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 British Columbia based CEO’ operating in the Education 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.
Lane Merrifield
CEO & Co-Founder of FreshGrade
Lane is a passionate advocate of the convergence of creativity and technology, which has fueled his life long journey of entrepreneurship. Regarded as a pioneer of virtual worlds for children as co-founder of Club Penguin and former executive vice president at the Walt Disney Company, he was inspired to shift his focus to the challenges of today’s education system and co-founded FreshGrade, a learning collaboration tool focused on the challenges facing teachers, parents, and students in the 21st century classroom. The recipient of several leadership awards, Lane continues to give back to the community through his many philanthropic endeavors, mentoring and investing in early stage technology companies, and volunteering on several boards including his recent appointment to the Premiers Technology Council.
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About FreshGrade: FreshGrade is a better way to document and communicate learning while engaging educators, students, parents and leaders.
Dave Frey
CEO/Co-Founder of Skooli Online Tutoring
Dave Frey started at Teach Away in 2004. His brother Rene and he traveled the globe forging new relationships with education ministries, schools and institutions to learn how we could help them hire better teachers. Now, 13 years later, He’ve been involved in large-scale education reform, helped thousands of teachers find new opportunities overseas – and even dodged tsunami waves in Sri Lanka. If you’re an educator who’s hungry for an international teaching adventure, you’re in the right place. Their recruitment team is so supportive and helpful because of their own experiences with education overseas. They aim to use their knowledge gained through years in the industry to help you make the most of your teaching career today.
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About Skooli Online Tutoring, Teachaway: Skooli connects K-12 and college students with professional tutors in a digital classroom.
Greg Smith
Co-founder, CEO & Instructor of Thinkific
Greg is passionate about education. His past experiences as a securities lawyer and teacher fuelled his desire to use technology to improve the learning and teaching experience. Greg has taught thousands of students online and in person. His latest addictions are learning new kiteboarding tricks and playing euro boardgames.
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About Thinkific: Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses.
Steve Kaufmann
Founder and CEO of LingQ
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About LingQ: LingQ is an online community offering learning systems and tools to language learners with membership.
Dana Stephenson
Co-Founder & CEO of Riipen
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About Riipen: Riipen is an experiential learning platform that helps schools connect their students to industry & enables companies to pick top talent.
Lee Taal
Founder and CEO of ChatterHigh
Lee Taal is a visionary CEO with 30+ years experience in business and leadership positions. He is a TEDx and keynote speaker, and has grown 2017 Canadian EdTech of the Year, ChatterHigh across Canada and the U.S., used in K-12 schools. Lee’s prior experience was as Director of Operations for Immediate Images – a Digitat-Out-of-Home company, Technical Director (6-Sigma Green Belt) for GE Transportation, and Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy.
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About ChatterHigh: ChatterHigh is a free, privacy-compliant, curriculum based online edu-game that gamifies college and career preparation, and provides unique learning modules for financial literacy, mental health and wellness, soft skills, Indigenous History and Culture and more.
Courtney Rye
Founder and CEO of ElectricBikeReview.com
Born in Colorado, attended school at CU Boulder, Cleantech Institute in San Jose, and continuing studies at Stanford University. Worked at Hewlett Packard, Accenture, Google, RetailMeNot, eHealthInsurance.com. Sold CarStations.com and Cleantech Authority.com Currently resides in Vancouver, Canada.
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About ElectricBikeReview.com: Exploring the world of ebikes. We create videos, pictures, and run a forum that educates, connects, and inspires!
Murray Goldberg
Founder and CEO of Marine Learning Systems
Murray Goldberg began his eLearning career as a tenured faculty member conducting research on the effectiveness of web-based learning in the department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. In 1997, Murray took a leave from UBC to become the president and founder of WebCT, a company that grew to 350 employees providing the world’s leading learning management system (LMS) serving 14 million students in 80 countries at 4,000 universities and colleges. WebCT sold to rival company Blackboard in 2006 for $200M US. Since that time, Murray has remained involved in eLearning and social-academic initiatives as company founder, consultant, advisor and board member. Most recently, while acting as an eLearning consultant with British Columbia Ferry Services Inc, Murray developed a learning management system specifically suited to maritime and other industrial training contexts. As a result of the success of this new LMS, Murray has created a new company, Marine Learning Systems, to make this LMS available to the maritime industry and other industrial training contexts. Although the company is still early in its development, it counts among its customers some of the largest and best known names in the maritime industry. Murray has served as a consultant, advisor, board member and board chairman for numerous technology and education companies. In addition to other board memberships, Murray currently serves on the board of trustees of Harvey Mud College – ranked No. 2 among US undergraduate engineering programs by U.S. News & World Report. Murray also recently served on the “Sunnylands Math Strategy Group” – a Gates, Hewlett, Hemsley and Annenberg-funded think-tank to improve US K-12 mathematics performance. A widely recognized thought leader in the field of online teaching and learning, Goldberg has given over 250 keynote and invited lectures, and is an expert resource for business, education and technology organizations and education media. Goldberg has won numerous prizes including the prestigious UBC Killam University Teaching Prize during his first year as a UBC faculty member. Goldberg was honored at the 2000 National IWAY Awards in Canada as one of five extraordinary Canadians for his outstanding contributions to information technology and was also named as he recipient of the New Media Hyperion award for the application of new media in the field of information technology. In 2004, Goldberg was granted an Honorary Doctorate of Technology from the Southern Cross University in Australia for his pioneering work in advancing educational technologies globally. Also in 2004, Goldberg was the winner of the national Manning Awards foundation EnCana Principal Award, $100,000 prize honoring the country’s most outstanding innovator. Most recently, Goldberg was named as one of the top 15 Canadians in digital media by Backbone Magazine.
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About Marine Learning Systems: Marine Learning is a rapidly growing eLearning software & services provider that caters to the unique needs of the maritime industry.
Bev Hudson
President and CEO of University Partnerships, North America of Navitas
Bev has been working in international education for thirty years in four countries. The last ten years have been working for Navitas in North America across a number of roles including: College Director and Principal at Navitas’ first pathway program in North America; Fraser International College; General Manager for Navitas Canada and now as President and Head of University Programs, North America. Her current responsibilities are to establish new partnerships and oversee the operations of the Navitas pathway programs in North America. Bev has been involved in all aspects of international education including curriculum design, student services, faculty and in administration of the International Division at several universities where she developed and implemented the strategic vision for internationalization at several universities including internationalizing the curriculum, international recruitment and marketing, student support, and international partnership development. Bev received her Master of Education from Edith Cowan University. In 2014 she was awarded the International Education Distinguished Leadership Award from the British Columbia Council for International Education
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About Navitas: Navitas is a leading global education provider that delivers an extensive range of educational services to over 80,000 students.
Annee Ngo
Co-Founder, CEO of SoftServe
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About LETT, ProtoHack, SoftServe: SoftServe is a game-based learning and assessment platform for soft skills.
Timothy Vipond
Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Finance Institute
Tim is an internet entrepreneur, financial analyst, and ex-investment banker. He is currently CEO of the Corporate Finance Institute®. Since 2005, Tim has been an active participant in capital markets across a wide range of industries and transactions including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and capital raising totaling more than $3 billion in value.
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About Corporate Finance Institute: Corporate Finance Institute provides online training and education for finance and investment professionals.
Mary Clark
Chief Executive Officer of Agents Of Discovery
Mary Clark is the visionary Founder of Agents of Discovery, a gamified way of encouraging kids to be active, engaged, and to learn. With over 25 years of experience in education and technology, Clark serves as Agents of Discovery’s Chief Executive Officer. A dynamic leader, she has spearheaded a wide range of national initiatives in the public and private sectors, including the Canadian Centennial of Flight and the Trudeau Family Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign. In BC, she organized a huge linear park initiative- the Mission Creek Greenway- and catalyzed the reintroduction of the anatum Peregrine Falcon. Clark is a contributing author of two international science textbooks and a gifted public speaker who brings a fiery passion to her role at the helm of the Agents of Discovery team. Clark’s professional career began in the Edmonton Public School system, where, after winning the Louise Mckinney Scholarship at the University of Alberta, she was nominated for the Edwin Parr Teacher Award for best first-year teacher. In her 10 years with the Edmonton Public School system and subsequent career, Clark has continuously responded to gaps in complex systems with innovative solutions. In 1994, she led a city-wide campaign with Premier Ralph Klein to launch Kids Kottage in Edmonton, a respite care service to prevent child abuse and neglect. Clark has also worked alongside internationally renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman for over a decade as the Director of the Get to Know Program, an initiative aimed at meaningfully engaging youth with the natural world through the creative arts. In addition, Clark has served for 20 years as the President of Morningstar Interactive, a company that develops educational digital media products. In 2015, Clark returned to school to earn her Master’s degree in Education, where her research explored the capacity of mobile educational gaming to improve the way students learn. Her findings underlie many of the strategies behind Agents of Discovery. Clark holds a B.Sc. (Honours) and B.Ed. from the University of Alberta, as well as a Master’s degree with a focus on Education Technology from the University of British Columbia.
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About Agents Of Discovery: An educational tech platform & app that gets kids active, engaged and learning about the world around them
Alex Novikov
Founder and CEO @ lernitt of Lernitt
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About Lernitt: Livestreaming platform for learners and teachers of many topics and levels
Rod Cummings
Founder & CEO of LinkedUp Learning
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About LinkedUp Learning: LinkedUpLearning provides diverse tools and applications for EdTech to help students build strong understanding of academic concepts & skill
Rod Cummings
Founder & CEO of LinkedUp Learning
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About LinkedUp Learning: LinkedUpLearning provides diverse tools and applications for EdTech to help students build strong understanding of academic concepts & skill