For entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs
The Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario is staffed by a hands-on group of former CEOs, investors and professional analysts devoted to helping your company grow and build wealth. We’re for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. Meet the team!
Scott Runté, Business Manager, Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
Scott brings more than 18 years of entrepreneurial and economic development agency experience to his role with the Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. In his economic development career in Ottawa, Scott has helped manage international innovation and trade development programs in regions such as India, Chile, Germany and Finland. Scott also spent 10 years with an export-driven flexible packaging company where he executed various management roles, including General Manager and Chief Financial Officer. During that time, Scott was heavily involved in the development of biodegradable packaging solutions for organic food waste. He also managed a North American expansion effort that saw him work closely with economic development agencies in Canada and the United States.
In 1995, Scott founded Warren Capital Corp., a management consulting firm that has focused on providing strategic management support to clients in both the not-for-profit and private sectors. Scott has also been an active member of his community as a volunteer with the United Way in Kingston, Ontario. After serving on the United Way Board from 2001 – 2007, including holding the position of Board Chair in 2006 and 2007, Scott has remained active on several United Way committees and community leadership initiatives. Scott earned a Master of Business Administration degree from McMaster University in 1991 and an Honours Bachelor of Science degree from Queen’s University in 1988.
Bob Huggins, CMO in Residence, Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
Bob is a world recognized web pioneer in the transformation of printed images to Web-based, searchable files. His creation, PaperofRecord.com, is a comprehensive database of newspapers published in their original page images and was sold to Google of Mountain View, California in September of 2006.
He brings to this position more than 25 years experience as a professional in the newspaper publishing, web/content publishing and high technology sectors.
In 2002, Ernst & Young nominated Bob as “Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year”. Bob was also a member of the founding team of the electronic information service Info Globe, of The Globe and Mail, Toronto Canada. There he helped implement electronic “as of release” documents for Finance Canada and negotiated Soviet commercial electronic rights from Nostovi Press of the first commercial statistical trade information to the West for the New York Times Information Services.
Marco Fiori, Portfolio Manager, Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
As Portfolio Manager, Marco handles the intake of all the companies coming in the Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario and assists in all matters with the portfolio. Marco has a multi-disciplinary background having worked in various fields over the past ten years.
Highlights include concept to full execution of two start up private companies that were listed on the TSX Venture Exchange in 2006. As an active investor in private and public companies, Marco has assisted in investor relations, private placements and corporate branding. Previous experience includes database and CRM integration, design work and corporate creation for the development of young start ups as well as project management, marketing and communications.
Cecilia Chen, Manager of Business Analysis, Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
Cecilia manages the Business Analysis Program that helps knowledge-based start-ups, SMEs, and investors with market research and assessment. Since joining OCRI in 2008, Cecilia has helped more than 150 companies and investors in technology validation, intellectual property analysis, competition mapping, market opportunity assessment, trend analysis and other market related research. Cecilia has rich experience in finding relevant market data and analyzing the information tailored to the specific needs of each client.
Before joining the Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario, Cecilia was the Market Research Manager at Beijing SROF CompuTech, a provider of innovative technology solutions in China. Prior to SROF, Cecilia was the Executive Assistant of the Chief China Representative of the Asian Development Assistance Board, an international non-for-profit organization helping overseas investors do business in China.
Cecilia holds a Masters of Business Administration Degree from Carleton University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Liaoning University in China.
Vahid Sadr, Market Analyst, Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
Vahid is a Market Analyst for the Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. In his role on the Business Analysis team, he is responsible for and assists portfolio clients in their commercialization effort through technology validation, opportunity analysis, market analysis, and competitor analysis and business intelligence support.
Prior to joining the RIC team at the Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario, Vahid assumed a student consultant role at Carleton Foundry program-Canada’s first crowd source based technology transfer office- and participated in the Talent Bridge program. In both Foundry and Talent Bridge programs, Vahid regularly conducted research and analysis to identify and engage resources that could provide support for Ottawa’s SMEs in areas of business strategy, marketing and business communication.
Vahid is a proud graduate of the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree with dual concentrations in International Business and Managing People and Organization.
Barbara Darlow, CFO in Residence, Regional Innovation Centre for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
Barb joined the Regional Innovation Centre in July of 2011 after having spent over 25 years in senior financial management roles in the Information and Communications Technology sector in Ottawa. Her expertise centres around raising capital from venture investment, public capital markets, financial institutions and other sources. Her industry experience includes telecommunications, semiconductors, optical systems and network components, having been CFO at such organizations as West End Systems, Sedona Networks, SiberCore Technologies and Metconnex Inc.
As CFO Barb was also involved in the management of all Finance and Administration functions, including Human Resources, IT, Legal and Shareholder Relations. She’s driven many different transactions in her career, from information systems implementations to an IPO on the TSX in 1994. Barb graduated in 1982 from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), and became a CMA in 1987. For the past five years she has also been the proprietor of a growing retail business in Arnprior, Ont.
Anil Dilawri, Specialist in Residence – Regional Innovation Centre of Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
Anil is the Managing Director of Save it like Sully – a professional presentation training and coaching company. Anil has worked with many leaders from various industries including technology, government, non-profit, oil & gas, financial services, healthcare, and mining.
Anil provides strategic communications coaching to Regional Innovation Centre clients looking to deliver important investor, customer, or partner presentations.
Prior to Save it like Sully Anil held senior positions in investor relations, research & development, product marketing, communications, and consulting with Hill & Knowlton Canada, March Networks, and Cognos Inc. (now IBM).
Our Partners
John Fielding, Director, Business Development, OCE Centre of Excellence for Photonics
John Fielding joined Ontario Centres of Excellence in September of 2006 as a Business Development Manager. Today, John is the Director of Business Development for the Centre of Excellence for Photonics heading up a team responsible for industry and academic engagement and business development. John has over 24 years experience in the high technology industry with Bookham Technology, Nortel and Mitel dealing with many aspects of semiconductor and optical components fabrication including Life Cycle Management, cost analysis, new product / technology introduction and process engineering. Most recently John held senior management positions dealing with mergers and acquisitions ranging from small, less than 100 persons to large several billion dollar investments.
Kevin J Carroll BA, MBA, Director, Commercialization, OCE Centre for Commercialization of Research
As Director of Commercialization for OCE’s Centre of Commercialization of Research, Kevin helps high-potential early stage companies build the capacity to become sustainable global competitors by providing management expertise, advice and investment.
Kevin joined the Centre for Commercialization of Research in July 2008. Kevin has over 17 years of experience in the Telecom Industry with extensive knowledge of Information Systems and a proven track record directing and managing multi-million dollar operations. Kevin is the former Leader for IT Procurement at Nortel, in this capacity, he managed cost saving programs in resource management and led the global outsourcing of Information Technology for Nortel which resulted in large corporate cost savings. Kevin has held several senior positions at Nortel including key roles in IT Business Operation and Portfolio Management for strategic partners such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. Additionally he serves on the Board of numerous private, not for profit and charitable organisations. For the last 9 years Kevin has held the position of President for Kevin James Consulting Ltd a small consulting firm based in Ottawa. Kevin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, a Master of Business Administration and is ITIL certified. Kevin and his wife Sue have four wonderful children and reside in Ottawa, Ontario.
David Lisk, Business Advisor, NRC – IRAP
Joining IRAP in January 2009, David is a seasoned industry veteran with 27 years experience in the Information and Communications Technology industry with emphasis on semiconductor manufacturing, hardware system development, operations and business. Prior to IRAP, David spent four years as CEO of DFT Microsystems, a venture backed semiconductor test company in Montreal. While at DFT, David completely re-started the company, set the new product direction and raised over $10M in venture equity and debt.
Previous to DFT, David spent 12 years at Tundra Semiconductor, where he was VP of Operations with responsibility for manufacturing, QA, systems, product engineering, production test, customer service and IT. David joined Newbridge Microsystems in 1993, and played a key role as the company spun-out from parent Newbridge Networks (now Alcatel Canada) to become Tundra Semiconductor in 1995 and subsequent successful IPO in 1998.
In addition, David worked at Canadian Marconi Company for five years in the cockpit display group and at General Dynamics (formerly Computing Devices) for five years in the ported coax intrusion detection system group.
David received his MBA from the University of Ottawa in 1989. He also holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1982.
Laurie Davis, Managing Angel, Capital Angel Network
Laurie graduated from the University of Alberta with a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering. Upon graduation, he joined Bell-Northern Research (BNR), where he specialized in the development and introduction of new products. He held increasingly more senior positions within BNR, and later Nortel Networks, ultimately becoming Vice-President responsible for a number of new products.
Laurie was initially involved in the development of voice switching products. In the early 90′s he took a leadership role in Nortel’s entry into the optical networking business, holding positions in both Canada and the United Kingdom. Since the mid 90′s he was been involved in data communications, initially with frame relay and ATM networks, and later with IP networking.
For the past several years, as a member of Purple Angel and as a founder of the Ottawa Angel Alliance, Laurie has been an active angel investor.
