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At Best Startup Canada we track over 100,000 Canadian startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top Alberta based CEO’ operating in the Financial Services space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.ca.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Hanif Joshaghani
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Symend
Hanif is a serial entrepreneur who has raised $150M USD across the 4 companies he has founded and invested in over a dozen startups.
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About Aimsio, Symend: Symend’s digital engagement platform uses behavioral science and data-driven insights to empower customers to resolve past due bills.
Stephen King
Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Alaris Equity Partners
Prior to joining the Alaris Royalty Corp. in July 2008, Mr. King was and continues to be the President and Chief Executive Officer of Alaris IGF Corp. and its predecessor since April 2004 when he co-founded Alaris. Steve spent 12 years in the investment banking industry, most recently as director of investment banking for First Associates Investments Inc., a predecessor of Blackmont Capital Inc. He has also held similar positions with Research Capital Corporation and Sprott Securities Inc. Mr. King is a director of Metropolitan Investment Corporation, a private investment company and a director of the general partner of LifeMark Health. Steve manages the investment process every step of the way and uses his creative financial mind to structure deals that benefit all parties involved. Steve is a married father of three children and an avid sports fan, player and coach.
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About Alaris Equity Partners: Alaris Royalty provides alternative financial services, such as long-term equity capital, for private businesses in North America.
Lisa Shields
Founder and CEO of FISPAN
Lisa Shields is FI.SPAN’s founder and CEO. FI.SPAN is Lisa’s second financial technology startup – she also founded and led Hyperwallet Systems Inc for 15 years; today it is recognized as a leading global payments processor for business to consumer mass payouts. She is a member of the Canadian FinPay Committee, was named the EY Regional Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2015 and received a Women in Payments Innovation Award in 2016. A firm believer in inclusive commerce, Lisa is always looking for new ways to unite ecosystem participants for the benefit of end users. She also has a personal interest in the underbanked and speaks frequently and passionately on the importance of low-cost, compliant payments.
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About FISPAN: Fintech Service Management for Financial Institutions
Jeffrey J. Smith
President and CEO of DCBank
Jeffrey J. Smith is a co-founder of DCBank and is the President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Smith is an entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience in operating, financing, growing and managing large scale international financial services businesses.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), DCBank: DCBank operates as a chartered bank.
Marc Staniloff
President, CEO & Founding Partner of Superior Lodging Corp
Marc Staniloff is President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as the founding Partner, of Superior Lodging Corp., a privately owned, vertically integrated hotel company, focused on the development, investment, and management of nationally franchised, limited service hotels in Canada. Staniloff is a director of Superior Lodging Development TL Corporation, the entity that owns the development rights for Travelodge® and Thriftlodge® for Canada. As well, he is a director of Superior Development S8 Corporation, the entity that owns the development rights for Super 8® in Canada. He is also a director of a corporation that owns the development rights for Microtel® Inn and Suites for Canada. Mr. Staniloff received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary.
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About Superior Lodging Corp: Superior Lodging Corp. is a privately owned, Calgary-based hotel development and investment company.
Stephen Reid
President & Chief Executive Officer of FCF Capital
Stephen has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of Group West Corporation, an investment company founded by Stephen since January 1996. Stephen served as Senior Vice President of Business Development of Alaris Royalty Corp. from July 2008 until March 2015. His role with Alaris was to create and build relationships with all sources of investment leads. In 2004, Stephen co-founded Alaris IGF Corp., the general partner of Alaris Income Growth Fund L.P., which invested in a diversified portfolio of private businesses in exchange for royalties or distributions from the portfolio companies, with the principal objective of generating stable and predictable cash flows for dividend payments to its securityholders. From 2004 to 2008, Stephen oversaw the business development efforts of Alaris IGF Corp. and increased the company’s presence among the advisory referral networks across North America. In July 2008, Alaris Royalty Corp. acquired 100% of the issued and outstanding units of Alaris Income Growth Fund L.P. and all of the outstanding shares of Alaris IGF Corp. Stephen holds an Honours in Business Administration.
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About FCF Capital: FCF Capital is an investment issuer.
Shone Anstey
CEO of LQwD FinTech
Shone brings over 20 years of experience building complex technologies and software within the I.T industry. This includes data center deployments, large scale web-ops development, and industrial Bitcoin mines. Shone was a co-founder of a scalable web crawler and search engine and is a Certified Bitcoin Professional. Formerly, Shone acted as Director of Technology for a distributed Bitcoin mining pool.
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About Blockchain Intelligence Group, LQwD FinTech: LQwD FinTech is a decentralized finance and fintech company.
Sandi Gilbert
Founder & CEO of DealPoint Capital
Sandi is a strategic, visionary entrepreneur focused on developing and deploying technology solutions for the private capital markets. She is the Founder & CEO of SeedUps Canada, a FinTech company that enables collaboration between innovative companies and the private investing community of angels, early stage venture funds and engaged investors. SeedUps technologies provide virtual environments where companies and their agents can prepare, present and execute a capital raise and the resources to manage the investors through to exit.
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About DealPoint Capital, InterGen Capital: DealPoint Capital is a private capital markets platform to digitize and automate investor on-boarding and investment execution.
Kenny Nicholls
President & Chief Executive Officer of Western Financial Group
As the Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, Kenny Nicholls oversees all of Western Financial Group’s affiliates and business units providing the overarching strategic management for the entire company. With over 25 years of experience in the financial institutions sector, Kenny spent 17 years with Desjardins prior to joining Western Financial Group in 2011. He has a wealth of experience having occupied several finance, compliance, and risk management positions, as well as executive positions in asset management, pooled and mutual funds, real estate management, securities brokerage, back office and wealth management companies. Prior to being named to the CEO position, Kenny acted as the Chief Financial and Risk Officer at Western Financial Group from 2011-2016. Throughout these 25 years, Kenny has had the opportunity to build high performing teams and to work with a wide spectrum of professionals. From this experience, he was able to develop extensive knowledge around operational processes and financial performance. Prior to joining Desjardins, Kenny spent five years as an auditor with Deloitte & Touche in Montreal specializing in financial institutions. Kenny holds a graduate diploma in public accountancy from McGill University and a bachelor of commerce degree in accountancy from Concordia University. Along with being a CPA-CGA, Kenny is also an associate CFA member.
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About Western Financial Group: Western Financial Group (Western) is a diversified insurance company serving more than 800,000 customers across Western Canada.
Dave Dominy
CEO of FIRMA Foreign Exchange
Dave Dominy joined Firma in June 2014 as CEO, bringing significant financial industry expertise and experience to the company. He spent 15 years in a variety of senior banking and investment banking roles with a Canadian chartered bank, as well as 8 years as CEO of a private equity group in Western Canada. As CEO of a provincial regulatory body, he was directly involved in the implementation of new liquidity and capital standards for credit unions. From 1999 through 2003 he was CEO of a mid-sized public company active in the oilfield services sector and, prior to that, was CFO of a large-cap public company active in gas processing and transportation. His extensive board career includes leadership roles on a variety of not-for-profit, private, public and crown corporation boards. He is currently Chair of the Board and Chair Audit of Chandos Construction LP; Vice Chair, Chair Governance, Chair HR of Norquest College; Chair 3D Capital Inc., Director University of Winnipeg Foundation & an instructor in the Alberta School of Business’ governance program for small and medium-sized enterprises. He is an active contributor to a number of local charities, most recently as Chair of the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation in Edmonton. Dave holds a Masters of Management from the J.L.Kellogg School of Business in Chicago, a BA in mathematics from the University of Winnipeg, the Canadian Securities Course and the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors of Canada.
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About FIRMA Foreign Exchange: FIRMA helps businesses grow globally by managing the movement of your company’s money across borders.
Debra Ross-Chmelyk
President and CEO of Oro Services
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About Oro Services: Oro Services improves the way people use remittance to support families while working abroad.
Felix Berube
President and CEO of ActionTax.ca
Mr. Berube has developed the specialty services model over the past three years. His experience with service large customer bases has been instrumental in moving ActionTax.ca towards a national launch.
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About ActionTax.ca: Taking Action for You! ActionTax is a leading Canadian tax preparation, accounting and tax law specialist.
Tracy A. Graf
President & CEO of Carfinco Financial Group
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About Carfinco Financial Group: Carfinco Financial Group Inc. provides vehicle financing to consumers who are not able to obtain it from more traditional lending sources.
Andrew McGuire
Co-Founder & CEO of Agility Forex
Andrew has over 25 years experience in the financial markets and held senior management positions at UBS, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch. At RBS he was Co-Head of Credit Trading with Iain and responsible for a team of 11 traders. As a Portfolio Manager at UBS Andrew ran a multi-billion Euro bond fund utilizing futures, interest rate swaps, fx and default swaps.
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About Agility Forex: Agility Forex is a Vancouver-based fintech company.
Jesse White
Co-Founder & CEO of Frame Financial
Jesse White is the CEO and co-founder of Frame.
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About Frame Financial: Frame Financial offers free automated online financial planning service that empowers Canadians to make better decisions with their money.
Blaine Bertsch
Co-Founder and CEO of Dryrun
Blaine Bertsch is the co-founder and CEO of Dryrun.
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About Dryrun: Dryrun is a cash flow management tool that pairs automation of intelligent financial forecasts with scenario planning and modelling.
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