Four Canadian companies have filled positions on their leadership teams. Here’s a breakdown of who is joining and what they bring to the table.
Traction Guest adds Roger Beharry Lall as VP of product marketing
Traction Guest, which has created a cloud-based enterprise visitor management system, has appointed Roger Beharry Lall as vice president of product marketing.
Beharry Lall has served in executive roles at several SaaS startups.
Beharry Lall has over 20 years’ experience leading high-growth marketing organizations at B2B tech companies. His background includes leadership positions at Think Research, Adlib Software, BlackBerry, and ISM-BC, an IBM subsidiary.
At BlackBerry, where Roger spent more than a decade, he contributed to the definition and evolution of the mobile handset category, expanding the brand into new vertical segments and working on the groundbreaking team that launched the company’s inaugural Wi-Fi offering. At Traction Guest, Beharry Lall will be responsible for product marketing, analyst relations, and market research, as well as driving customer demand through digital marketing, content, and events.
TextNow hires Andrew Shin to head engineering
TextNow, which has developed a mobile app offering free cellular and WiFi-enabled phone service, has hired Andrew Shin as a senior vice president of engineering.
Shin will report to TextNow CEO Derek Ting and is responsible for overseeing all technical aspects of the app, growing the engineering team, and scaling the TextNow platform to meet the demands of a rapidly growing user base, while maintaining and improving user experience and call quality.
Andrew brings more than 20 years of experience building software for consumer internet and e-commerce platforms and was most recently the chief technology officer at footwear marketplace GOAT.
“Andy brings decades of engineering leadership and his customer-first approach matches our mission to provide exceptional phone service for our users, for free,” said Ting. “As we scale our platform, Andy has the perfect combination of experience developing disruptive technologies and leadership to help us build on our high-quality communications services.”
Deep Genomics appoints Ferdinand Massari as chief medical officer
Kitchener-Waterloo-based Deep Genomics, an artificial intelligence (AI) therapeutics company, has tapped Ferdinand Massari, as its chief medical officer.
Massari is based in Boston and will oversee clinical development and contribute to expanding the company’s AI platform and therapeutic portfolio.
Massari joins Deep Genomics with over 30 years’ experience in biotech.
Massari comes to Deep Genomics with over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. He has been the CMO or most senior medical and development lead at over a dozen companies in the United States and Europe.
Most recently, Massari helped found Kintai Therapeutics and built a team of over 60 researchers in computational biology, metabolomics, anaerobic microbiology, and medicinal chemistry for that startup
Massari also served as vice president of worldwide medical affairs at Pfizer, vice president of Pharmacia, and director at Merck. Massari has led teams that have registered treatments for rare diseases as well as therapies for resistant bacterial infections and HIV.
“I have seen many biotech companies tout the value of computational biology and artificial intelligence,” said Massari. “Deep Genomics is the first company I’ve encountered in which I see a direct connection between their AI systems and faster and more accurate production of preclinical and clinical candidates. I am excited to join this interdisciplinary team.”
Former Alipay executive Daniel Zou joins Canadian FinTech Perk Labs as COO
Vancouver-based Perk Labs, the parent company of Perk Hero, a mobile commerce marketplace with cashback rewards, has appointed Daniel Zou as its new chief operating officer.
Zou was previously acting as an advisor to the company and formerly was the head of business development for Alipay Canada.
In Zou’s new role as COO, he will be responsible for the company’s operations and setting revenue targets for the company’s sales, marketing, and customer success teams, as well as driving the performance of those teams.
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“I look forward to joining the Perk team on the next phase of its journey,” said Zou. “I have enjoyed working with the team as an advisor, and am ready to roll-up my sleeves and help take the company to the next level as COO with a focus on revenue growth.”
While working with the Canadian division of Alibaba Groups, Alipay, Zou worked on product design, business development, and several cross-functional collaborations. His expertise lies in the areas of payments, product management, data analytics, mobile app marketing and operations.
Prior to Alipay, Zou was the director of innovation and operations of the Ant Group, a financial services tech company and the parent company of Alipay. Founded in 2004, Alipay is now the world’s top mobile payment service organization.
Image source pxhere.