Innovators

In this episode, Brianna Blaney, CEO & Co-Founder of Pocketed, shares her startup journey on how she created a platform to get much-needed funding into the hands of businesses and employees. Named a 30 Under 30 by BC Business in 2018, Brianna is not new to founding startups. To secure your dream job, she suggests identifying a grant your potential employer could use to subsidize your salary. Talk about a compelling value proposition! Pocketed’s platform unlocks billions of dollars in grant funding & tax credits for startups & small businesses across North America.    Link to Pocketed: hellopocketed.io

In this episode, Shams Albayati, Director of People and Culture at Owl.co, discusses their ambitious mission to combat the insurance industry’s $80 billion fraud problem. She explains what it’s like working at a startup in its pre-seed, seed, A, B stage and shares her thoughts on how to find a dream company to work for. Founded in only 2018, Owl recently raised $30 million USD in Series-B funding and quadrupled in staff in only 8 months! Link to Owl: owl.co

In this episode, Ilya Brotzky, founder and CEO of VanHack, opens up about what led him to founding a network of the world’s top software engineering, design, and digital marketing talent. Ilya started his career co-founding startups in Brazil before returning to Canada and realizing that he could help solve the issue of a lack of tech talent in BC. He discusses the benefits of hiring remotely and provided his top 3 tips for standing out as a job candidate. With close to 400,000+ developers from over 120 countries, VanHack is the largest diverse workforce specialized in helping companies hire tech talent fast. Link to VanHack: vanhack.com

In this episode, Jonathan Watson, CTO at Clio, shares his journey through the tech industry to find his passion in legaltech. Previously a Director of Engineering at Zynga and Shopify, Jonathan has discovered the very meaningful impact legaltech has on people's lives through his work at Clio. Jonathan talks about the importance of having boundaries between work and personal life, and encourages anyone to apply to Clio regardless of knowledge of legaltech or of Clio’s stack. Clio is a leader in cloud-based legal technology offering practice management, CRM and client intake software that recently achieved centaur status. They aim to be a 100-year enduring company.Link to Clio: Clio.com

 In this episode, Erica Rizzo, Director of People and Culture at Metafy, opens up about the joys of working at a rapidly growing 100% remote e-learning startup. Erica discusses how they’re navigating company culture with a global team, how they don’t believe in location based salaries and shares her own personal journey of getting hired at Metafy while being an expectant mother. She also provides tips on how to be the ideal candidate for their expanding operations in Canada. Founded in August of 2020, Metafy raised an impressive $25 million dollar series A in 2022, led by Tiger Global and Seven Seven Six. Link to Metafy: metafy.gg

In this episode, Andrew Donaher, VP of Consulting at CGI, talks about exciting tech industry changes, the differences between data and AI, and CGI’s commitment to sustainability. He also reveals who the most important person in the room is these days and the story behind his personal motto of community, curiosity and courage. Andrew also shares his personal insights for job candidates, who may be looking to pursue their passion at CGI. With 84,000 consultants and professionals across the globe, CGI delivers an end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from strategic IT and business consulting to systems integration, managed IT and business process services and intellectual property solutions. CGI works with clients through a local relationship model complemented by a global delivery network that helps clients digitally transform their organizations and accelerate results. CGI also collaborates with the European Space Agency, supporting its satellite missions.

Link to CGI: www.cgi.com