Kunal Gupta
Kunal is the Chief Executive Officer of Polar Mobile, a leading software provider for digital media distribution. Polar works with hundreds of top-tier media companies around the world.
A frequent speaker on the topics of digital media, innovation and entrepreneurship, Kunal is regarded as a rising young visionary. Kunal understands the potential of technology to transform the media industry to enable the next-generation media experience for consumers.
Kunal is the Founder and Chair of the Board for the Impact Entrepreneurship Group, a non-profit organization focused on empowering the next-generation of global entrepreneurs and leaders.
Kunal has been recognized as a Global Citizen by the United Nations, as Alumnus of the Year by Shad Valley and most recently as Ernst & Young’s Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year. Kunal holds a Software Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo.
Regan Fletcher
As Vice President for Sales and Business Development, Regan leads a fast-paced team focused on growing revenue and strategic opportunities for Polar Mobile. Over the past decade Regan has built Sales and BizDev teams at four startups, 3 of which were acquired, as well as helped Intel launch a new mobile offering.
Regan’s passion for technology developed in the mid-90’s when he learned how to use satellite imagery to find harvestable timber in British Columbia. Although various positions followed, it was this experience that led him to Silicon Valley where he resides today.
Regan has shared his experience at mobile technology events around North America, participating on panels in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Boston, Austin and Miami. Regan currently sits on the Advisory Board of AppNation and has a degree in Economics from Princeton University.
Andrew Shannon
Andrew Shannon is the Chief Financial Officer at Polar Mobile and is responsible for finance, accounting, legal, investor relations and operations. Andrew is a seasoned senior level financial executive, with more than 17 years of professional and managerial experience. Prior to joining Polar, Andrew was the CFO and COO at Dyadem International where he was instrumental in the successful sale of the business to IHS Inc. in April, 2011.
Andrew started his career at Ernst & Young as a corporate tax manager and held progressively more senior financial roles at SAS Institute Canada Inc., SOLCORP and EDS Canada. Andrew holds an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from Laurentian University and is a Chartered Accountant of Ontario.
Jason Stanley
As Vice President of Program Management at Polar Mobile, Jason Stanley leads the development and customer delivery team ensuring that customers’ mobile solutions are delivered according to the highest standards of quality.
Jason Stanley has over thirteen years experience in the development and delivery of complex IT solutions for some of Canada’s largest corporations including Bell Canada, CGI, the RCMP and Revenue Canada. For the past four years he has been the Project Leader on no less than 10 of Bell Canada’s most strategic systems initiatives including the upgrade of Bell’s mobile systems for 4th generation broadband.
Jason holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with a double major in accounting and information systems from Algonquin College.
Michael Russo
Michael Russo’s career in software development spans embedded machine-to-machine communications, security frameworks and mobile applications. As CTO of Polar Mobile, Michael is guiding the company’s platform development efforts and aligning the team’s strategic research efforts in the fast-paced mobile space. Michael leads the development of SMART, Polar Mobile’s content and advertising mobile platform which has been used to rapidly deploy mobile applications across all major smartphone operating systems.
His engineering experience from his time at Microsoft, Sun Labs and the Palo Alto Research Center lies in the areas of distributed systems, scalable architectures, computer security, wireless networks and mobile technologies, all of which were garnered through his diverse industry experience building software in both research and production capacities.
Michael holds Computer Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo, and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Gary Schwartz
Over the past ten years, Gary has played a leadership role in the mobile industry. Gary is the CEO of Impact Mobile, Inc., Chair of MEF North America and is the author of “THE IMPULSE ECONOMY” published by Published by Simon & Schuster, Aria Imprint.
In 2010, Gary was elected as the Chair of MEF North America (www.m-e-f.org) with a remit to develop a mobile commerce practice to service brands, retailers and content owners (for which he received a MEF award for industry excellence). In 2012, in partnership with MEF and a number of industry groups including the X9 security standards body, Gary is working to develop m-commerce security and privacy guidelines.
Justin LaFayette
Justin LaFayette is a Managing Director of Georgian Partners Inc., a growth equity investment firm which he co-founded in 2008.
Prior to Georgian Partners, Mr. LaFayette was co-founder of DWL Inc., an enterprise software company that was acquired by IBM in 2005. At IBM, Mr. LaFayette became the Vice President of Strategy for Information Platform and Solutions within the IBM Software Group.
DWL developed Customer Data Integration (CDI) software, now called IBM Infosphere MDM Server, and pioneered the Master Data Management (MDM) space. DWL was named one of the fastest growing technology companies three consecutive years by Deloitte and Touche. Mr. LaFayette was the recipient of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award for Technology in 2001.
Charlotte Burke
Charlotte Burke is the former Senior Vice President and head of Bell’s Consumer Internet Business Unit where she was responsible for Canada’s largest ISP and most popular consumer portal, Sympatico.MSN.ca. She also held the position of VP Marketing and Product Development for Bell Mobility and launched Digital PCS, IX Data and over 150 new services with small and larger partners including all major device manufacturers, infrastructure providers and content developers.
Charlotte is an active member of the leadership team of Polar Mobile providing strategic direction, business development and executive experience in scaling the business to meet the growing demands of its customers.
Jordan Banks
Jordan Banks is the managing director of Facebook Canada, responsible for leading and managing all commercial operations at the Facebook Canada office based in Toronto, Ontario. Previously, Jordan was the managing partner at Thunder Road Capital, which he founded in 2008 to provide investment and advisory services to early stage technology companies. Jordan was also the chief executive officer of JumpTV (TSX: NLN), a leading broadcaster of sports and international television over the Internet.
Greg Wolfond
Greg Wolfond is the President and CEO of SecureKey Technologies Inc. Greg’s expertise and entrepreneurial skills are deeply rooted as the founder of Footprint Software Inc., a financial software company which he started in 1983 and later sold to IBM in 1995. Greg was also the founder and CEO of 724 Solutions Inc. from 1997 to 2001, a wireless software infrastructure provider which he took public in 2000. Greg sits on the board of the Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network (OCBN), NoNo Inc. specializing in post stroke neuroprotection and YYZ Pharmatech which develops tools, targets and biomarkers for pharma.