Alex Peh, PayPal Canada’s former head of mobile and market development, has made the move to RBC as its VP of innovation.
Peh started his role at PayPal Canada in 2014, where he was responsible for driving mobile payments adoption for the PayPal brand.
Peh also has a significant presence supporting Canadian startups and the broader tech ecosystem, acting as an advisor to MaRS’ commerce & finance and corporate innovation clusters, as well as the BCTIA.
Peh has a significant presence supporting Canadian startups and the broader tech ecosystem, acting as an advisor MaRS and the BCTIA.
At PayPal, Peh drove initiatives like presenting sponsorship of BetaKit’s very-own CanCon podcast, as well as Dx3’s Startup Zone, which gave the startups exposure to over 4,500 people and a chance to pitch to retail heavyweights. By this year’s Dx3, Peh acknowledged that the startups participating went beyond mobile payments — once his biggest focus in his role — as the nature of innovation was evolving.
“For many years, we’ve been all about mobile. But mobile is now just part of everyone’s marketing and product plans, so we’re trying to think bigger than that,” Peh said.
For its part, RBC has been working to embrace emerging technologies, and was recognized as one of the top two banks in Canada for FinTech innovation. The bank has invested in startup organizations like OneEleven and Bayview Yards, and internally is adopting AI technology (disclosure: RBC is the proud sponsor of BetaKit’s AI Times newsletter). RBC has two machine learning labs in Toronto and Edmonton.
RBC also has not shied away from working with startups directly as an investor, providing CareGuide with a $1 million debt facility in June 2015 and strategic financing to Wave in its $32 million round.
Sources close to Peh confirmed to BetaKit that today is in fact his birthday.