As the most active venture capital investment firm in Canada during 2012, OMERS Ventures is gearing up for another busy year and has announced the addition of several new advisory board members, Ken Nickerson, Michael Serbinis and Steven Woods.
Ken Nickerson, an active investor specializing in research and development, software engineering and business strategy. He is the CEO of private investment and R&D firm iBinary LLC. His many achievements include bringing Hotmail to Microsoft as GM of Microsoft Network Canada, early Internet and Network Management to Rogers as VP Development and research in emergent systems for banking and insurance. Mr. Nickerson is an active and past board member at companies including Kobo, Atomic Reach, Synbiota, Agora Mobile, Synaptop, SKULogix, docSpace, Chapters Online, OpenCola and several others. Mr. Nickerson is a member of the IEEE and ACM and is actively engaged in philanthropy focused on early education needs.
As site lead and engineering director at Google’s largest Canadian product development location in Kitchener-Waterloo, Dr. Steven Woods is responsible for building and fostering a creative culture of innovation, engineering, and product delivery. He has led teams at Google in delivering projects central to Google’s worldwide mission – from advertising systems to consumer services in social, communications and retail areas. In addition to working on a volunteer basis with entrepreneurial organizations in the K-W area, Dr Woods previously founded several Silicon Valley companies including NeoEdge Networks (in-game advertising) and Quack.com (interactive voice services) – which was acquired by AOL/Time Warner. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Waterloo, and has received numerous engineering and academic awards including Waterloo’s J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation.
Michael Serbinis is a tech executive who has been involved in the founding and subsequent growth of four internet companies: Kobo, Critical Path, DocSpace and Zip2. Currently the founder and CEO at Kobo, a global leader in eReading, Mr. Serbinis has led Kobo from its inception to its sale to Japanese internet giant Rakuten for $315 million. The company now serves millions of readers in over 190 countries worldwide and is on the fast track to becoming a billion dollar company under his leadership. He is a member of the Founders Board at Round 13 Capital, the Board of Trustees at the Ontario Science Centre, and a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).
It now comprises eleven highly respected entrepreneurs and investors, and also includes Michel Brûlé, Rob Burgess, Jim Estill, Jim Fletcher, J. Ian Giffen, David J. Kassie and Paul Kedrosky
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