Elisabeth has had the opportunity of fulfilling roles at Fortune 50 technology companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Microsoft as well founding entrepreneurial roles in leading edge technology startups.

Elisabeth started her career as a Technical Account Executive for Digital Equipment Corporation (acquired by Compaq) and was recognized for her key contributions to their success in the tier 1 Global account organization. Equipped with what she learned under the corporate guidance of DEC, she was part of the founding team of Toon Boom Technologies in her first founding entrepreneurial role as VP corporate development. Following that as VP of Worldwide Sales, Elisabeth was instrumental to the growth of Softimage (a $100M plus division of Microsoft later acquired by AVID Technologies). At Alias Systems (known for their Academy Award winning software MAYA ) she headed Global Business Development for their Tier 1 film and games customers contributing to a successful acquisition by Autodesk Inc. for $108M.

Her experience in the corporate and entrepreneurial world has allowed Elisabeth to understand the systems in place that encourage, as well as those that hinder the progression of women through the ranks of leadership. She has seen the good and bad of corporate cultures, and the ingrained processes that can affect women and their ability to contribute to their full economic and intellectual potential.

Elisabeth is fortunate to have ‘flipped the system’ through her entrepreneurial efforts.  She is a founding partner of Xaphan Group, a company focused on providing start-up and early-stage companies with seed capital and experienced management to maximize their potential for success.

As part of Xaphan Group, Elisabeth is an active investor and technological contributor to Intellacare Inc. a tech start-up developing 3D monitoring algorithms for patient care, as well as Exagens a leading provider of Financial AI technology for the banking industry. She currently has executive roles in both companies. She is also an advisor and a board member in a number of startup companies.

In her spare time, Elisabeth serves on YES Employment + Entrepreneurship’ board of directors and chairs the Advancing Women in STEM’s advisory committee.

Elisabeth is passionate about entrepreneurship, technology and helping women leverage both to create opportunities and fulfill their potential.

Cindy Fagen is chief operating officer for SAP Labs Canada. In this role, Cindy is focused on growing and executing the strategic vision and mission of SAP’s product development and innovation hubs in four locations in and around Canada’s major cities.

Working alongside customer operations organizations in Canada and globally, Cindy connects the technology innovations coming out of SAP’s cutting-edge Canadian labs with some of the largest and most advanced companies in the world. Her chief goal is to create an environment inside Labs Canada that empowers software development teams to do their best work in solving the business challenges of today and tomorrow.

In 2009 Cindy founded her own company, Scoop Media, and has since brought this entrepreneurial experience to SAP where she fosters an intrapreneurial mindset to enable teams to create best in class innovations.

Cindy is a customer-focused executive with a reputation of creating winning cultures and driving innovation. She is passionate about advancing women in STEM, encouraging entrepreneurs to take a leap of faith and giving back to the start-up community through mentorship.

Sophie Aladas is an entrepreneur with a creative spirit. Born and raised in Ottawa, her passion for diversity and inclusion led her to work in Citizenship and Immigration Canada as well as Global Affairs Canada. After graduating from the Telfer School of Business with a BCom in International Management, she entered the private sector as a Business Analyst for CAE, an international aerospace company known for cutting edge simulation technology.

She later on launched Key2Access, a tech startup that provides smart city solutions to improve accessibility for the visually and mobility impaired.

Sophie believes that a work place is first and foremost a community where employees play a crucial role in defining the culture and shaping their experience. Wanting to create a space that empowers employees to do just that, she quickly realized that in the STEM world, this space needed to be focused on empowering women. Sophie founded CAE’s Professional Women’s Network (PWN), the first employee led organization. The Network was created around 3 core pillars: Professional Development, Mentorship and Community Outreach. The logic was that employees needed a venue to explore and grow professionally outside of their job description. Today the PWN has over 250 members in Montreal alone and is opening a Chapter in the US and Europe.

Sophie continues to be driven by her desire to learn and experience new things which has led her to interesting accomplishments such as becoming a certified yoga instructor and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She plans to remain involved in her community each and every day as she strives to live by her core mantra: Everybody can help somebody.

Cynthia Grahame is the Senior Director of Staff Operations at IC Axon, a division of GP Canada Co. She graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Education and Certificate in Human Resources Management.

Cynthia formerly worked at YES Employment + Entrepreneurship and McGill University. Cynthia is an Advisory Committee member for the Advancing Women in STEM Project at YES YES Employment + Entrepreneurship, and is a member of the Shoebox Project (Montreal Chapter). She has an interest in helping people and building stronger communities.

Georgiana has been working with SMB software companies like Unbounce, Appcues and Sprout Social since 2010, launching and building B2B and B2C brands online since 2000. While VP of Marketing at Unbounce, she helped grow revenue from $1M to nearly $16M ARR without any major funding. She scaled her team from a founder-run blog to a team of 35 and a brand consistently recognized as best-in-class for their marketing. Now, as a strategic advisor, Georgiana helps early and growth-stage SaaS companies scale by working one-on-one with founders and marketers as a marketing exec for hire.

As a long-time advocate for women in tech, starting in 2009, she led a quickly growing local community of hundreds, and monthly standing-room-only events for two years. She now offers free strategy sessions to women and other underestimated founders, frequents panels and board positions dedicated to affecting positive change.

Liesl is an agency veteran with over 10 years of digital marketing experience and award-winning projects under her belt, including the Canadian Marketing Award, Digital Marketing Award and Boomerang for the 2011 Just For Laughs Website redesign project. She has worked on digital strategy and execution for brands like Bombardier, Birks, Lise Watier, L’Oreal, Mary Kay, JFL, Pfizer, Van Houtte, WWF Canada and The Montreal Gazette.

Originally from South Africa, she has lived in four countries on three continents and traveled to all six (she’ll get you one day, Antarctica!!) In her spare time, Liesl is a seasoned writer, public speaker and passionate community leader for women in technology. She’s the executive director of Montreal Girl Geeks and is on the committee of YES Employment + Entrepreneurship’s Advancing Women in STEM program. She previously served on the YES Employment + Entrepreneurship Women in Tech and Mentorship Program Committees, both for their full three-year terms. She also frequently volunteers to teach digital literacy at YES Employment + Entrepreneurship as part of their Skills Link Program for at-risk youth and to present on marketing topics to their entrepreneur, artist, and job-seeker clients.

Liesl first joined women in tech groups and organizations because she was the “only woman in the room” at her first digital job and wanted to connect with other women in tech (many of whom have also experienced being the only ones in their spaces). Since then she has been incredibly lucky and grateful to find amazing female mentors, teachers, peers,

colleagues, mentees, employees and friends in the Montreal community. It is this experience, as well as her journey rapidly climbing the career ladder before co-founding her own company, that inspires her to help reduce friction for future generations of female careerists and entrepreneurs. She knows we can change the ratio and break down barriers in our lifetimes, and we can do both at velocity if we all help each other on our paths.

She has been known to rock a moustache for Movember, a mic for karaoke, and a wetsuit for scuba. But never all three at once.

Marie is an Interaction Designer with eight years of experience in game development, and 15+ years of career in the UI/UX field. At Audiogram Records, she has navigated the transition from physical media to digital music, learning about change management along the way.

As a game developer, she has worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between Art, Programming, and Design, trying to break the silos and foster a community spirit in the field of User Interface Design. She has taken the lead within teams of designers and developers at Ubisoft Montréal, on a variety of video gaming projects, the latest of which is Assassin’s Creed Origins. Marie has been involved in a variety of Diversity initiatives, and has been an active member of Ubisoft’s Diversity Committee while at the company.

She is an advocate for diversity and smart team building as drivers for innovation and success.

Mary-Anne Carignan has been the President of Purkinje Inc. since 2008. Purkinje is a pioneer in the design, development and marketing of clinical decision support and healthcare IT solutions. Mary-Anne was the first women to be hired by the company to occupy an executive level position. Mary-Anne has contributed significantly to the company’s growth and its re-positioning in the market, which resulted in a number long-term contracts with the Federal and Provincial governments.

Between 2001 and 2007, Mary-Anne was the General Manager at Fusion MD and The Catalyst Group, both focused on the healthcare and technology sectors in North America. Previously, Mary-Anne worked at Philip Morris where she spent a decade working in Lausanne (Switzerland), Zagreb (Croatia) and Antwerp (Belgium) and was the first woman in the company to manage an international budget.

Guided by her core believe that patients should be at the core of a progressive healthcare system and that technology should facilitate the collaboration needed for optimal health outcomes, Mary-Anne established the Nursefinders operations in New York City, a company that provided essential serves to hospitals and long-term care facilities.

Mary-Anne holds an MBA from the Business School Lausanne, and is a socially engaged lecturer promoting the advancement of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). She has also lead initiatives to ensure equal pay for equal work across departments.

In 2010, Mary-Anne was appointed by the Canadian Minister of International Trade to the SME Advisory Board where she served for two terms. Mary-Anne is a supporter of YES Employment + Entrepreneurship and Women’s Advancement in STEM through Mentorship.

Nancy Cleman is a lawyer and Partner at Lapointe Rosenstein Marchand Melançon, responsible for the firm’s Intellectual Property group. She is a registered trademark agent and an accredited mediator (commercial). Nancy has extensive experience both nationally and internationally and provides legal advice to a variety of corporate and commercial clients with a focus on intellectual property and information technology law.

She is active in community work and sits on several boards and committees including the Advancing Women in STEM committee at YES Employment + Entrepreneurship. Nancy speaks regularly and gives conferences on a variety of topics.

Alyson is a client experience specialist with an aptitude for data-driven problem solving and an appreciation of good design. She recently relocated to San Francisco from Montreal, where she previously managed key client accounts at Dynamo, a boutique digital design agency. A McGill BCom grad, Alyson’s career has spanned a variety of industries and countries from promoting Canadian athletes at the London 2012 Olympics to strengthening international diplomatic relations at the U.S. Consulate in Montreal and the Canadian Embassy in Paris.

During her time at the U.S. Consulate, Alyson helped promote cross-border ties with Montreal’s entrepreneurship community by managing networking events, grants, speaker programs, and professional exchange programs. More specifically, she encouraged the participation of women in STEM fields by bringing high profile American business women from LinkedIn, U.S. Venture Capital Firms, and the U.N. Entrepreneurship Council to share best practices with leaders and audiences at community organizations like YES Employment + Entrepreneurship, Montreal NewTech and Technovation Montreal.

In her current role at Gensler architecture firm, she helps to strengthen partnerships with key global clients who seek Gensler’s expertise to design and build physical spaces, including corporate workplaces that help people do their best work.

Cassie was named as one of “the 50 Quebecers who create the extraordinary” by Urbania Magazine in 2016. In the same year, she was also named among the top ’30 under 30’ by Infopresse and most recently, was the winner of the InspirationnELLE Award – Young woman in technology by Generation W.

After studying and pursuing a career in marketing, her passion and perseverance led her to a career in web-development and technology. Cassie is currently the Chapter Lead of Ladies Learning Code in Montreal, an organization that develops digital literacy workshops for women and girls. She is also a member of the Concertation Montreal, an effort to increase digital literacy among teenagers in Montreal.

Through her various engagements, Cassie aims to work collaboratively with organizations in the field to maximize her reach and impact on young women’s perception of technology. She aims to change young women’s positions in the tech market from consumers to creators and producers of tech.

Cassie considers herself a true evangelist of technology and continues to advocate for women’s access to opportunities within an industry that’s predominantly dominated by men.

Veronica Polisi is the HR manager at OneSpan Canada (formerly eSignlive by Vasco). She joined OneSpan in 2017 to help facilitate their rapid expansion and lead the Canadian HR team to the next level of best practices in terms of hiring, compensation, organizational development, talent retention, and employee engagement.

Previously the HR Director at Directed Electronics, she oversaw all strategic HR functions both in Canada and the US, focusing her expertise on the R&D hub that is the Montreal office.

Spending the largest part of her career so far recruiting and retaining talent in STEM, she is familiar with the market conditions in Montreal and understands the obstacles, advantages and intricacies of hiring and promoting women, both from the perspective of the employer, recruiters and managers and the employees and candidates. Her success is attributed to her ability to fully understand and strategically meet the individual needs of each group while working within the parameters of an ever competitive market.

Bringing with her 10 years of experience as a certified HR professional working exclusively in the Tech and Engineering industry, she is passionate about the advancement of women both in STEM and leadership positions and believes that it is the key to a more powerful workforce, now and in the future.

Vanessa Cherenfant is an entrepreneur, engineer and proud STEMinist. After 7 years in management consulting, she founded Elysia a Elysia is a Real Time Customer Engagement Platform for the Travel & Hospitality Industry, project for which she was recognized by the Bronfman Foundation as one of the Top 25 emerging entrepreneurs in Quebec and later by YES Employment + Entrepreneurship & SAP Labs as winner of its innovative female-founded tech start up competition.

Continuing her entrepreneurial journey by taking the intrapreneur approach this time, she joined in 2015 Officevibe, a product that had been launched a few months prior by GSOFT where she led the Sales & Partnership approach and contributed to the product’s success attracting hundreds of world class organizations such as Apple, Disney, CAE and Bose. In 2018, Vanessa joined the SADAX team as managing partner to lead the company in its mission to accompany SMBs in their digital transformation.

Committed to causes such as the promotion of diversity and the advancement of women in Technologies and strong believer in the “Be the Change you want to see” mantra, Vanessa has been involved with multiple organizations with this aim, starting with founding PolyCultures at École Polytechnique de Montréal to promote cultural exchanges between students, the launch of the Entrepreneurship program at the Young Board of Trade of Montreal to help young entrepreneurs kick-start their business journey, the running of Startups Weekend Women to get more women to found tech startups and the coordination of the Technovation Program encouraging girls aged 11 to 16 to pursue a career in Technologies.

She is the 2018 recipient of the Women’s Y Foundation 2018 Woman in Tech award and recognized by the Réseau des Femmes d’Affaires du Quebec finalist for its 18th annual Women in Business Awards recognizing excellence in business.