Jim Balsillie, Council of Canadian Innovators chair, arrives to appear as a witness at a Commons privacy and ethics committee in Ottawa on May 10, 2018.The Canadian Press
With Canada’s tech sector growing at a historic pace, the Council of Canadian Innovators is launching a new program to train potential board directors on key issues that can help sustain that growth while at the same time boosting the diversity of voices on boards at tech companies.
The lobby group will welcome the first cohort of its six-week training program in early November. Up to 100 participants will undergo training to better understand the role intellectual property and data governance play in the modern economy; the mitigation of cybersecurity risks; and corporate finance, including how to prepare for the journey to public markets. Many of the training sessions reflect the growth of the “intangible economy,” where value is often determined not by physical resources, but by ideas and intellectual property that can make life easier in some way.
The new Innovation Governance Program is being launched as more venture capital is flowing into the tech sector than even during the dot-com bubble two decades ago, and as more mature tech companies rush to public markets at a pace not seen in a decade. The council, which represents more than 140 of Canada’s tech companies, hopes to emulate a key dynamic of Silicon Valley, where seasoned executives often take director positions at younger companies to advise them on the best path for growth.
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Benjamin Bergen, the council’s executive director, said the program is intended to set the domestic sector on a similar trajectory by broadening Canada’s roster of potential directors for companies that are rapidly scaling up in size. “The big win would be a new, educated group that really understands the intangible economy and reflects the faces of Canadians,” he said in an interview. Good practices and ideas could be cross-pollinated, he said, while company boards could be filled with “a new series of leaders who understands the 21st-century economy and what it’s like to live in it.”
The council is partnering with the Business Development Bank of Canada, Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, and Export Development Canada, to offer the program. Training sessions will be provided by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., the Toronto cybersecurity company Cycura Data Protection Corp., Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and the Innovation Asset Collective, a federally funded group that helps small and medium businesses in the clean-tech sector take advantage of their intellectual property (IP) for growth.
Both the Innovation Asset Collective and the Council of Canadian Innovators are chaired by Jim Balsillie, the former Research In Motion Ltd. (now BlackBerry Ltd.) co-chief executive officer. Mr. Balsillie has in recent years been actively pushing leaders in Canada’s public and private sectors to build greater capacity for IP generation, and to educate Canadians in the role it can play in the country’s economy.
Carol Wilding, president and CEO of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, said the professional association is in the midst of preparing a white paper on the intangible economy, and heard of the Innovation Governance Program through a conversation with Mr. Balsillie. Many of CPA Ontario’s members are board members or regularly field board invitations, particularly to help with finance and audit committees.
The association is now encouraging its members to participate in the program, especially given the rise of software-as-a-service companies and the role of intellectual property in many businesses. “Intangibles really are driving our innovation economy,” Ms. Wilding said in an interview.
The program is free, and the first six-week, 10-session edition is expected to begin Nov. 4, with room for 100 participants. Mr. Bergen said that applications are open to anyone who wants to participate – not just to existing C-suite executives who wish to deepen their involvement in the domestic tech sector – as part of the program’s efforts to foster a more diverse and inclusive pool of candidates for corporate boards.
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Josh O’Kane