Meet our Speakers

Peter Norvig
Director of Research
Google

Peter Norvig is a Director of Research at Google; previously, he directed Google's core search algorithms group. He is co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field, and co-teacher of an Artificial Intelligence class that signed up 160,000 students, helping to kick off the current round of massive open online classes. He is a Fellow of AAAI, ACM, the California Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and Stanford University HAI.

Shibl Mourad
Research Engineering Director
Google DeepMind

As Director of Research Engineering at Google Deep Mind, Shibl leads engineering teams focused on improving AI capabilities for Gemini and other Google models in areas such as reasoning, code, mathematics and health. Shibl is passionate about combining best engineering practices with machine learning research to advance the frontiers of our knowledge of AI and using it to build a better world.
Before joining Google DeepMind, Shibl was Site Director for Google Montréal, where he helped grow the team and expand its scope to include Chrome, Security, Cloud and AI research. He was also involved in local initiatives contributing to the Montreal tech and AI community.
Previously, Shibl has founded and managed a number of start-ups. He was VP Technology of E-Concept, building interactive TV solutions that bridged the web and TV worlds. He later founded W4 Technologies.  Then became VP Wireless Solutions for Cognicase, where he oversaw the development of banking, retail and consumer solutions in the mobile space. Shibl later founded Sequence Bioinformatics that developed genome analysis and knowledge management solutions for biotechs.
He holds an Msc in Artificial Intelligence and BEng in Computer Science, both from Queen Mary College, London University. Shibl also co-founded TechAide and participated in helping startups through TechStars and FounderFuel.

Kory Mathewson
Senior Research Scientist
Google DeepMind

Kory Mathewson is a Senior Research Scientist with Google DeepMind in Montréal, Canada working on getting the best generative artificial intelligence into the hands of the best creative people in the world to tell otherwise impossible stories. Kory holds a Ph.D. in Computing Science from the University of Alberta and is an Associate Industry Member at Mila. Kory improvises with robots.

Mathieu Gervais
FSR Startups
Google Cloud

Mathieu has spent 6 years at Google and is currently part of the Startup Team, where he supports numerous startups in Eastern Canada. He has a proven track record of helping startups scale their operations in the cloud and achieve rapid growth. Prior to his role in Google Canada, Mathieu spent 4 years working from our Austin office.

Simon Langlois
External Communications Manager
Google

A communications professional with experience in both agency and corporate settings, Simon is an External Communications Manager at Google Canada, where he leads external communications in Quebec, and internal communications in Canada. Before joining Google, he spent the better part of a decade working for a PR agency in Montréal, managing day-to-day client activities in public relations and influencer marketing. Simon has years of experience in the video games and technology industry, having worked with numerous clients, including PlayStation, Ubisoft, GoDaddy and Samsung before joining Google. 

Michael Phelan
Customer Engineer, AI/ML
Google Cloud

Michael Phelan is an Applied AI Engineer at Google Cloud, helping companies build and deploy Gemini-powered AI projects. He holds an M.Eng. in Biocomputation from McGill University and previously cofounded two startups in the Health AI space. Michael has also worked extensively with Google Cloud and several external accelerators / incubators to help startups build with AI.

Julien Coupez
Cloud Engineer for Startups
Google

Julien is an experienced technology leader, formerly CTO of a startup in warehouse management systems, now dedicated to helping young Canadian startups build and succeed on GCP as part of Google's startup team. Julien is actively mentoring startups in the Montréal ecosystem to achieve high growth by unlocking technical challenges.

Yan Bellerose
Cloud Security Architect
Google

As a technology enthusiast, Yan always develops new skills related to emerging technologies. As a technology architect, his approach is based on a balance between technical knowledge, business consideration, and innovation. Recognized as a professional in the field of cybersecurity, Yan had the opportunity to contribute to the gaming and entertainment industries of Montréal and worked as a security freelancer before becoming a Googler.

   Nicolas Bédard
Security Customer Engineer

Google Cloud

Nicolas Bédard is a Google Cloud Customer engineer, based in Montreal Canada, specialized in Cybersecurity and mainly working on AI and GenAI projects. Working in IT for more than 20 years, Nicolas holds multiple industry professional certifications and is also teaching cybersecurity at McGill University. Nicolas likes to help everyone understand how technology works, regardless of their professional backgrounds or experience. Nicolas is also a charcoal grill addict and a half-marathon runner, unsuccessfully trying to balance these two contradictory activities for so many years!

Bon Sethi

Field CTO
Google

As a Field CTO at Google, Bon leverages a unique blend of experience as a Startup founder and VMware alum. With a deep background in Engineering, he focuses on building resilient, scalable systems with the latest technologies. A key part of his role involves partnering closely with innovative companies, including select VC portfolio startups, to help them harness the cloud for transformative impact.

Amir Gorgan
SMB & Enterprise Partner Manager

Google

Amir leads Google Pixel's B2B business in Canada, driving growth and managing the complete lifecycle of Google's wireless hardware products and solutions serving National Carriers, Telecom Dealers, IT Resellers, Enterprise, Public Sector, and SMB clients.

Yu-Hua Yang 

Customer Engineer
Google

Yu-Hua is a Customer Engineer at Google Cloud and began his cloud journey as a user of App Engine in 2011. His experience spans across multiple industries including defense, finance, publishing and healthcare IT. He is currently based in the SF Bay Area.

Lia Passaglia

Customer Engineer - AI & ML 

Google 

Lia is based in Atlanta and has been at Google for about 3 years now. Li Lia is an AI Specialist Customer Engineer focused on working with Startups to explore their AI use cases and how to build them on GCP using Google’s AI portfolio. 

   Ashish Chauhan

Corporate Customer Engineer, AI/ML

Google

Ashish is a Corporate Customer Engineer specializing in AI/ML, currently at Google Cloud Platform, where he empowers startups to integrate Google Cloud's generative AI portfolio and best practices into their operations. With nearly eight years of dedicated experience in the AI/ML ecosystem, Ashish brings a profound understanding and practical expertise in key areas such as Language, Vision, and Recommendation systems.

   Vadim Kacherov

Principal Technical Engineer

Google Cloud

Vadim is a seasoned technology professional with almost 30 years of experience in software development, cloud architecture, and enterprise modernization. Currently a Principal Technical Engineer on a Google Cloud Startups team. Vadim specializes in guiding startups through the complexities of cloud transformation, modern architecture, AI and microservices adoption.

David White

Field CTO, Startups
Google

David has spent over 20 of 30 years working in startups. David started in Silicon Valley back in 2000 just before the big crash and was in startups up until 2019 when the startup that he was with was purchased by Google. David has held titles including CIO, COO, VP IT, VP Cloud. He have been through every stage of rise and fall of startups, as well as all the adventures around fund raising, hard pivots, and customer growth.

   Jonathan Lowenhar

Founder
Enjoy the Work

Throughout Jonathan’s nearly 30-year career, he successfully built a $1B business segment for a large public company, guided the turnaround of a distressed $100M+ revenue business, launched and sold a venture-backed startup, and led another startup that eventually was acquired for just under $1B.

Those very different endeavors led Jonathan to obsess over a single question, "how does a founder become a great CEO?" He interviewed hundreds of founders and investors seeking clarity to that question. And when no good answer presented itself, Jonathan teamed up with a group of exceptional former founders, operators, and investors to create our own solution.

Since 2015, Jonathan has led Enjoy The Work, a firm with the singular mission of helping founders become great CEOs. Founders invent miraculous things. Their role is to teach founders how to build high-performing companies to bring those inventions to the world.

   Lesley Ross

General Partner
Enjoy the Work

With 16+ years experience spanning management, sales and marketing, operations, and analytics, Lesley has spent time working for nonprofits and for-profits, agency and in-house, Fortune 100s, and startups.

Tapping her expertise in data-informed operations, Lesley founded Quantified Ardor in 2016 and developed a proprietary methodology to advise growing startups around the world on data-driven decision making.

Lesley has also spent the last 6 years as an advisor while holding multiple COO positions for startups at various stages. She is a mentor with Google for Startups, Endeavor, 500 Startups, plus several VCs and accelerators in SF, London, and Mexico City and most recently was an Expert in Residence at First Round Capital, advising their portfolio companies on operations and analytics.

Lesley is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring her first-hand experience to the Enjoy The Work team, where she’s afforded the chance to work closely with dozens of passionate founders.

Jenn Pretti
UX Design Manager, Applied AI UX
Google

Jenn Pretti is an experienced UX designer and leader, with a career spanning over 25 years. She has worked with a range of organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, and across wearable, web, mobile, and desktop product design for both consumer and enterprise solutions. She joined Google in 2018 to lead the publishing experiences for Stadia, after which she oversaw TV and Entertainment solutions across Nest devices. After spending 2.5 years leading the Workbench UX team at Verily, she returned to Google, where she is now the UX Design Manager for Applied AI UX.

Aparna Satoor
UX Designer
Google

Aparna is a UX designer with 8+ years of experience shipping meaningful solutions for complex problems. She is passionate about advocating for user-centric solutions and has facilitated over 30 Design Thinking workshops for a variety of teams and organizations. 

Ruchi Mahajan
Staff Interaction Designer
Google

Ruchi is a design leader with 18+ years of experience across domains and geographies. She works at the intersection of product strategy, user experience design, and human insights to solve complex business problems. She mentors start-up teams at Manush Labs (start-up accelerator) and provides guidance to designers in various industry forums and groups.

Uday Ghatikar
Field CTO, Ideation, Google Cloud Startups
Google Cloud

Field CTO, co-founder of Area 120 Startup, Customer Engineer. Engage with Startups across Google Cloud. Art of the Possible Briefings. AI/ML Gen AI Events Keynotes. Presented to the GFS Cohort on "Creating success for Startups". Strategic Projects on AI/ML across Startups. Worked on a lot of HCLS customers.

Léa Elbilia
Brand Strategy Lead
Google

Léa is a Brand Strategy Lead at Google with over 10 years of experience working with some of the world's biggest & most innovative brands. Aside from her tenure at Google, Léa worked in Political advertising and Non-Profits for years.  With a penchant for optimizing data strategies, she is at the forefront of driving change, working closely with clients to design, implement, and optimize AI-infused solutions that drive business growth.

Juana Mahadik
Account Executive
Google

Juana has over 13 years of experience advising top brands on their digital marketing strategy. She has worked in various industries both B2B & B2C across India, US & Canada. She works with Canadian counterparts of Global Auto companies helping them build their marketing strategy to build brand love and sell more cars while using Google's entire suite of advertising products.

Jason Yang
Insights & Analytics Lead
Google

Jason is an AI & Analytics Leader with a proven track record of leveraging data and designing AI products to drive strategic decision-making and accelerate growth in the tech industry.

Ben Wise
Founder, Speaker
Captivate

Ben Wise and Darren Chiu are the co-founders of Captivate, providing tactical tools to help you increase your powers of persuasion. They are sought-after speakers on the psychology of persuasion and have appeared at industry events, conferences and corporate training programs.

Darren Chiu
Founder, Speaker
Captivate

Ben Wise and Darren Chiu are the co-founders of Captivate, providing tactical tools to help you increase your powers of persuasion. They are sought-after speakers on the psychology of persuasion and have appeared at industry events, conferences and corporate training programs.

Uchechi Udeoka
International Growth Consultant
Google


Uchechi is an Ad Tech Sales & Marketing professional with over 8 years experience in marketing communications, international business development, ad tech sales & customer relationship management. She is currently working at Google as an International Growth Consultant, partnering with clients in identifying & tapping into high growth opportunities in global markets while ensuring operational readiness in doing so. She has a Masters in Strategic Marketing from London School of Business & Finance and is well-versed in advertising & marketing communications globally.

Jyll Saskin Gales
Marketing Coach
Jyll.ca


Jyll Saskin Gales (she/her) is a marketing coach, teacher and content creator. She worked at Google for 6 years, partnering with Canada’s largest retail, travel and B2B companies. Now, Jyll advises everyone from startups and small business owners to marketing agencies and Fortune 100 companies, helping them get the most profitable return on investment from their marketing efforts. She has taught at Harvard Business School, The DMZ, Elevate, Google for Startups, Startup Canada, Communitech and more. You can follow her on LinkedIn to learn more about Google Ads and Organic Growth strategies.

Ashley Francisco
Head of Accelerator &
Startup Ecosystem - Americas
Google

Ashley Francisco currently serves as the Head of Accelerator & Startup Ecosystem, Americas at Google and is based in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada. In her role, she oversees the Americas Google for Startups Accelerator portfolio, including cohorts dedicated to AI First companies, Women Founders, Black Founders and more. Her goal is to bring the best of Google's people, programs, products and technology to startup teams across the region. Ashley is a professional marketer by trade with a diverse background in local and global brand building at Google, Visa, Mondelez and Kraft Foods.

Long Story Short, helps technical companies craft and launch strategic brand and marketing initiatives. With offices in Toronto and New York, they exist to bridge the knowledge and communications gap between clients and their potential prospects.
Technology-driven businesses are their forte; they love translating the complex and convoluted world of tech into something that's exciting and easy to comprehend. Their services include but are not limited to brand strategy, design, web, video, and copywriting.
To date, they have helped more than 95+ companies across 10+ countries communicate their value and tell better stories. A selection of their clients include the US Department of Defense, AutoTrader, MIT, Techstars, and OneEleven.