In this episode of The Inflection Point, I dive into an amazing conversation with April Hicke. Throughout her career, April has been a fierce advocate for women in her workplace, community, and social circles. Whether it’s through mentoring and elevating women in Calgary, or dedicating all of her working time to building a community of talented women in tech, April consistently shows up for the women in her life. With over 15 years of experience in leadership, mentoring, and strategic team development with career experience from PwC to Westjet to ATB, she is now the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Toast, a talent partner that increases gender diversity within the tech industry. As a Certified Change Practitioner and social innovation enthusiast, she brings a wealth of expertise in business process improvement, digital transformation, and change management to Toast and its community of diverse and passionate women. Her core value and mission is to make a difference by disrupting the status quo and inspiring people to think outside the box, reimagine the possible, and act like owners. She is a serial relationship builder, a savvy problem-solver, and an exclamation mark personality. She lives by the adage, "Work Hard and Be Nice to People," and is passionate about people and impact. April is actively seeking to disrupt the hiring dynamic for women in the tech industry. Alongside her team, she is making waves in a traditionally male-dominated space and is changing the rules of the game by refusing to abide by the status quo. Runner by Jon & Roy is the song that tops her chart at the moment. 

We hope you enjoyed listening to today's episode of The Inflection Point! There are  a lot of exciting episodes coming up as I dive into  deep conversations around starting a company from an entrepreneur's point of view and the ups and downs that come along with it in the process. You can check us out on LinkedIn @ The Inflection Point. Please leave us a comment with your thoughts and you can send your questions to [email protected] so that I can ask those questions to our guests and spark insightful conversations around entrepreneurship. You can also follow us on instagram @theinflectionpointwithshaan. And if you leave today with one message, I hope it is this "Change is inevitable. Embrace it if you can". See you all next time!

In this episode of The Inflection Point, I had a wonderful conversation with Maddy Tupper. Maddy is currently in her 5th year of school at the Alberta School of Business at UofA. She is a BCom student with a specialization in Finance and a minor in Operations Management. Originally from Calgary, Maddy moved to Edmonton not only for school, but also to play varsity soccer for the University of Alberta Women's soccer team. Professionally, Maddy worked for 8 months as an Accounting Co-op Student at Hyper Hippo Entertainment - a video game software development company based in Kelowna B.C. She also has work experience in the nonprofit sector through two summer internships. Maddy’s involvement also extends to student government. She recently completed her term as President of the University Athletics Board (UAB), and also served on the Sustainability and Capital Fund Committee, and the Sub Master Planning Committee in her early years of university. In her free time, she enjoys reading, scuba diving, and water sports. Brazil by Declan McKenna still tops her charts as one of her favorite tracks.  

In this episode of The Inflection Point, I have a wonderful conversation with Paige Boyer. Paige is a fourth year BCom student at the Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, specializing in Business Economics and Law with a Certificate in Sustainability. In addition to her studies, Paige is the current President of the Business Students’ Association, a member of the JDC West Debate team, and an Academic Director on the Venture Capital and Private Equity Club. In both her studies and extracurricular activities, Paige has made it her mission to bring equity, diversity, and inclusion to the forefront of her work, exemplified by her leadership of the BSA’s inaugural Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Case Competition. More recently, Paige’s passion for learning took her abroad, where she studied leadership and innovation at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. In her spare time, you can find Paige doing some sort of high-risk sport, like skiing or mountain biking, or in the library catching up on her studies. We didn’t start the fire by Billy Joel still tops the chart as one of her favorite songs.

In this episode of The Inflection Point, I dive into a deep conversation with David Sunderwald. For the last four summers, David has worked as a helitack wildfire firefighter in Northern Alberta, this year taking on a role as a Crew Leader. Outside of the wilderness, David is exploring his passions for business and leadership by specializing in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Management at the Alberta School of Business. Now in his fifth year, David works hard to stay involved in the school of business through university organizations and student initiatives. He is the current Co-Chair of the Alberta International Business Competition (an organization familiar to all regular listeners), a Non-Profit Academic delegate for JDC West Alberta, and a BUS 101 Seminar Leader mentoring first-year students in case analysis, strategy, and teamwork. In addition, David has participated in an international case competition and continues to support the ASOB through volunteering efforts. With equal passions for being outdoors and involved in the world of business, David explores life looking for the finest flavors it has to offer. Using his experience from the rapidly dynamic environment of fighting wildfires, and working as a leader in student organizations, he looks ahead to pursue a career in strategy consulting. When David isn’t in the classroom or behind his laptop answering emails, you can find him having a drink with friends, or on his snowboard in the Rocky Mountains.

In this episode of The Inflection Point I dive into a wonderful converstion with Sobaan Ajwad. Sobaan is a third year undergraduate student specializing in Finance and with a minor  in Operations Management. During his tenure at UofA, Sobaan has actively been involved with several clubs on campus such as the AIBC, JDC West, VCPE. Sobaan is very passionate about community involvement and initiatives to support those in need which is why he joined and helped scale Help-A-Homie, a local charitable organization founded by a group of friends at the UofA aimed at alleviating poverty and providing support to the community. This past summer he spent working at a clean-tech startup, Grengine, in Edmonton as a Business Operations Intern, and is hopeful to partake in a few more internships of different scopes to see where he’s most passionate, and where he might make the greatest impact. In his spare time, Sobaan loves sports, being outdoors, and spending time with his family and friends.

In this episode of the Inflection Point, I dive into an insightful conversation with Nelson Lee. Nelson is the founder of the campus safety app Haven, and is also a Governor at the University of Toronto and resides in Toronto, Ontario. He was inspired to create Haven in 2021 after a close friend confided in him about her harrowing experience of sexual assault on campus. Under Nelson's leadership, Haven has expanded to four universities across Canada, including the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa, serving a community of over 120,000 students. As an entrepreneur, Nelson was selected for the NEXT-36 program, one of Canada's premier startup accelerators. Prior to his venture into the startup world, he honed his skills as a software developer at Hearth, which is a Series B FinTech startup  in San Francisco. Nelson is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto. When he's not working on Haven, Nelson enjoys unwinding with games of Magic the Gathering and listening to Taylor Swift. His favorite TS track is “Call It What You Want”.

In this episode of The Inflection Point, I dive into a wonderful conversation with Abeir Wasim. Abeir is a recent graduate of the NEXT-36 Program which is a founders development program hosted in Toronto. She is also a Global Health Advocate and a creative entrepreneur. After completing her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto, Abeir worked in clinical research, helping improve surgical patient outcomes at Sunnybrook Hospital,  Canada's largest trauma center. During the pandemic, Abeir applied her research skills to support Health in Emergency operations with the Canadian Red Cross. She has published several peer-reviewed papers and presented research at national and international medical conferences. Abeir enjoys working in interdisciplinary teams to solve challenging problems. During her Master's in Global Health at McMaster University, she won three National Hackathons and was selected as one of 100 youth leaders worldwide to participate in the Global Leadership Challenge run by the University of Oxford. Abeir was inspired to pursue entrepreneurship to scale impact at the intersection of health and technology. In her spare time, she enjoys playing softball, playing some beats on piano, traveling, and improving her videography skills. She is also well known for her amazing end of year videos. 

In this episode of The Inflection Point, I dive into an interesting conversation with Omer Syed. Omer is a fourth year undergraduate student at the Alberta School of Business. He is specializing in Business Technology Management (formerly known as Management Information Systems) with a potential minor in Computer Science. During his time at university, Omer has been involved with various student clubs, including the Alberta International Business Competition, Business Students’ Association, Next-Gen and others. He’s completed two Teaching assistant terms for two undergraduate courses - BUS 201 and BTM 311, as well as two co-op terms at the City of Edmonton. He is currently working at IBM as a Technology Sales Intern. With dozens of case competitions and an international one in Montreal under his belt, he has  a unique passion for analyzing business problems and addressing them in front of an audience. In his free time, he likes to play soccer with his buddies, take cooking lessons from his mom or go for hikes on the beautiful trails in the heart of our rocky mountains. He intends to graduate in December 2024, and is looking to travel to Korea through a potential exchange program before heading into the world of tech. 

We hope you enjoy listening to today's episode of The Inflection Point! There are  a lot of exciting episodes coming up as I dive into  deep conversations around starting a company from an entrepreneur's point of view and the ups and downs that come along with it in the process. You can check us out at www. The inflection point.com. Please leave us a comment with your thoughts and you can send your questions to [email protected] so that I can ask those questions to our guests and spark insightful conversations around entrepreneurship. You can also follow us on instagram @theinflectionpointwithshaan and if you leave today with one message, I hope it's this - “Change is inevitable, Embrace it if you can”. See you all next week!

In this episode of the Inflection Point, I have a wonderful conversation with a close buddy of mine, Marlow Pfeifer. Marlow is a fourth year Business Economics student at University of Alberta. He has been actively involved with various student clubs on campus, both planning and competing in local and international case competitions on several occasions. He just finished a summer internship at MasterCard in their Data & Services team , based out of Vancouver and is headed to Calgary for another internship, this time in Sales & Trading at Scotiabank. When not working, he enjoys going on hikes, getting outdoors as much as possible, and visiting new countries. Fun Fact- Marlow he has visited 40+ countries in his mere 21 years on this planet so far. 

In this episode of The Inflection Point, I have a great conversation with Evan Lyseng. Evan is an optimist, investor, and builder who lives in Edmonton, Alberta. He works as a senior investment analyst at AltaML, Canada’s preeminent AI-focused venture studio. He graduated from the University of Alberta with a finance degree, where he co-founded the University of Alberta Venture Capital & Private Equity Club – a student organization which provides private funds and family offices trained analyst talent to support ad hoc projects. He previously has been involved in VC across SaaS and biotech verticals, and co-founded a marketplace startup during his time as a student. When not working, he loves to cook, spend time outside, and collect stories and new friends as he backpacks.

We hope you enjoy listening to today's episode of The Inflection Point! There are  a lot of exciting episodes coming up as I dive into  deep conversations around starting a company from an entrepreneur's point of view and the ups and downs that come along with it in the process. You can check us out at www. The inflection point.com. Please leave us a comment with your thoughts and you can send your questions to [email protected] so that I can ask those questions to our guests and spark insightful conversations around entrepreneurship. You can also follow us on instagram @theinflectionpointwithshaan and if you leave today with one message, I hope it's this - “Change is inevitable, Embrace it if you can”. See you all next time!