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Caterina Papadakos leads the Technology Banking efforts in Western Canada, building new relationships and managing the bank’s portfolio in the region. She thrives on serving energetic entrepreneurs who are challenging the status quo and disrupting traditional industries, and she’s dedicated to providing them with the strategic capital, advice and connections they need to scale and compete globally.

Caterina has been an active member of the local tech scene for more than a decade; before joining SVB in 2020, she served as a Director at Espresso Capital, where she led venture debt financing for tech companies in Western Canada. In this role, she also managed existing client and partner relationships and opened new US markets for the firm. Earlier in her career, Caterina served as a Director for the Technology and Innovation group at BMO, where she launched the bank’s technology lending program in British Columbia. She has also held roles at Trade and Invest BC, where she helped businesses in the province develop their export and foreign investment strategies. Caterina holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Victoria and an MBA from the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.

In her free time, Caterina volunteers as a member of the CARE Canada Vancouver Council, which supports projects in developing countries that help lift women and girls and their families out of poverty and crisis.

Caterina lives in Vancouver with her husband and son. Together, they enjoy taking advantage of everything the area has to offer — whether snowboarding in the mountains, stand-up paddle boarding on local waters or simply trekking on foot through the great outdoors. Further afield, Caterina and her family love experiencing the culture, food and landscape of global destinations; their most recent adventures include trips to Japan and South Africa’s Kalahari Desert.


The Silicon Valley Bank team in Canada can help you take your next step. Find out more about the bank that has nearly 40 years of global experience supporting venture-backed tech and life science companies and their investors. We’re in Canada to help leading innovators reach the next stage, faster. Visit www.svb.com/canada/connect. Silicon Valley bank, helping you move your bold ideas forward, fast.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

Faire sa place dans le monde des artistes du Québec

Virginie Fisette, pour Tamélo boutique. Nous sommes établis à Montréal. Après mes études en art dramatique au Cégep Marie-Victorin, j’ai complété un certificat en Histoire de l’art à l’UQAM, puis on BAC en communication également à l’UQAM. Je me suis ensuite investi dans la mise en place du projet de centre d’art Le Livart à Montréal, j’y suis restée environ 3 ans à titre de directrice des opérations. À cette époque, ma soeur Mélodie et mon amie Tamara avaient lancé Tamélo Boutique et m’ont demandé de me joindre à l’aventure. Depuis maintenant 4 ans, je m’occupe notamment des communications (internes et externes), du marketing, de la publicité, des partenariats, collaborations et de toutes autres tâches connexes !


L’équipe de la Banque Silicon Valley au Canada peut vous aider à faire avancer vos idées audacieuses – rapidement.

En apportant une expertise mondiale aux fondateurs, investisseurs et innovateurs.

Visitez svb.com/fr/canada pour en savoir plus.

Les entrepreneurs sont l’épine dorsale de l’économie canadienne.

Pour soutenir les entreprises canadiennes, abonnez-vous à notre chaîne YouTube et suivez-nous sur Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn et Twitter.

Vous voulez rester au courant des derniers podcasts et actualités #entrepreneur? Abonnez-vous à notre newsletter bimensuelle.

What if we could end paralysis?

Sparked by a paralyzing bike crash in Phuket, Kieran Macleod has joined forces with friends in the blockchain ecosystem to source funds for a Robotic ExoSkeleton. This will allow Kieran to regain a level of functionality you can only imagine: from being stuck in a wheelchair every day and walking 2-3 hours per year, to near-full personal autonomy again!

Together, Kieran and his friends’ massively transformative purpose is to Enable Augmented Human Purpose. And, their moonshot is to support 1 million people with mobility issues transform their lives to a better future. Introducing ExOSkeletons to people experiencing paralysis in communities in Canada and around the world would:

  • Help people with paralysis experience first-hand the next-generation technology that can transform their lives to a better future;
  • Save billions of dollars in public healthcare spending;
  • Fast-track the adoption of ExOSkeleton and related technologies so ‘access’ takes on a whole new meaning

Kieran invites you to make an impact – start by sharing your ‘ideas’ for ambassadors, manufacturers, health professionals, health product distributors and community leaders that would love to see the adoption of ExOSkeletons happen!


The Silicon Valley Bank team in Canada can help you take your next step. Find out more about the bank that has nearly 40 years of global experience supporting venture-backed tech and life science companies and their investors. We’re in Canada to help leading innovators reach the next stage, faster. Visit www.svb.com/canada/connect. Silicon Valley bank, helping you move your bold ideas forward, fast.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

How being a Canadian company is a huge advantage

Alison Taylor is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Jane, an online platform for healthcare practitioners that delivers a unified approach to online booking, charting, scheduling, video services and payments. Alison, who is based in Vancouver, built Jane with her Co-Founder and Co-CEO Trevor Johnston after running her own practice and finding that she needed an all-in-one solution for her practice’s needs. Now, Jane helps thousands of practitioners across the world with the business side of their practice, so they can focus on what they do best — helping their clients. Alison’s company has gotten here by pushing the envelope and challenging tech industry norms. Jane doesn’t have a sales team, in fact, Alison calls herself the antithesis of sales, and lets the product speak for itself.


The Silicon Valley Bank team in Canada can help you take your next step. Find out more about the bank that has nearly 40 years of global experience supporting venture-backed tech and life science companies and their investors. We’re in Canada to help leading innovators reach the next stage, faster. Visit www.svb.com/canada/connect. Silicon Valley bank, helping you move your bold ideas forward, fast.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

Adapt your business for each province‘s culture

Ritou Maloni is the Co-Founder, President and COO of Pür & Simple, a proudly Canadian-owned breakfast and lunch franchise. Originally founded in Quebec in 2016, Pür & Simple has become one of Canada’s fastest growing breakfast chains with more than 20 locations from the Maritimes to British Columbia. Ritou is driven by a passion for hospitality that has allowed her and her team to successfully reinvent breakfast, bringing affordable luxury to diners from coast to coast.

Growing up in a very entrepreneurial family herself, Ritou has always been eager to run her own business. A dynamic leader, Ritou’s charismatic nature and genuine interest in the success of everyone around her have allowed her to excel in business development and in providing an intuitive support system for her franchise partners.

Ritou has maintained hands-on involvement in opening every Pür & Simple location over the years. She has trained both franchise partners and front/back of house staff firsthand, while finding balance as a parent to also be hands-on in her family life. For Ritou, finding balance and setting an example as a strong female entrepreneur has been about understanding the ebbs and flows of both her personal and professional life. Equally important to her success has been having a support system in place that has allowed her to prioritize each aspect based on where her focus was most needed at any given point in time. Ritou credits her business partner, her family and the Pür & Simple team with the success of the business and encourages her franchise partners to find their own definition of success.

Ritou holds a BAC in marketing from Concordia University and has more than a decade of entrepreneurial experience from a variety of business ventures. She currently resides in Montreal, QC.


The Silicon Valley Bank team in Canada can help you take your next step. Find out more about the bank that has nearly 40 years of global experience supporting venture-backed tech and life science companies and their investors. We’re in Canada to help leading innovators reach the next stage, faster. Visit www.svb.com/canada/connect. Silicon Valley bank, helping you move your bold ideas forward, fast.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

La fidélisation des employés en passant par le féminisme

Geneviève Provencher est la co-fondatrice et PDG de Jus DOSE. Malgré qu’elle ait grandi bien trop loin de la civilisation, à Rouyn-Noranda, Gen a presque fait le tour du monde. Elle a déjà vécu dans quatre pays différents, a travaillé comme bénévole au Costa Rica et a appris l’anglais en Nouvelle-Zélande. Avec son diplôme en Finances de l’Université McGill en poche, elle a mis à profit sa connaissance du « retail » et du commerce électronique – seulement pour attraper la piqûre de l’entrepreneuriat après un an chez nos amis de Frank and Oak. Munie d’une perspective de la vie teintée de son expérience internationale, d’un sens aigu des affaires et d’un don pour mettre en équilibre pragmatisme et créativité, elle a transformé sa passion en carrière, et est en train de s’entourer d’une équipe du tonnerre. Aujourd’hui, Genevieve est PDG et guide DOSE dans la prochaine phase de sa croissance. Son plus grand accomplissement? Sa fille, Rose, laquelle elle souhaite inspirer à se faire confiance, être « fearless » et indépendante comme nous nous le devons tous d’être.


L’équipe de la Banque Silicon Valley au Canada peut vous aider à faire avancer vos idées audacieuses – rapidement.

En apportant une expertise mondiale aux fondateurs, investisseurs et innovateurs.

Visitez svb.com/fr/canada pour en savoir plus.

Les entrepreneurs sont l’épine dorsale de l’économie canadienne.

Pour soutenir les entreprises canadiennes, abonnez-vous à notre chaîne YouTube et suivez-nous sur Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn et Twitter.

Vous voulez rester au courant des derniers podcasts et actualités #entrepreneur? Abonnez-vous à notre newsletter bimensuelle.

Entrepreneurship is more than just dreaming of ways to make money

The Canadian-based biotech company, Mountain Valley MD is changing the accessibility of vaccines to people around the world. With the mission of “more life, less death” the company is striving to make vaccines widely available to developing nations/ economies and people around the world.

This means:

  • Vaccine soluble tablet that rapidly dissolves
  • Does not have to be stored at dramatic high or cold temperatures
  • Can be distributed easily around the world
  • Helps more people in need and saves lives, due to access to high-quality vaccines
  • Working towards the goal of eradicating diseases such a Polio, COVID-19 and other highly infectious diseases or viruses

Dennis Hancock is a senior sales and marketing executive with over 25 years of experience spanning automotive, pharmaceutical, tech, telco, retail and financial services sectors. Initially providing consulting services to Mountain Valley MD in 2018, Dennis transitioned to assume the President & CEO position in early 2019 to lead the Company’s go-public strategy and develop the business strategy to pursue broad health and wellness opportunities across human, animal and plant health applications. Dennis spent more than 12 years in a leadership role at one of North America’s leading performance improvement and Loyalty providers, Maritz, who works with 70% of the world’s Super 50 companies. Previously, Dennis led publicly-traded ZENN Motor Company as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing. As a senior officer at ZMC, Dennis drove the establishment of ZENN – (Zero Emission, No Noise) as one of the most recognized “green tech” brands in North America. Dennis has several start-ups established, including PerformanceSPARK, an agency that works with leading organizations to identify and deliver on the key elements necessary to drive measurable performance growth, and co-founder of CrowdSeating Inc., an innovative social concert platform.

Mountain Valley MD is building a world-class biotech and life sciences company organization centred around the implementation of its patented Quicksome™️️️ oral drug formulation and delivery technologies and its Quicksol™️️️ solubilization technology for macrocyclic lactones, to innovate industry-leading products that are sought out globally. MVMD’s proposition for delivering Quicksome™️️️ formulations that have a rapid onset, high bioavailability, low variability and precision dosing is core to the Company’s success across key health and wellness categories. Consistent with its vision towards “Helping People Live Their Best Life”, MVMD applies its Quicksome™️️️ and Quicksol™️️️ technologies to its ground-breaking work for advanced delivery of vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs as well as the development of products for pain management, weight loss, energy, focus, sleep, anxiety, and more. The Company’s patented Quicksome™️️️ desiccation technology utilizes advanced liposomes and other stabilizing molecules to encapsulate and formulate active ingredients into highly efficient product formats that are consumed orally. The result is a new generation of product formulations that are capable of delivering vaccines, drugs and nutraceuticals into the body faster, with greater impact, efficiency and accuracy. The Company’s patented Quicksol™️️️ solubilization technology covers all highly solubilized macrocyclic lactones (including the drugs Ivermectin and Selamectin). MVMD’s solubility technology applied to the Ivermectin drug is the only form in the world that only uses excipients that are currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), making it a leading candidate for human injection and sublingual applications as well as significantly broader husbandry and companion animal treatments based on its low viscosity.


This podcast is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Supporting Canadian businesses with innovative energy management and automation solutions. Schneider Electric…your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency. Click here to learn more.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

PLAY is the new frontier of creativity and innovation

Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose childhood was full of mud pies and leaf soup, snow castles, and swings. The little girl believed very much that anything was possible and spent much of her time imagining worlds filled with magic and mystery.

As she grew up, people told her that “life was not a fairy tale” and “in the real world it was different,” and she started to believe this was all true.

Yet, no matter how she painted the picture, it was never complete.

So the girl decided to change the script and became the Master of Play.

The tools we need for navigating change and challenge have been in our back pocket our whole lives, but we left them on the playground long ago. We traded imagination and discovery for stability and steady.

But we know that when creativity and innovation intersect people thrive, and profits dramatically increase. COVID has left little space for new, bold, ideas and actions. Now more than ever businesses face larger hurdles in complex problem solving, employee engagement, retention, communication, and ideation.

PLAY is the new frontier of creativity and innovation.

Play is the catalyst for, undefeatable resilience, increased employee engagement, and empowerment. It’s not ping pong tables and pool tables, it’s knowing and understanding whole people, what motivates and inspires them and drives them to share ALL of their strengths at work.

Brandi Heather is a respected award-winning, passionate trailblazer powered by 25+ years of success developing, directing, and optimizing innovative strategies and programs for education and industry leaders. She is well known for spearheading, influencing critical organizational change initiatives. As the co-founder and co-owner of AMPED2PLAY INC., and best-selling author of Return to Play: Rebuilding Resilience, RIsk, and Reconnection she is helping organizations get back “in play”. She is a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) and frequently speaks about using the power of PLAY for navigating diversity, inclusion, change management, communication, self-care, mental and physical health.


This podcast is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Supporting Canadian businesses with innovative energy management and automation solutions. Schneider Electric…your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency. Click here to learn more.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

Learn how to get your head around strategy

A globally active strategist, executive coach, and board advisor, Alex Brueckmann partners with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and (small) business owners. He coaches them on designing intentional strategies with measurable impact, and on shaping cohesive teams able to implement strategy faster and more successfully (http://www.brueckmann.ca/).

Alex Brueckmann has been in the trenches as a strategy manager for a global media company, and later as a management consultant. His academic background is in General Management with degrees from EBS University (Germany) and Universidad ORT (Uruguay), as well as certificates from INSEAD (France) and Harvard Business School (USA). Today, he lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Clients include industry leaders in healthcare, finance, tech, engineering, and retail, as well as high-growth / late-stage startups, not-for-profits, and (E)NGOs. They value Alex’s hands-on approach of combining the strategic side of business and the human aspect of transformation.


This podcast is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Supporting Canadian businesses with innovative energy management and automation solutions. Schneider Electric…your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency. Click here to learn more.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest #entrepreneur podcasts and news? Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

Mathieu Lippé nous sensibilise à l‘importance de développer un esprit créatif qui nous permettra de suivre son intuition

Mathieu Lippé exerce le métier d’artiste depuis plus de vingt ans. Chanteur, conteur, poète, il a fait des spectacles dans de nombreux pays et produit trois albums de chansons (Les Amants de l’Aube 2017). Il a remporté le Festival international de la chanson de Granby en 2011, il a obtenu la médaille d’or aux VIième Jeux de la Francophonie à Beyrouth en 2009 et la deuxième place à la coupe du monde de poésie à Paris. Bachelier en Études Françaises incluant une majeure en littérature et un certificat en musique à l’Université de Sherbrooke, Mathieu Lippé a toujours su mener, en parallèle de sa carrière artistique, une étude et une pratique spirituelle axée sur l’humanisme. Il a écrit des chansons pour de nombreux artistes tel que Fred Pellerin, Ima, Brigitte Boisjoli, L’Isle (aka Ariane Brunet) Céleste Lévis, Stéphanie Bédard. Pratiquant le yoga et la méditation depuis près de vingt ans, il a entres autres complété la formation professorale Hatha yoga et Vinyasa à l’école de Yoga Sangha auprès de Sylvie Tremblay. Mathieu combine les éléments de sa passions pour l’art et le développement de l’être en offrant des conférences, cours, ateliers et retraites à travers différentes collaborations et par le projet ÊTRE ICI : Inspiration-Création-Initiative. Il a aussi créé un corpus de cours d’Écriture créative en ligne.


L’équipe de la Banque Silicon Valley au Canada peut vous aider à faire avancer vos idées audacieuses – rapidement.

En apportant une expertise mondiale aux fondateurs, investisseurs et innovateurs.

Visitez svb.com/fr/canada pour en savoir plus.

Les entrepreneurs sont l’épine dorsale de l’économie canadienne. Pour soutenir les entreprises canadiennes, abonnez-vous à notre chaîne YouTube et suivez-nous sur Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn et Twitter.

Vous voulez rester au courant des derniers podcasts et actualités #entrepreneur? Abonnez-vous à notre newsletter bimensuelle.