Burnaby, BC-based legaltech company Clio has promoted a new general manager to oversee its Canadian operations as it looks to expand in its home market.
The new manager, Luke Slan, started as an account executive in 2018, where he was recognized as the company’s top sales representative in 2020 and 2021 before becoming a sales manager in 2022. In a statement, Clio said Slan is tasked with leading efforts to drive its growth and strategic expansion in Canada.
Slan’s “deep understanding of both our platform and the Canadian legal industry makes him the ideal person to lead the charge and drive success for law firms across the country,” Clio chief operating officer Ronnie Gurion said in a statement.
Canadian tech companies kick off 2025 much like they kicked off 2024: by remodeling their leadership.
Last year, Clio closed the largest software funding round in Canadian tech history, a $1.24-billion CAD ($900-million USD) Series F round valuing the company at a more than $4-billion CAD ($3-billion USD) pre-money valuation. CEO Jack Newton told BetaKit at the time that Clio used the “substantially secondary” round to bring on investors that could help it scale from $200 million USD to $1 billion USD in annual recurring revenue.
American semiconductor company Intel made a similar appointment this week, appointing Asma Aziz as general manager of Intel Canada. Prior to her appointment, Aziz served as Intel’s interim regional chief marketing officer for the Americas. In her new role, Aziz is responsible for implementing a strategy to grow Intel’s presence in the Canadian market.
Aziz and Slan’s appointments reflect Canadian tech companies kicking off 2025 much like they kicked off 2024: by remodeling their leadership.
Rossland, BC-based engagement software startup ThoughtExchange appointed George Psiharis as its new CEO in late January. Psiharis brings experience as a former chief operating officer at both Clio and Montréal-based healthtech startup AlayaCare.
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ThoughtExchange co-founder and former CEO Dave MacLeod led the search for the new leader after nearly 10 years at the helm, the company said in a statement. MacLeod will now transition to company president and chief product officer, where he will oversee research and development and artificial intelligence (AI) innovation.
Toronto-based cybersecurity company Lorica also appointed Marcella Arthur to CEO last month. Lorica, which provides end-to-end encrypted data processing for AI applications, was founded in 2017 by chief research officer Glenn Gulak and CTO Alhassan Khedr. Last June, the company tapped former president of accounting software startup FreshBooks, Mark Girvan, to take over as CEO, a position that seems to have been short-lived. According to Girvan’s LinkedIn profile, he is now the chief revenue officer of Denver, Colo.-based inventory management platform Cin7.
Finally, Sudbury-based healthtech startup Verv appointed John Simmons as its executive chairman and interim CEO last month. Founded in 2012 by company president Jeff Sutton, Verv is developing an at-home blood testing kit that it claims can separate plasma with just a few drops of blood. The company secured $3.8 million CAD in seed funding from United Kingdom in vitro diagnostics company Randox Laboratories in June 2022.
Feature image courtesy Clio.