Wilson Lee is the Founder and CEO of BrightIron and brings extensive financial, operating, M&A and capital markets experience having worked as an Investment Banker, Venture Capitalist and as CFO for a number of high technology companies. As CFO of FloNetwork, Wilson helped drive the company’s growth from startup to 270 people until the company was successfully acquired by DoubleClick (Nasdaq:DCLK). As CFO of Fortiva, Wilson worked extensively with Pagemill Partners, (Palo Alto based investment bank retained by Fortiva), in an M&A process culminating in the acquisition of Fortiva by Proofpoint.

Subsequent to the acquisition, Wilson joined Pagemill Partners and provided investment banking advisory services to mid market technology companies in Canada. Wilson has also served as an entrepreneur in residence at Ventures West, one of Canada’s largest privately owned venture capital companies with $700 million in assets under management. Wilson began his career with Arthur Andersen and spent seven years with the firm providing assurance and business advisory services for clients in high technology, manufacturing, retail and other industries. Wilson holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto and is a Chartered Accountant.

Eric Goodwin is a serial entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience focused on company building and growth environments. He currently sits on several Boards and acts as an advisor to VCs and management teams on building technology businesses.

Most recently Goodwin came out of retirement in January 2007 to join Fortiva Inc as CEO. Fortiva was an innovative, in the Cloud, email compliance and archiving system used by leading investment securities companies and other enterprises. Goodwin successfully changed the primary go-to-market strategy to the channel, and invested in developing productive partnerships with Microsoft and MessageLabs. In June of 2008, Fortiva had a successful sale to Proofpoint, a leader in email security.

In July of 2004 he retired as the CEO of Klocwork where he led the company through first revenue to a ‘B round’ of venture funding and initiating two years of rapid growth. Klocwork was the last spinout from Nortel, and provides a software development platform for improving productivity and quality of software by using deep static analysis.

Prior to joining Klocwork, Goodwin served as CEO of FloNetwork Inc. from July 1999 to July 2001 when it was sold to DoubleClick (NASDAQ: DCLK). During that period FloNetwork grew from a 25 person company to over 270, and was the acknowledged leader in email relationship management. FloNetwork was recognized in the Deloitte & Touche Fast50 as the 20th fastest growing high technology company in Canada, and the top half of the Fast500 for technology companies in North America.

Previously he had been a co-founder and CEO of Fulcrum Technologies. Goodwin led one of the early IPO’s for a Canadian company on NASDAQ (FULCF) in 1993. The company was in the top ten of Canadian software companies and was ultimately sold to PC DOCS, now part of Open Text (NASDAQ: OTEX). Over a 12-year period, Goodwin guided Fulcrum through its early customer wins, strategic partnerships and investments, increasing mainstream market adoption, an initial and secondary offering and, finally, strategic acquisition. Under his leadership, Fulcrum and its customers won several prestigious awards for growth and excellence, including a ComputerWorld Smithsonian Award, CrossRoads A-List, Software Magazine’s Top 100 and many others.

Goodwin has 45 years of operational and management experience. He has served on the boards of private and public companies, has held management operating roles and turnaround assignments, and has worked with companies through the IPO and strategic sale process. Goodwin has participated in, or led a dozen successful exits.

Goodwin has a Bachelor of Commerce from Carleton University. He has received a number of personal and corporate awards including the Canadian Advanced Technology Association's award for Private Sector Leadership, and was named as one of Canada’s top 10 technology CEOs by Canadian Business Magazine. He is married and has three children, all successful entrepreneurs.

Huston Loke is Co-President of DBRS Limited. He heads up Canadian structured finance and structured credit, as well as a number of operating units within DBRS.

He also heads up global joint venture arrangements and Canadian regulatory affairs. Prior to his appointment as Co-President, Mr. Loke was a Group Managing Director and the Head of Global Structured Finance at DBRS, managing teams based in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Science and a Master of Business Administration (Finance & Accounting), and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

John Ruffolo is the Global Thought Leader, the Global Tax Leader and the Canadian Industry Leader for Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice. He is a member of the firm’s Tax and TMT Global Leadership teams and a member of Deloitte’s Board of Directors.

John has over 20 years of experience advising public and private companies around the world. He has extensive experience providing strategic advisory services to Canadian and foreign-based TMT companies. John is also recognized as one of the country’s leading green technology advisors. In addition, John works closely with a number of North America’s leading venture capitalists, and advises many of the companies in which they invest.

His advice has been sought by some of the world’s leading technology, media and telecommunications companies including Rogers Communications, Research In Motion (RIM), Open Text, CTV Globemedia, Nortel, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SXC. John has also worked extensively with a number of leading private equity and venture capital firms including GrowthWorks, Vengrowth, Covington, Jefferson Partners, and Conundrum Capital.

John is a chartered accountant and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

He is a strong supporter of both the business and not-for-profit communities. He is chairperson of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s Tax Policy Committee. He is also a member of the Corporate Fundraising committees for Sunnybrook Foundation and the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario. John is also actively involved with the David Suzuki Foundation and is a member of the Toronto chapter of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO).

John has a high profile media presence across Canada and is widely regarded by the media as a leading commentator on TMT and taxation issues. He is also an active public speaker within the TMT and venture capital industries and has written extensively on developing global tax strategies to manage both Canadian and foreign taxes, as well as how best to arrange tax structures to optimize IPO offerings, financings, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.

Derek Keay is a partner in Gowlings’ Ottawa office business law department working from the Gowlings' Kanata Technology Law Office. Derek practises corporate law with an emphasis on corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions, primarily involving emerging technology companies.

His primary focus is on providing advice to Canadian and international companies, together with angel, venture capital and institutional investors in relation to debt and equity financing transactions. He also has extensive experience in advising companies, shareholders and acquirors in connection with the purchase and sale of businesses, both in Canada and cross-border. Derek has also worked extensively with technology companies at various stages, from start-ups to public corporations, assisting them in many aspects of their day-to-day legal requirements, including corporate governance matters.

Prior to joining Gowlings in 2005, Derek was a partner with Marlay & Ford LLP, a Kanata-based technology law firm. In addition, he was a partner in the technology business group of a national law firm, where he practised for over ten years from its Ottawa, Ontario offices.