Karimah Es Sabar
Board Chair
Ms. Karimah Es Sabar has had a successful career spanning multi- national pharmaceutical/ biotechnology companies, start-up companies, not-for-profit organizations and venture investment firms.
She is the CEO of Quark Venture LP, a life sciences venture investment firm (partnered with GF Securities, a leading investment bank in China). Ms. Es Sabar was previously CEO of The Centre for Drug Research and Development, Canada’s national drug development and commercialization centre where she enabled new public and private sector funding in excess of $180M, multiple commercial transactions including 6 spin out companies and an M&A. She has held past roles as CEO of LifeSciences BC, Head of Marketing and Business Development at Pasteur Merieux Connaught [Sanofi Pasteur], VP & COO for a medical device company, Medsurge Medical Inc., and was the founder of two start-up life sciences companies in Kenya. She has held board positions including: Chair of the Board of Trustees, Providence Healthcare Research Institute; Council Member, NRC; Board Member, Canadian Glycomics Network (GlycoNet); Board Member, Vancouver Prostate Centre (a Vancouver General Hospital & UBC Centre of Excellence) and the Prostate Centre’s CECR (PC-TRIADD); Board Member, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research; National Advisory Board Member, Industrial Research Assistance Program; Advisory Board Member, The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Currently, Ms. Es Sabar is a Board Director of Canary Medical, V-Wave, ARTMS, Sitka Biopharma and PHEMI.
Ms. Es Sabar has received multiple awards and recognitions for her leadership and pioneering work, including Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award, and Influential Women in Business Award. She holds an Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management; an MSc degree in Neurochemistry from the Institute of Psychiatry University of London, England ‒ and a BSc Joint Honours degree in Biochemistry/Chemistry from the University of Salford in Manchester, England.
Kathryn Hayashi
President & CEO, Director
Kathryn Hayashi is President and CEO of TRIUMF Innovations, the business interface and commercialization arm, connecting TRIUMF, Canada's particle accelerator centre, to the private sector via industry partnerships, licensing, and company creation.
Ms. Hayashi is a Chartered Professional Accountant with more than 25 years of operational and strategic planning, finance and governance experience in not-for-profit organizations, public and private companies, start-ups, and commercialization accelerators/incubators.
Prior to TRIUMF Innovations, she was the Founding Chief Financial Officer of The Centre for Drug Research and Development, Canada’s national drug development and commercialization engine. In addition to her work establishing CDRD as a leader in pre-clinical translational research and commercialization, Ms. Hayashi presides as a Director and Audit Committee Chair of the Center for Commercialization and Cancer Immunotherapy at the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, as well as the Discovery Parks technology incubator, and has served on the boards of several spinoff companies.
Karen Hamberg
Director
Ms. Karen Hamberg joined Deloitte Canada in May 2022 as a partner in the firm’s Financial Advisory practice advising on the commercialization of climate technology at industrial scale. She is a clean technology executive with more than 20 years of global experience in the deployment of clean transportation technologies and the policy/regulatory frameworks to enable growth, scale, and market leadership. Prior to Deloitte, she held a range of senior executive positions at Westport Fuel Systems (WPRT: TSX and NASDAQ) with experience in corporate strategy, market creation and development, technology commercialization, sustainability/ESG integration, external communications, and policy and regulatory affairs.
In June 2020, Ms. Hamberg was appointed to the Government of Canada’s Industry Strategy Council by the Honourable Navdeep Bains and named Chair of the Clean Technology Economic Strategy Table. Ms. Hamberg has advised Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and senior staff on strategies to accelerate the deployment of made-in-Canada clean technology, scale Canadian companies, and ensure Canada’s global competitiveness in a decarbonized economy.
She is currently a trustee on the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Nature, Chair Emeritus of CALSTART in Pasadena, California, Vice-Chair of the British Columbia Regional Board of Directors of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, past Chair of the United Way of British Columbia Campaign Cabinet, and a member of The Walrus Magazine 2023 Gala Organizing Committee.
She was named to Canada’s Clean 50™ (2017) for her contributions to advance sustainability in the heavy-duty transportation sector and to Canada's Clean 16TM (2019) for her leadership on more stringent clean transportation regulations in North America.
Megan Lee
Director
Dr. Megan Lee is Managing Director of Calgary’s “Quantum City,” with nearly 20 years experience across the full spectrum of research, innovation and commercialization. She has a significant depth of experience in various organizations from operational leadership at a publicly traded biotech company, to the world’s top university-affiliated incubator to a large oncology research and care funder.
She is a recognized expert in conducting technical and business due diligence, start-up creation, strategy and management consulting, investment portfolio management and organization management of a growth stage biotech company, where she led the development of new pharmaceutical products and recorded multiple consecutive years of record turnover and profit. She has a MBA in entrepreneurship and technology commercialization and a PhD in Biochemistry.
Sylvain Lévesque
Director
Dr. Sylvain Lévesque is Chief Financial Officer of Demers-Braun-Crestline Group since September 2019. Prior to joining DBC, Dr. Lévesque was Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Bombardier Inc. from 2010 until 2018. Reporting to the CEO, he led the strategic planning process, evaluated the value creation potential and gaps of each business in Bombardier’s portfolio, developed and implemented plans for turnaround, capital allocation, evolution of the business portfolio and M&A. Prior to joining Bombardier, Dr. Lévesque worked at McKinsey & Company. Dr. Lévesque is a graduate of the University of Sherbrooke with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering and earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Karen Linder
Director
Dr. Karen E. Linder is Associate Director, Clinical Science and Medical Affairs with Blue Earth Diagnostics Inc, where she runs the Investigator Initiated Trials program for the company. She is a quality-driven scientist with extensive technical experience in in vivo diagnostics drug development and skills in clinical science, alliance management, KOL development, radiochemistry and preclinical drug discovery. She has strong project management skills, honed by leadership of several local and international project teams focused on the development of new molecular imaging agents for PET, SPECT, optical imaging, radiotherapy and targeted MRI applications, and has knowledge of cGCP and FDA/ICH regulations/guidelines, gained via hands-on contributions to clinical trials and regulatory filings.
She has served as a member of the Organizing Committee for: the International Conf. on Technetium and Other Radiometals in Nuclear Medicine and International Conf. on Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry; has been a Radiochemistry Grant Reviewer for the US Department of Energy, Society of Nuclear Medicine Meeting and International Conference on Radiopharmacology; Reviewer for Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Biology, Inorganic Chemistry, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Cancer Research; Membership to Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and Radiopharmaceutical Science Council (SNMMI).
She has authored 46 scientific articles and has >45 issued US patents.
Previous roles include positions at GE Healthcare and Bracco Research USA.
Parimal Nathwani
Director
Mr. Parimal Nathwani was recently named President and CEO of Toronto Innovation
Acceleration Partners (TIAP), formerly MaRS Innovation (MI), after many successful years as Vice President at MI.
Parimal Nathwani has over 15 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, including corporate finance, business development, transactions, intellectual property management, technology development and operations. He has been actively involved in forming and managing start-ups, preparing and executing on business plans, raising early-stage capital, and in- and out-licensing activities.
Before joining MI/TIAP, Parimal was a healthcare analyst with a boutique investment bank, where he conducted equity research on publicly-traded biotechnology companies. He has also led commercialization activities out of BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital as part of his role at the UBC’s Industry Liaison Office
and was a research scientist at a start-up biotechnology company involved in drug discovery targeting ABC transporters.
Parimal received his MBA from Simon Fraser University and his M.Sc. from UBC. He currently sits on the
board of directors of TRIUMF Innovations, Zucara Therapeutics and Vasomune Therapeutics.
Andrew Ray
Director
Andrew Ray is General Partner at Last40 Ventures, an early-stage Climate Tech venture capital fund focused on science-heavy solutions to decarbonize hard to abate industries.
Previously, Andrew was the Managing Director of the Nova Scotia First Fund at Innovacorp, where he led the organization’s venture capital activities, directed its focus to science-heavy technologies and delivered top decile returns. In that role, Andrew worked hands-on with portfolio companies to assist them in building teams, accelerating their growth, achieving milestones and securing additional financing. He is currently a board member of Ubique Networks, was formerly a board member of Quantum Research Analytics, BlueLight Analytics and LeadSift, and board chair at Proposify and VineView.
Prior to joining Innovacorp, Andrew was the CEO of Bazari, a mobile banking services provider for microfinance institutions in India. At Bazari, he helped financial institutions set up technology infrastructure and oversaw the rollout of the company’s mobile payment platform. Prior to this, he worked for MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates on the Radarsat-2 Spacecraft, from design through launch, specializing in spacecraft guidance and navigation.
Andrew holds a B.Sc. in astrophysics from Saint Mary’s University, an M.Sc.in space studies from France’s International Space University, and an MBA from Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management.
Robert Thompson
Director
Dr. Robert I. Thompson has been a Physics Professor in Calgary for 20 years, having previously studied at UBC and the University of Toronto; and held positions at the Max Plank Institute for Quantum Optics and Rice University. His research group in exotic atom physics studies antimatter as part of the ALPHA Collaboration at CERN and rare isotopes with the TITAN Collaboration at TRIUMF. He was co-recipient of the 2013 NSERC John Polanyi Award and received the 2007 CAP Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Education.
Dr. Thompson has extensive academic leadership experience, including serving as interim Head of the Graduate College at the University of Calgary, Vice-President (elect) of the Canadian Association of Physicists, Chair of the ACURA Board, and member of the TRIUMF Board. Previous University of Calgary roles included Head of Physics and Astronomy, member of the Board of Governors, and Academic Co-Chair of the Academic Planning and Priorities Committee.
Warren Wall
Director
Mr. Warren Wall is a high-tech executive with experience at both small startups and multi-national organizations. He is currently the COO at Intelligent City, a small BC-based start-up that is a technology and design methodology leader in innovative, sustainable mass timber urban housing.
Mr. Wall has worked for more than 4 decades in various BC-based high-tech companies starting as a software developer, advancing through project director roles to executive leadership in some of the most advanced technology companies in the world. At Electronic Arts, he was responsible for managing the worldwide technology teams that developed innovative graphic, physics and animation engines used in all their gaming products. As COO, he oversaw the growth of the Canadian studio, doubling it in size to over 2,000 staff and $1B in annual revenue. Mr. Wall joined quantum computing company D-Wave Systems in 2008 to be part of an extraordinary technology vision for Canada, resulting in the delivery of the world’s first commercially available quantum computer. In the wider technology ecosystem, Mr. Wall was extensively involved in founding Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster and
the BC Quantum Algorithms Institute and has worked closely with many universities across Canada to build capacity in quantum technology training programs.
Mr. Wall currently sits on the board of Arts Umbrella Association, a non-profit children’s art organization serving more than 24,000 children in BC. He was previously a founding board member and chair of the Investment Committee of Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster.