Russ Lagasse

Chief Customer Officer

Russ is a customer focused national leader with strengths in strategic planning and execution, as well as customer management at the executive level. He spent 17 years with Shaw Communications where he led Shaw’s Public Sector and Enterprise WiFi businesses nationally.

His experience includes developing strategic sales plans for the Canadian public sector market and successful execution of growing Public Sector net-new revenue by 80% over a two and a half year period. Russ was also responsible for developing and executing the national strategy for Enterprise WiFi Sales, starting from zero sales, into a successful self-sustained national product. He adheres to the philosophy of understanding customers and bringing value to them, always aiming for a win-win outcome.

His core value is growth: personal growth, people growth and organizational growth. He is a skilled leader, problem solver, innovative thinker that is highly focused on both the employee and customer experience.

Jody Gallagher

Director

Jody Gallagher is president and chief executive officer of America Fujikura Ltd. and has served in this role since 2003. In addition, he serves on the AFL board of directors and was recently appointed to the Fujikura Board of Directors, AFL’s parent company in Tokyo.

Since assuming the role of president and chief executive officer, Jody has navigated AFL through a challenging global economy while posting strong operational and financial results. He has been a steadfast advocate for growing the company both organically and via the following key acquisitions: ALTA Group, Tier2, Verrillon, Dossert, Northstar, Noyes Fiber Systems and The Light Brigade in North America.; TCC, Optronics and Draka’s OPGW business in Europe; and Optimal Cable Systems and AFC in Australia and New Zealand. Further, Jody has successfully cultivated the business relationship between AFL and its parent company Fujikura, leveraging the strengths and assets of each to improve the business.

With over 35 years with the company, Jody has built an impressive track record of measurable results. He began his career in 1979 with Alcoa as a financial analyst at Alcoa’s Rockdale, Texas, operation. He rapidly progressed through a series of financial and accounting management positions with Alcoa, and in 1988, was selected as accounting manager for AFL, at the time a joint venture between Alcoa and Fujikura. Next, Jody moved into sales where ultimately he served as national sales manager. In addition to these roles in finance and sales, Jody has led the Optical Fiber Systems business and served as general manager for fiber optic cables before being named president in 2003. In 2005, Fujikura assumed full ownership of AFL and named Jody president and chief executive officer. In 2018, Jody was elected to Fujikura Ltd.’s Board of Directors at their Annual Shareholders meeting in Tokyo.

Jody is a graduate of Clarkson University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Outside of AFL, Jody is actively involved in a number of civic organizations including the Upstate Alliance and United Way. He has participated in the Habitat for Humanity Greenville CEO Builds, 2014-2017, and served on the board for the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics Foundation. Jody was honored with the SC Ambassador for Economic Development in 2015 and United Way of the Piedmont’s Chairman’s Award in 2011.

Graphic Designer

THE CHALLENGE

THE ROLE

• Integrating systems using internal and third-party APIs
• Participate in all phases of the development process
• Stay up to date on web development technologies
• Write/update documentation
• Task generation and estimation from requirements

 

YOUR SKILLSET

 

YOUR QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• B.Sc in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or equivalent

Experience

• 3+ years development experience in web application frameworks
• 3+ years development experience integrating with Cloud Services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform
• Experience with web video frameworks and video players
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases
• Experience creating and implementing web application APIs
• Experience researching and evaluating technologies and tools
• Experience with Git or other revision control system
• Experience working with Agile methodologies

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If you fit the candidate profile and skill requirements outlined above and are interested in applying for the Intermediate Software Developer position please e-mail a copy of your CV/Resume along with a cover letter to careers@worldplaynetworks.com with Intermediate Software Developer in the subject line.

Dale Hodgson

Advisor Dale Hodgson is a 30 year Calgary entrepreneur and is the current Chairman and largest shareholder of Bellstar Hotels & Resorts and Bellstar Development. Bellstar manages and operates 10 resort properties in Western Canada and has 5 current development projects related to resort style living. Mr. Hodgson is the CEO/major shareholder of Kokanee Springs Resort Club, a Director of Accolade Capital and he sits on the Investment Committee for their two small cap investment LP funds. Past experience includes President/Owner of Sundog Printing Ltd, Director/Shareholder of Assistive Financial Inc., Director/Shareholder of Diamond Sage Energy Services Ltd., Director/Shareholder of Grande Cache Coal Company Inc., President/Owner of Micro Imaging Inc., Founder/Owner of Tridon Paging (Winnipeg).

Louise Clements

Advisor Louise is a digital marketing and advertising pioneer with over 25 years of experience providing operating, sales, marketing and strategic direction for leading media companies and advertising agencies. Louise began her career in advertising media sales and operations. She held positions of increasing seniority for leading digital media firms such as Rogers, Bell Globe Media, AOL and Facebook. Most recently, Louise held global leadership roles at integrated agencies ICF Olson and MRM//McCann. Louise has a bilingual Bachelor of Arts in political science from Glendon College, York University. She also sits on the board of directors for Earth Rangers, the kids’ conservation organization.

Eric Miller

Advisor A seasoned corporate executive with 23 years experience at two TSX 35 companies where he held the top executive legal positions. He has extensive public company, domestic and international business experience in significant strategic corporate initiatives, transactions and governance. He is a Senior Advisor to Chrysalis Acquisition Fund which focuses on SME transactions and a DIrector of Dynamic Risk Assessment Inc., a technology driven asset integrity management company. He is also currently the COO of Pushor Mitchell LLP. Eric has his ICD.D from the Institute of Corporate Directors, JD/MBA from Osgoode Hall and the Schulich School of Business at York University, and a B. Comm. from the University of Calgary.

Brodie Desimone

Advisor Brodie Desimone serves several roles and has extensive experience in the startup and technology sectors. Currently Brodie is a partner at Anrias Capital Corp managing a portfolio of investments in private and public companies in Canada and the United States. He is an active angel investor and is a founding director and fund manager of OKGN Angel Investment Society. He sits on several boards and is the chairman of SiteDocs Safety Management. He also serves as an Executive in Residence for Accelerate Okanagan mentoring early-stage companies. He is active in supporting, advising and helping companies produce successful exits. Previously he founded multiple technology startups and consulting forms and had some successful exits. He then worked at Microsoft as a Chief Technology Strategist in Vancouver and later to San Francisco servicing the largest enterprise Telecommunications, Healthcare and Retail customers.

Greg Hecht

Advisor Greg is the CTO and Cofounder of Threadloom, a venture-backed machine learning software company based in Silicon Valley. He has launched products at some of Silicon Valley's most notable companies, including Google, TiVo, and Silicon Graphics. His thoughtful leadership is informed by his work across a wide range of technologies, among them video-streaming; real-time communication; analytics and growth; and cloud systems. Greg holds a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors in Computer Science from University of Michigan.

Kevin Reinhart

Advisor Mr. Kevin Reinhart is an Executive Advisor to Worldplay on strategic and financial matters. Mr. Reinhart brings 32 years of combined experience in the oil and gas industry and financial services sector, with an extensive background in leadership, strategy and growth, finance, international activities, exploration, sustainability, corporate relations and marketing. In 2012, Mr. Reinhart was named interim President and CEO as well as director of Nexen Inc. Following the sale of Nexen Inc. to CNOOC Limited, a Chinese state-owned enterprise. In 2013, he continued as President of their Western World Operations, a position he held up until his retirement in 2014. Prior to 2012, Mr. Reinhart had held the roles of Executive Vice President and CFO (2009-2012) and Senior Vice President, Corporate Planning and Business Development (2002-2009). Prior to 2002, Mr. Reinhart served in various capacities as a member of Nexen's executive management team including Controller, Director of Risk Management and Treasurer. Mr. Reinhart has served as a Director of Nexen Inc., Canexus Limited, Vermillion Energy Inc., and is currently Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of Enerflex Ltd and a Director of the Edge School of Athletes. Mr. Reinhart holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Saint Mary's University in Halifax. He earned his Chartered Accountant designation in 1985 and is a member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta

Laura Yecies

Advisor Laura Yecies is the CEO of SyncThink, a brain health and analytics company with foundational IP in eye tracking. A Silicon Valley veteran, she has successfully led multiple startups and top brands. Yecies was previously the CEO of two venture-backed startups. As CEO of Catch.com she helped develop the company's business model, where they expanded the product footprint and built strategic alliances, and then successfully sold the company to Apple in 2013. She joined SugarSync as CEO and led the company for four years through an aggressive business and product growth phase growing from zero to $25M in revenue and signed several strategic partnerships leading to significant valuation increases. SugarSync was later acquired by J2Global. She was the Vice President of the Netscape browser division at AOL where she was responsible for the development of Netscape 7.0 and the launch of the Netscape browser in 23 languages. After leaving Netscape, she joined Yahoo where she served as the Global General Manager for the Yahoo Mail division. Following her time at Yahoo, Yecies was the VP of Marketing at Check Point Software where she served for three years. Prior to the aforementioned, Yecies led marketing programs and Latin American sales at Informix Software Corp for six years. Yecies received her MBA from Harvard and an MSFS from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. She received her A.B. Magna Cum Laude in Government from Dartmouth. She’s been the recipient of many awards such as the 2011 Gold Medal and 2012 Silver Medal for Female Executive of the Year for the Stevie Award for Women in Business, the Inc. 500 — Top Female CEO of 2012, and was a previous U.S. Department of State TechWoman Mentor.

Paul Lee

Advisor Paul Lee is CEO and Co-founder of Threadloom, a venture-backed machine learning software company based in Silicon Valley. Prior to founding Threadloom, Paul oversaw products at Google in Search, Commerce, and Access, and represented Google on the GSM Association mWomen Working Group. Paul began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey and Company in San Francisco. Paul graduated with distinction from the MBA program at Harvard Business School, and holds an MA and BA with distinction in International Policy Studies and International Relations from Stanford University, where he was elected early to Phi Beta Kappa.

Dean Coons

Advisor Dean has an extensive background in the telecommunications Industry with over 35 years’ experience in technical, managerial and executive C Level positions. Specific expertise includes Fiscal Responsibility Management, Business Strategy and Optimization, Customer Care, Strategic Planning, Network Management, Network Engineering and Operations, Cost Optimization, Alternative Sourcing Solutions and Program Management. Dean has also been successful in starting up several new companies and directing them through highly leveraged acquisitions resulting in significant increases in shareholder value. Dean currently serves as an Executive Advisor to America Fujikura Limited’s Chairman, President and CEO. He is also active with several large fortune 500 companies focused on development of strategies to effectively engage in the worldwide fiber access solutions market surrounding 5G deployments expected to reach over 200 Billion in capital spend over the next 10 years. Dean serves on the Board of Directors at Fresnel Software and previously served as Corporate Director and Member of the Board of AFL Global. (America Fujikura Limited) and developed the corporate Mergers Acquisitions and Joint Venture Strategic Initiative with focus on developing and growing AFL’s Services Sector. Dean has held a number of senior executive roles including President of the ALTA Group of Companies, Chief Operating Officer for the Ledcor Technical Services Group, President/COO for North Star Communications and held senior executive roles for The Boeing Company over 17 years including Group Manager of Network Information Systems, Group Manager of Operations for Worldwide Telecommunications, and Director of International Business Development (Brazil and Russia) for the commercial satellite communications division. Mr. Coons holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona and an Executive Masters of Business Administration Degree from the University of Michigan. Dean is involved in numerous professional societies including IEEE, Society of Information Management (SIM), and the Project Management Institute. He also serves as an advisory adjunct professor at Seattle Pacific University. Dean is very committed to philanthropy and volunteers his time to numerous foundations in the Greater Seattle Area.

Joel Van Dusen

Director Joel brings more than 30 years of international banking experience as well as a great deal of experience in Financing and M&A activity. He has been a senior executive at Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC with corporate client and product responsibilities across North America, Europe and Asia. In his roles, he has run teams of 3000+ bankers and helped medium sized and larger corporations pursue growth and increases in shareholder value through strategic advice and financing guidance utilising the world’s capital markets. In the last two years, Joel has advised and been a board member for a number of growth companies in the biotech, greentech, fintech, retail and consumer products sectors. He is an advisor for LIC Ltd, a fast growing consumer company in the drinks business, and the Executive Chairman of HGI Industries, Inc., a Miami-based greentech air purification business utilising technology originally developed by NASA. Joel resides in London and has a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University and studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University in the UK.

Mik Lernout

Director Mik Lernout is a seasoned product leader, who loves building products that help people improve or change the way they work. He believes that empathy is at the root of building great products and tries his best to put that belief in practice. He currently serves as VP Product at Boulevard, the leading scheduling, management, and client experience platform for appointment-based, self‑care businesses. Mik brings his product and technology expertise to Worldplay and is looking forward to supporting their future growth. Mik previously held positions at CLIO, Hootsuite, Sales Prodigy, Dell and Make Technologies.

Art Reimers

Advisor Art is involved in a wide range of ventures, all of which focus equally on the social and financial impact created. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Finance Committee for Mike Johnston's campaign for US Senate seat in Colorado. He is also a Venture Partner with Draper Richards Kaplan and an Executive in Residence with the New Profit Foundation where he assists both organizations in working with high potential social entrepreneurs. Previously Art was a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Advance Leadership Initiative with his work focused on ways to improve the support of high impact social entrepreneurs focused on addressing large societal problems at scale. In addition, he is an advisor to a number of startup social ventures. After earning an MBA with honors at the Harvard Business School, Art began his career with Goldman, Sach’s & Co., retiring as a Partner in 2001. During his tenure with Goldman he worked in the Mergers and Acquisition practice, co-managed the London Advisory Group and co-headed the Global Healthcare department. After leaving Goldman he continued advising companies both public and private, before becoming a Senior Advisor with Revelry Brands, an investment firm providing growth stage private equity to unique innovative companies in the natural foods and consumer products categories. Art continues as a growth capital investor and advisor to a number of emerging companies in this field. Art’s particular passion is in the area of human rights especially addressing injustices and violence against the poor, working with opportunity youth, women’s empowerment and education reform. He has worked closely with the CEOs of organizations such as International Justice Mission, Outward Bound, and ConnCAN. He is an Adjunct Instructor at Miami University and has been an entrepreneur in residence at Harvard’s iLab.

Chris Edwards

VP Product Strategy Chris has spent the last 15 years shared between the software and finance industries. He started his career in the wireless technology industry as co-founder of PocketMatrix.com. This led him into software development where he worked for W-Mode, Inc. in Calgary and BlackBerry in Waterloo. Shifting from software development he obtained his Chartered Accountant (CA) designation with PwC in Vancouver and then moved into Mergers & Acquisitions with Corporate Finance Associates in Toronto. Chris brings his diverse experience in software development, product management, and finance to Worldplay working with all teams to define and align product direction. Chris holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Waterloo and is a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta.

Craig Slater

Director, Digital Strategy

Craig has 13 years of Marketing experience. His roles range from a self-started marketing and web-development company, to building and leading a digital marketing team for one of the top accounting and financial firms in Canada. Prior to his marketing career, Craig worked in the financial sector for a multi-national corporation. Now with Worldplay, Craig is able to apply his passion and marketing knowledge by leading the Digital Marketing and Video Production teams. Craig holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance from the University of Calgary.

Glenn Sherwin

VP Marketing & Commercialization

Glenn has more than 25 years of experience in marketing and advertising. After ten years in newspaper advertising sales and management positions in Lethbridge and Calgary, Glenn led account teams at a number of marketing agencies, representing clients in health care, energy software, banking, education, travel, entertainment and tier one consumer packaged goods. For the last 10 years, Glenn led the corporate marketing teams for an international investment services company, a large multinational private energy services company, and at TELUS Spark, Calgary’s Science Centre. Glenn is continuously energized by the ongoing changes in marketing and evolutions in digital technology, and is excited to bring his expertise to the Worldplay team. Glenn is a graduate of Lethbridge College with a major in Advertising.

David Lewis

Chief Technology Officer David has over 25 years of Product Development experience within the high tech industry. He began his career in Ottawa working for Nortel Networks, where he held a number of design and management roles in the areas of hardware, software, and custom chip development. After 10 years, David moved west to Calgary and started his own design services company, providing product development consulting into many of the World's most significant technology organizations. Now with Worldplay, David combines his extensive technical leadership capabilities with a strong business sense to drive the development of the company's products and services. David holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.

Brett McConkey

Chief Product Officer

Brett has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, over 20 of those at the senior executive level. Prior to his work at Worldplay, Brett worked as the COO/CIO for the Canadian Cattle Identification agency. Brett was integral in creating, deploying and operating this organization that is internationally recognized as a leader in traceability. Brett brings to Worldplay the unique ability to combine excellent technology understanding, along with an exceptional problem-solving aptitude enhanced by strong business acumen. Brett holds a Bachelors of Education (Secondary Mathematics) and a Masters in Business Administration.

THE CHALLENGE

THE ROLE

• Design and implement key video streaming features on the Worldplay video platform such as live streaming, adaptive switching, network DVR and more
• Work with the Solutions Architect to evaluate, engineer and integrate the latest video streaming technology like streaming servers, peer-to-peer delivery, advanced players and more
• Integrate various systems using internal and third-party APIs
• Develop functional tests and test plans where appropriate
• Participate in architectural discussions and contribute to the ongoing innovation of the platform
• Assist with task generation, estimation and project planning
• Stay up to date on web development technologies and competitive market trends
• Write developer-level documentation

YOUR SKILLSET

• Development experience using PHP MVC frameworks highly desirable
• Experience with video streaming servers and content delivery networks
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases
• Experience creating and implementing web application APIs
• Familiarity with video technologies like MPEG4, H264, H265, AAC, HLS, MPEG-DASH
• Basic to Intermediate HTML/CSS/Javascript skills
• Basic to Intermediate database skills

YOUR QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• B.Sc in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or equivalent

Experience

• 3+ years experience doing development with video on the web
• 3+ years development experience in web application frameworks
• 3+ years development experience integrating with Cloud Services like AWS or Google Cloud Platform
• Development experience with video on mobile devices
• Development experience with both proprietary and open-source software
• Experience with web video frameworks and video players
• Experience researching and evaluating technologies and tools
• Experience with Git or other revision control systems
• Experience with Agile methodologies and tools (eg. JIRA)

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If you fit the candidate profile and skill requirements outlined above and are interested in applying for the Video Application Developer position please e-mail a copy of your CV/Resume along with a cover letter to careers@worldplaynetworks.com with Video Application Developer in the subject line.

Thomas R. Geib

CPA, CA, Chief Financial Officer

Tom is a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Accountant (CA) with more than 25 years of financial and managerial experience in public practice and industry. Tom began his professional career with Ernst & Young, LLP and spent 14 years in public accounting. Tom was subsequently recruited to work for a privately-held oil field services business to improve the company’s financial management and reporting functions. The business was successfully reorganized and later sold to a private equity group. Additionally, Tom has held various executive positions prior to accepting the role of Chief Financial Officer with Worldplay. Tom has a Bachelors of Commerce from the University of Calgary and is a member of the Alberta Institute of Chartered Accountants. Tom has been with Worldplay for 10 years.

Terry Mochar

CEO, Director Terry Mochar spent the last 23 years of his corporate career as Director of Global Business Development with an FTSE 100 company in the UK with operations in over 60 countries, sales in nearly 200 countries and revenues in excess of $14 billion. During Mr. Mochar’s role as a Global Director, he gave oversight to the optimization of over $2.5 billion per year in global trade investment. In the last ten years of his corporate career company revenues grew by +253%, operating profits by +529% and the share price increased by +455%. Mr. Mochar has co-authored several international publications focused on the development of voluntary standards for global commerce and assisting businesses to establish sustainable, standards based frameworks for operating. He has served on the Executive Board of the Global Commerce Initiative in Brussels, as well as other corporate boards in Europe and North America. Mr. Mochar brings extensive operational and business development experience to Worldplay and its shareholders.