Finance

A 3-person small-group podcast on the future of financing for businesses focusing on ‘partnerships’ and ‘collaborations’ vs traditional ‘loan’ lending. With special guests:

Jill Earthy, CEO Women’s Enterprise Centre

Jill is entrepreneurially minded leader with an MBA, who believes diversity drives innovation. As an entrepreneur, she started, grew and sold two businesses. In senior leadership roles, she developed teams, programs and partnerships to increase access to capital, networks and resources for entrepreneurs. She is now focused on empowering female leaders to invest in early-stage companies. By unlocking the experience, expertise and capital of more female leaders, she will start to see a shift in how companies access funding, and in who receives the funding. My strengths include finance, strategic planning, business development, community engagement, team building, marketing as well as development of strategic partnerships and programs. She is an active mentor and community member, serving on several Boards and as Co-Chair of We for She. She’s honoured to have been recognized in 2018/2019 by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion as a Community Champion, by Business in Vancouver as an Influential Woman in Business and by WXN as a Top 100 most powerful women in Canada.

Grant Lawrence, Co-Founder Valhalla Private Capital, President Valhalla Angels Kelowna, Co-President Valhalla Angels Vancouver

Grant has participated in an IPO, experienced a buyout and the integration challenges that go with this; he is an active Angel investor is a Founder of Valhalla Private Capital and as President of Valhalla Angels Kelowna and Co-President of Valhalla Angels Vancouver Grant contributes to building the tech community. He also mentors and guides startups through business operations and sales.

Grant has over 22+ successful years in the software industry both in startups and establish companies; holding a number of different senior positions in sales and marketing and proven track record in building and managing teams in the areas of strategic alliances, indirect and direct sales channels in complex B2B environments domestically and internationally throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

Mike Winterfield, Founder & Managing Partner Active Impact Investments

Mike is the founder and Managing Partner of Active Impact Investments where he exclusively supports small to medium sized social ventures scale their impact and profit by providing funding and extensive capacity building services to the portfolio companies. Prior to this, Mike was a Top 40 under 40 with 20 years in the tech industry specializing in services companies and SaaS products. He worked for 14 years in various executive roles for award winning companies, most recently President of Traction Rec and COO at Traction on Demand. Prior to that President of Randstad Professionals running $300M in revenue. Mike’s greatest expertise is in enterprise sales, building high performing teams, improving operational efficiency and execution. He serves on the board of directors at DSRF, Sametrica, GoJava and ChopValue and is a mentor/EIR at NVBC, Founder Institute and Spring Activator. Mike has a Queen’s BSC, INSEAD exec MBA and got his board training through the Beedie Directors Education Program (DEP). He’s also an avid lover of nature and any form of outdoor activity or experience.