Event category: Plenary

A candid conversation with one of Canada’s most accomplished technology leaders exploring the realities of building, investing in, acquiring, and exiting companies across multiple market cycles. The discussion will focus on lessons learned, founder decision-making, leadership, and the future of the Canadian technology ecosystem.

Not every successful technology company follows the traditional venture-backed SaaS path. This discussion highlights founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem leaders who have built significant enterprise value through industrial technology, operational excellence, capital efficiency, and alternative approaches to growth.

Acquisitions are no longer reserved for large corporations. Search funds, founder-led rollups, private equity-backed platforms, and strategic acquirers are increasingly using M&A as a growth strategy. This session explores how the acquisition landscape is evolving. How Prairie tech companies use acquisitions as an operational tool to accelerate value creation — buying capability, customer base, or market position rather than building it organically.

Selling a technology company isn’t a single event—it’s the outcome of years of deliberate decisions. This session will share the practical lessons that separate smooth, value-maximizing exits from difficult transactions. Beyond preparing for a sale, this keynote explores how founders can create enterprise value through strong operational architecture, disciplined governance, and the strategic decisions that make companies attractive to both financial and strategic buyers long before they ever go to market. Rather than treating exit readiness as a checklist completed just before a transaction, this keynote demonstrates how operational architecture, disciplined governance, and thoughtful value creation become competitive advantages years before founders ever enter a sale process.