique combination of strategic, technical, operational and marketing expertise. Her greatest joys come from working with and learning from diverse, talented, ambitious people and being a mother to 3 amazing young adults.

Zeze is a Cornell educated Rocket-scientist and former Director of Product engineering, who spent the last 10 years making simple solutions to complex problems in Applied AI, eCommerce, Consumer goods and Big data systems for Fortune 1000 companies. He is the founder & CEO of Beam.city, a company making the one Ads platform to rule them all, by using AI to publish and optimize ads with an aim to enable ads that come to you with the perfect solutions to your problems before you even search, while maintaining privacy. Beam.city grew revenues 14 times in the last 9 months, and Zeze is a Black Innovation Fellow at the DMZ, Canada's top accelerator. Zeze speaks at technology, start-up and diversity oriented events, and is married with three sons.

Carol Leaman (BA, MAcc, FCPA) is an award-winning thought leader with an impressive track record of successfully leading tech companies. Not only is she a disruptor in the corporate learning space, but she’s also the brains behind the Axonify solution. Prior to Axonify, Carol was the CEO of PostRank Inc., a social engagement analytics platform she sold to Google. She was also the CEO at several other technology firms, including RSS Solutions and Fakespace Systems. Carol is a celebrated entrepreneur and trailblazer (Sarah Kirke Award 2010, Waterloo Region Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Intrepid Award 2011 and the Profit500 Award for Canada's Leading Female Entrepreneur 2017) whose articles appear in leading learning, business and technology publications. She also sits on the boards of many organizations and advises a variety of Canadian high-tech firms.

Jennifer is President of CarbonCure Technologies, a cleantech company that has been recognized as Cleantech Group’s 2020 North American Company of the Year. Jennifer oversees the company's operations and guides the team in order to meet the company’s goal of reducing 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Jennifer is CarbonCure’s team lead in the $20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition, and the $35 million Emissions Reduction Alberta Grand Challenge. Jennifer was recognized as one of Business Insider’s Clean Energy Rising Stars in 2020, Canada’s Clean 50 Emerging Leaders in 2019, and a Climate Trailblazer at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit. Jennifer has been involved in many boards and committees with the Canada and US Green Building Councils, Health Product Declaration Collaborative, Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Management, and the National Research Council of Canada’s Core Group on Technology Horizons for Climate Change. Jennifer holds a BSc from McGill University, an MSc in Chemistry and an MBA from Dalhousie University.

A passionate advocate for organizational change and lasting progress, Lekan Olawoye is a leader who is equally comfortable offering high-level business advice as he is passionately speaking about how to be an effective ally. His organization, the Black Professionals in Tech Network (BPTN), is the largest of its kind in Canada and the third largest in the US with an organization spanning over 10,000 members. Olawoye’s cross-sector experience gives him the skills to foster transformational change and provide critical guidance on harnessing the power of meaningful diversity. Olawoye honed his expertise across roles spanning from local non-profit organizations to government advisory boards to executive boardrooms. As lead executive, Talent Development at the MaRS District, Olawoye helped ensure workers had the skills and adaptability needed to thrive in modern work environments. Throughout these roles, Olawoye has earned a reputation for effective leadership and peerless vision, resulting in industry awards and accolades. With his proven insight and tireless dedication to inclusivity, Olawoye’s perspective is sought by people across many fields. He’s been published in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and TechCrunch, and the annual BPTN summit is the largest virtual Black tech summit globally, with thousands of attendees in person and online.

Peter Macnee is an entrepreneurial CEO with a global track record of launching, building and scaling high-growth TMT businesses. Peter most recently joined Statflo Inc. as CEO in 2019, a Toronto based SaaS business that provides a unique 1:1 customer outreach service to technology retailers. He previously co-founded and was CEO of Virgin Mobile Latin America, building the company from inception to 3.4 million customers in Chile, Colombia and Mexico. He held a variety of executive roles with Millicom International Cellular, including President of Eastern Europe and Africa, and also led an early stage Internet start-up FortuneCity.com Inc. to a successful IPO.