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 Service Industry 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.
R.Michael Jones
President and CEO, Director of Platinum Group Metals
R. Michael Jones brings over 25 years of experience as a professional geological engineer and has been involved with the raising of over $1 billion for exploration, mining development and production. In addition to co-founding Platinum Group Metals Ltd., Mr. Jones was a founder of Glimmer Resources Inc. and was responsible for the discovery of the Glimmer Gold mine, now Blackfox, in Ontario. During a six-year tenure as President of Cathedral Gold Corp., Mr. Jones ran a producing gold mining company and was involved in the review of a feasibility study and financing for the $1 billion Diavik Mine project during two years as Vice President with Aber Resources. Mr. Jones was a co-founder and director of West Timmins Mining that was purchased by producing company Lake Shore Gold Corp. in 2009 and was a co-founder and former director until 2012 of MAG Silver Corp. Mr. Jones is a Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of West Kirkland Mining Inc. and a director of Nextraction Energy Corp. Mr. Jones served on the Securities Policy Advisory Committee of the British Columbia Securities Commission for six years and holds a B.A.Sc. in geological engineering from the University of Toronto.
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About Nextraction, Platinum Group Metals: Platinum Group Metals is focused on the development of platinum mining operations with targeted production in the near term.
Terry McBride
CEO of Nettwerk Music Group
Terry McBride is the current CEO and one of three founders of the Nettwerk Music Group, which includes Nettwerk Productions (Canada’s largest independent record label), Nettwerk Management (artist and producer management), Nettwerk One (publishing), and Artwerks (graphic and fashion design). Founded in McBride’s apartment in 1984, Nettwerk has corporate offices in Vancouver, Boston, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Hamburg and London. Since its inception, Nettwerk has released over 500 different albums and sold over 150 million albums worldwide. In the past few years McBride has spoke at dozens of international conferences about advances in digital technology, intellectual property rights and the future of music distribution. In 2008, McBride co-authored a paper for the British University of Westminster’s “Musictank” entitled Meet the Millennials. In 2004, McBride stepped onto a yoga mat for the first time by way of recommendation from a friend, and it wasn’t long before he realized that yoga offered him more than just a flexible body and mind. Acting on this realization, McBride along with his friend and yoga instructor, Lara Kozan, launched a chain of wellness centers called YYoga. It’s McBride’s vision for YYoga Studios to evolve into social third spaces, focusing on health and wellness for the body, mind, spirit and the community. McBride’s latest endeavor combines his two principle passions in the re-launch of Nutone Music. Encompassing music from the realm of devotional chant, world beat and beyond, Nutone is dedicated to the development of a new genre within today’s musical landscape. McBride explains, “Nutone’s mission is to seek out what we feel is the best music that fits into the modern day Yoga studio, various wellness practices and everyday enjoyment of music. With many descriptions from World music to Chant to New Age to Mantra music, Nutone will demystify and clarify for listeners a brand that will be consistent in delivering quality albums.” At the 2003 Juno Awards Terry received the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing an outstanding individual who has contributed to the growth and advancement of the Canadian music industry. Terry has also twice been awarded the Pollstar Industry Award for Personal Manager of the year for his work with Sarah McLachlan (1997) and Avril Lavigne / Coldplay (2002).
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About Nettwerk Music Group: Nettwerk Music Group provides synchronization, co-writer, and other publishing activities for North American artists and writers.
David Tafel
President, CEO & Director of Centurion Minerals
Mr. Tafel contributes over 20 years of corporate structuring, strategic planning, financing and management experience to the Centurion Minerals team. He is the former CEO of Garson Gold Corp. and has been an officer and director of several TSX Venture Exchange listed companies. Prior to his public company experience, Mr. Tafel managed private investment funds at a major Canadian investment firm.
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About Centurion Minerals, Portofino Resources: Centurion Minerals is focused on the exploration and development of gold and other precious metal projects in Southeast Asia
Michael Pangia
President & CEO of Aviat Networks
Michael Pangia is the President and Chief Operating Officer at Westmount Park Investments and an Associate of Creative Destruction Lab.
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About Aviat Networks, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL): Aviat Networks formerly Harris Stratex Networks, Inc., incorporated in 2006, is a supplier of wireless transmission
Travis Kirton
Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Director of Flow
Travis currently serves as the Founder and Director of Flow. Having worked at pioneering institutions such as the Ars Electronica Futurelab and the Banff Centre for the Arts, Flow is the culmination of a career spent at the cutting-edge of interaction, design and culture.
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About Flow, Slant Design + Marketing Inc.: Flow provides an animation tool that allows designs to be instantly animated and translated into ready-to-use code.
Ian Robertson
President, Chief Executive Officer & Director of A2Bfiber
Mr. Robertson brings over 40 years of industry and legal experience to the company, 25 years of which are in the communications industry specializing in cable television, telephone, Internet, VoIP and VOD. Mr. Robertson has been a director and officer of DLR Capital Corporation, an investment company, since 1986 and since 2003 he has been managing partner of Robertson Neil LLP, a Vancouver law firm. Mr. Robertson began his legal career in 1971 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was the founding partner of the law firm of Robertson Ward Suderman (1984 to 1990). In 1990 Robertson Ward Suderman merged with Lang Michener LLP (now McMillan LLP) and from 1990 to 1992 he served on the national executive of the firm. From 1991 to 1993 he was the President and CEO of Calgary based Canadian Turbo/Payless Gas/Columbia Fuels. From 1993 to 1995 he was President and CEO of Diva Systems Canada Inc., a VOD service provider based in Menlo Park, California and from 1995 to 1997. Mr. Robertson was Chairman of NST Network Services Ltd. of Chicago, Illinois, a fibre network construction company. From 1997 to 2003, he was the Founder, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Novus Communications Inc. (now Novus Entertainment Inc.), a communications company that provides voice, video and data services in Metro Vancouver. During his tenure at Novus Communications Inc., the company built an extensive high count fibre optic network throughout Vancouver. Over the past 30 years, Mr. Robertson has served as a director and officer to numerous public and private companies in Canada. Mr. Robertson has also been a director of the Royal British Columbia Museum, the Safer Home Standards Society, and the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute.
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About A2Bfiber: A2B Fiber develops next-generation, open-access fiber optic networks that offers dark fiber to communication service providers.
Michael Brown
CEO, President & Director of Adacado
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About Adacado: Adacado is the leading cloud based, data-driven platform for delivering personalized digital advertising and marketing solutions at scale.
Brad Kynoch
Founder & CEO of Always WORTHEE
Entrepreneur, mindful productivity coach, business automation consultant, software broker, system & product architect, unconventional thinker
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About Always WORTHEE, Beautifuller: Mindful productivity for changemakers
Michael Tran
CEO & Founder of AppAddictive
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About AppAddictive: Addictive Ads is a full service mobile ad network with direct SDK traffic, high-paying campaigns and proprietary ad serving technology.
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