Wednesday March 26th 5:30-7:00 pm
at the Nepean Sailing Club, 3259 Carling Ave

Sales “Round Table” Networking

There’s lots of talk that Ottawa is short on Sales savvy tech workers. This week we’ve established a panel of experienced sales professionals willing to spend time to improve and dispel this situation.

Come out and spend time with our distinguished panel:

Ted Burnett, VP of Business Development, bitHeads inc.
Mark Fitchett, Sales Professional
Ian Gibson, Battle Hardened Road Warrior
Allan Place, Mgr Business Development, MDA Geospatial Services
Randy Whitcroft, Sales Consultant

All our panelists have held senior sales, marketing, and leadership roles and bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table through decades of experience covering many companies, industries, products, services, challenges and rewards.

Come early to network with our panelists, followed by a more “formal” session where they’ll share best practices, less obvious insights, and answer questions.

Wednesday March 19th 5:00-7:00 pm
at LaBarge Weinstein, 515 Legget Drive, Suite 800, Kanata

Start Up, Drop-In

Special Session: Cleantech Opportunities

Featured contacts:

Mark Wickham, TEAM
Fred Ayoub, Sustainable Ventures Inc.

Words of Wisdom provided by:

Claude Haw, Venture Coaches

Featured startups:

Pierre Riyard, Magenn Power
Bruce Linton, Clearford Industries

Wednesday March 12th 5:30-7:00pm
at the Nepean Sailing Club, 3259 Carling Ave

Bootstrapping Your Venture

Brian Parisien, Head of Operations, BluArc Communication
Jay Swayze, CEO of BluArc Communication

share their experiences in soliciting angel investment to kick-start their enterprise, and what they’ve learned about bootstrapping a rapidly growing business since then. This includes rationale for bootstrapping versus VC funding, and the challenges of transition between take-off and cash-flow positive positions.

Brian Parisien began his career with Bell Northern Research where he worked in product development on projects ranging from DMS100 to Terminals, as well as in network infrastructure security. He founded Technology Due Diligence in 2001 where he and his team worked with investors and private enterprises to provide an independent perspective on product development readiness and risk mitigation. In 2006 he partnered with Jay Swayze to create BluArc Communications.

Jay Swayze has over 14 years in telecom working at companies such as Digital Equipment, Compaq, and Natural Convergence where he helped 10 carriers world-wide launch VoIP services. In 2005 Jay founded BluArc Communications Inc which he continues to lead as founder and CEO.

BluArc Communications Inc is a voice and data services provider for small businesses and operates primarily in the Ottawa and Toronto markets at present. After exceeding a target of 1000 seats installed by year end 2007, BluArc has grown to over 1330 seats since then. Key to BluArc’s success in the small business market is MVoIP, which is sold as a carrier grade voice over IP services offering over a managed network. BluArc is currently closing its second and final round of financing in anticipation of continuing explosive growth throughout the balance of 2008 and beyond.

Wednesday March 5th 5:30-7:00pm
at the Nepean Sailing Club, 3259 Carling Ave

Creating Successful Executive Teams

David Newby, Owner of Cabot Business Training in Ottawa

In this interactive session, David Newby will consider the often-ignored element of team creation and development – the human element - with specific reference to nine distinct and interdependent team roles that are present in the most successful teams.

Originally from the UK, he worked in financial industry sales in London until 1995, when he moved to Germany and formed a business-skills training organization, which generated over 1 million dollars of revenue in its first year , and which he subsequently developed, with his own executive team into a multi-million dollar enterprise.

David has advised, trained and coached executives and their multinational teams from a wide range of industries in a number of different countries.