Conference Information

Mark Usher
Partner, Wellington Financial LP 

Mark's career began in 1988 at Royal Bank. He joined RBC's Commercial Banking Group in 1993, and his roles have included marketing and strategy in the bank's head office, and senior account manager in the bank's high tech banking group. Mark then was recruited by Cisco Systems in 2000 to join Cisco Capital's structured finance team in Toronto where he financed the sales of Cisco equipment and services to sub-investment grade customers using a combination of debt and equity structures. Geographic responsibilities for financings included Canada and the US Eastern Seaboard. Mark returned to Royal Bank in 2001 to lead the bank's Information Technology Banking team in the Greater Toronto Area. In Mark's last role at RBC, he was the executive responsible for RBC's entire Knowledge Based Industries practice in the Ontario marketplace in addition to the Toronto Tech Banking Group. Mark has his MBA from Queen's University and is involved in a number of technology associations.

 

Kirk Washington
Partner, Yaletown Venture Partners

 

Kirk Washington is a founding General Partner of Yaletown Venture Partners in Vancouver, and brings over 25 years of technical, operational, and transaction experience to Yaletown’s cleantech investments. Kirk currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Microstaq, NxtGEN Emission Controls, and 6N Silicon, which was named as one of the 10 hottest startups in Canada by Red Herring Magazine and to the Technology Green 15 by Deloitte & Touche.

Kirk joined Yaletown after 13 years with Ballard Power Systems where he directed numerous activities including research & development, operations, corporate administration, and special projects.  Most recently, as Director of Corporate Development he analyzed target companies for strategic transactions, negotiated intellectual property licenses, formed joint development agreements and conducted post-merger integrations. While at Ballard, Kirk was a member of the investment committee of Chrysalix Energy LP, a clean-energy venture capital fund.  He previously managed engineering teams and major projects at MacDonald Dettwiler in Vancouver, and several disk drive companies in the Silicon Valley.  Kirk attended California State University and holds 11 patents related to his work in clean energy technology.

 

Peter van der Velden
President and CEO, Lumira Capital

 

Having driven restructuring of legacy operations of the company and its current repositioning, today Peter continues to oversee the overall business operations of the firm while working closely with the senior management team to set and implement strategic direction. Peter is also active on the investment side, focusing primarily on investments in companies that have typically made, or are close to making, the transition from “development” to selling and marketing their products. With 18 years of investment and operating experience, he has participated in building companies from start-up through to expansion and has been involved not only with companies in the life science sector, but also with companies in the information technology and consumer sectors.

Peter is located in our Toronto office and joined our firm in 2005. Immediately prior to joining Lumira Capital, Peter was a founding partner at an investment banking boutique targeting the IT sector. Having participated on both sides of the value creation equation – working as a partner and as a mentor to highly successful management teams – Peter’s experience includes: partner in a buyouts partnership targeting the retail and consumer centric businesses, vice president business development for a venture capital backed drug delivery company, and an associate role at Canada’s then largest venture capital firm.

Peter holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, Toronto, Ontario, as well as an MSc in pathology and an honours BSc in life sciences – both from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

Peter’s current board and investment responsibilities include: Skinstore.com, Alveolus Inc. and Milcom.