Speakers

20-year experienced Designer and Entrepreneur. As CoFounder and CCO, I lead teams from Brazil and Portugal towards the brand’s culture and product goals through Strategic Design and Content. Backed by a highly qualified team, I also select, curate and evaluate UX/UI Designers towards enhancing their professional approach for companies’ eyes.

Chandra co-founded Clairvoyant in 2012 and has driven the company to become a leading data science and engineering company with multiple Fortune 500 customers today. He is a highly motivated senior leader in software engineering with a proven track record of delivery. He also co-founded BlueCanary Data, a predictive analytics product company focused on higher education and led it through a successful acquisition in 2015.

Narges Nirumvala, Founder and CEO of ExecutiveSpeak.com. Called “the secret weapon” by one journalist, Narges Nirumvala is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, world-renowned leadership communication expert, official TEDx speaker coach, corporate trainer and international keynote speaker.

A trailblazer in her field, Narges is the author of the Amazon bestselling book “Capture the Spotlight”. Her writing on the subject has been published and circulated to 106 countries worldwide and she is ranked by KLEAR in the top 3% of social media users in the world.

She is passionate about the economic empowerment of women and seeing more women and girls in STEM. Narges was most recently nominated for RBC Women of Influence 2020 Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for the fourth year in a row, was a nominee for the 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada and won the Shakti Award for Entrepreneurship. 

Anastasia Valentine is the Chief Revenue Officer at Wagepoint. With over 25 years of experience building and scaling companies globally, Anastasia has held executive leadership roles with startups to billion-dollar companies in the areas of innovation, commercialization, marketing and sales. She is passionate about scaling companies from idea through to launch and building high performing teams who make a positive impact.

In addition, Anastasia is an accomplished community leader and a passionate advocate of women in STEM, education and entrepreneurship. She is a Trustee of the Awesome Foundation, member of the Forbes Business Development Council, Canadian Chamber of Commerce SME and Economic and Taxation Committees and a regular keynote speaker at conferences on leveraging technology to scale, business growth and inspiration.

Andrea is a wearer of several hats who believes in the power of upskilling in different subjects. As such, she is an Organizational Psychologist (M.A) by training, an entrepreneur/side hustler by heart, and a community builder by nature.

She has a wealth of experience in different areas of HR as well as in community building within the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Her community-building experience started in Chile by building a community of +250 global startups/year and continued in Canada by leading +50 startup communities from coast to coast to coast.

Nowadays, she coaches immigrant entrepreneurs on starting up in Ottawa while managing her side business – Lit Scents – a small candle business that elevates the gifting experience by bringing a custom message/photo in a hand-poured soy candle.

Andrea was born and raised in Santiago, Chile; who happens to also have an itch for immersing in new cultures, having lived in Los Angeles, Austin and Beijing prior to permanently moving to Canada in 2018.

Brianna is the Manager, Talent Strategy leading Invest Ottawa’s inaugural Talent Program. She manages the program’s knowledge-based industry Talent strategy with a focus on engineering. With a background in Human Resources and private recruiting, she has over 5 years of professional experience. She graduated from the University of Ottawa in the French Immersion Commerce program with a specialization in Human Resources Management. While at University she was a part of Enactus which ran social enterprises and was her first introduction to the world of start-ups.