Bruce Johnson, Chair
Executive Chair/Co-CEO, Visio Media Inc.
Bruce is the co-founder of the personal income tax software company WinTax (later Intuit Canada). He provides support and mentorship to many companies in the Edmonton tech startup community with his expertise and insight.
Warren Bergen
President - AVAC Ltd.
Warren is passionate about entrepreneurship, having participated in a number of early-stage ventures and raised growth capital from a variety of sources. He is also the author of Swagger & Sweat: A Start-up Capital Boot Camp.
Zarina Bhambhani
Partner – KPMG
Zarina Bhambhani is a Partner at KPMG’s Audit Practice in Edmonton. She is also a member of the Board of Governors of the University of Alberta and has served as Director and Treasurer of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association since 2017.
Joan Hertz
Chair – ATB Financial; Chair – Edmonton International Airport
Joan Hertz is an executive, lawyer and strategic consultant who has served as Interim President and CEO – as well as Vice President, External Affairs and Corporate Counsel – for NorQuest College. Joan currently serves as the Chair of the Board for Edmonton International Airport and Chair of the ATB Financial Board of Directors.
Matina Kalcounis-Rueppell
Dean of Science, University of Alberta
Matina is the Dean of Science at the University of Alberta. She is an award-winning and internationally-recognized scientist whose research centers on acoustic communication in wild bats and mice. In the field, she deploys sensors at large scales to continually record the ultrasounds produced by these mammals generating massive acoustic data sets representing the soundscape, which can then analyzed using AI, machine learning and other techniques.
John Knubley
Senior Business Consultant – InnovActionJK
John Knubely is a Corporate Director, Strategic Advisor and formerly the Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada from 2012 to 2019. He has over 35 years of experience in the federal government, serving across eight departments, including Privy Council Office, Agriculture and Agrifood Canada, Transport and Infrastructure Canada, Natural Resources Canada and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
Elan MacDonald
Vice President, External Relations at the University of
Alberta
Elan MacDonald, ICD.D is the Vice President, External Relations at the University of
Alberta. Elan has spent her career advising organizations and corporations to sustain and
grow their businesses by navigating government, policy development, crisis communications, the regulatory and legislative processes, and the shifting political, social and economic landscapes.
As President and CEO of Impact Consulting, Elan built and operated one of Alberta’s most reputable government relations advisory and communications companies for close to a decade, serving local, national and international clients. She later joined her firm with Global Public Affairs, where she became the Senior Vice President, National Client Development. Elan MacDonald offers a unique perspective among government relations and communication professionals that spans 25 years as a values-driven executive in political, private sector and community and stakeholder relations roles.
Elan is Chair of the Real Estate Council of Alberta, a director on the boards of AMII,
Covenant Health, and Atlas Global Brands. She is past-Chair of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce and a former Director on the boards of Edmonton Global and Alberta Ballet. Elan has a long history in Alberta politics serving as Deputy Chief of Staff and Political Advisor to two Alberta Premiers, and as a political advisor to Cabinet Ministers.
Marlene McNaughton
Senior Vice President, Client Services & Business Development - HeadCount Corporation
Marlene is an award-winning marketer who brings over 30 years of experience in brand management and marketing in retail, business-to-business and the corporate world. Her previous experience includes senior roles in public affairs, as well as international marketing and technology commercialization for a major multimedia/software company.
Josh Pantony
Co-Founder & CEO – Boosted.ai
Josh is a co-founder and CEO of Boosted.ai – an artificial intelligence company that brings advanced machine learning tools to institutional investors. Since starting Boosted.ai in 2017, the company has helped dozens of investment managers – whose AUM totals over $1 trillion – implement machine learning in their portfolios.
Patrick Pilarski
Fellow – Amii
Patrick is an Associate Professor in the Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Department of Medicine. In addition to his roles as Principal Researcher at Amii and the Reinforcement Learning and Artificial Intelligence (RLAI) Laboratory, Patrick conducts research with the BLINC Lab (Bionic Limbs for Improved Natural Control), which specializes in advanced prosthetic systems.
Todd Simpson
Partner – Inovia Capital
Todd Simpson is a Partner at Inovia Capital, investing in early-stage software companies. Previously he held executive roles at AVG Technologies, Mozilla, and Ditech Networks. He has also founded, built, and run numerous companies. Originally from Calgary, where he got his Ph.D. in Computer Science, he now lives in Silicon Valley.
Gerri Sinclair
Managing Director - Kensington Capital
Dr. Gerri Sinclair brings over 25 years of cross-domain experience to Amii, largely in the fields of Internet, mobile and digital media technologies, entrepreneurial business, and government policy. Among her many notable achievements, she was the founder and CEO of NCompass Labs, the Internet digital content management company acquired by Microsoft in 2001.
