Venture for Canada Announces BDC Scale Up Fellowship Recipients
Toronto (March 28th, 2017)
Venture for Canada, a national non-profit charity, which develops entrepreneurial leadership skills through recruiting, training, and supporting recent graduates to work at Canadian startups, announced today the recipients of the Venture for Canada BDC Scale Up Fellowships.
In 2016, BDC Capital, the investment arm of BDC, became Venture for Canada’s official National Scale-Up Partner. BDC Capital’s support includes sponsoring Venture for Canada’s BDC Canadian Scale Up Speaker Series, which has featured entrepreneurs such as Annette Verschuren of NRStor and Michael Litt of Vidyard.
These BDC Scale Up Fellowship recipients were selected based on their passion for scaling startups, and building globally competitive Canadian firms. Selected Fellows work in a wide variety of sectors, including marketing software, agriculture technology, and fintech.
As part of Venture for Canada’s program, these Fellows will be connected where applicable with representatives from BDC Capital to enhance their skill sets and professional networks, as they look to learn more about scaling Canadian startups.
To learn more about the selected Fellows, you can read their biographies below.
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Azhar Dewji (Ritual)
Azhar is a Calgary native and recent McMaster University graduate with a degree in Software Engineering. He is currently working in the operations team at Ritual — an app that allows customers to maximize their time by ordering in advance and skipping the line at their favourite restaurants in Toronto, Chicago, and New York.
Having joined Ritual as expansion into the NYC market was beginning, Azhar has seen firsthand the challenges and opportunities in scaling a company as well as the importance placed on Canadian startups to show growth in international markets. His curiosity and passion for entrepreneurship stemmed from his summer volunteering at the University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, where he worked on a team readying the university for its launch.
At McMaster, Azhar helped create and run an international mentorship program as well as served as an executive member of the McMaster Ismaili Students’ Association. His spare time is now dedicated to trying all the various restaurants partnered with Ritual, working all that food off at the gym, and re-watching The Office many many times over.
Ibrahim (Hima) Merdan (Truleaf)
Ibrahim (Hima) Merdan graduated from Dalhousie University in 2015, majoring in Finance. After graduation, Hima worked at a hedge fund administrator on a Corporate Actions team. The experience of working at a large corporation helped Hima realize his passion for entrepreneurship and working for startups.
Currently, Hima works as a Senior Business Analyst at TruLeaf, an indoor multi-level hydroponic farm that aims to disrupt health & nutrition by producing clean, pesticide-free, nutrient-rich, leafy plants for consumers year-round. The opportunity to positively contribute to the Canadian economy, while learning and innovating at a growing Canadian startup, is what drives Hima to work harder everyday.
At Dalhousie, he led Enactus to their first Regional Championship as Co-President, represented almost 18,000 students on the Board of Governors for 2 years, and coordinated numerous student events. Hima was also part of the Dalhousie Commerce Society Executive team that fundraised almost $100,000 for several charities and initiatives.
Hima was awarded the Gold D Impact Award for his elite level of achievement in campus life over the course of his university career. In his free time Hima enjoys trying new restaurants, practicing his Netflix-binging skills, indulging in his new addiction of reading non-fiction, and collecting coins/stamps from his trips around the world.
Jonah Hetherington (Fiix)
Jonah Hetherington works as a Sales Development Representative at Fiix, a cloud platform which helps companies organize, track, and schedule their maintenance activities. Jonah graduated from Western University in 2016, studying Economics.
Jonah’s passion for scaling companies stems from having spent a significant amount of his undergraduate career abroad. He witnessed that entrepreneurship was the backbone of economies all over the world, and there was often insufficient infrastructure and support to truly scale small enterprises into larger, more sustainable companies.
Jonah spent two summers working in East Africa, with experiences ranging from growing a coffee-based social enterprise in Nairobi, Kenya, to corresponding for Western University across Uganda. He was also a Givology Fellow in 2015, building a case to develop a maize farm in Kampala, Uganda to create a sustainable income for his partner school.
On campus at Western, Jonah was a member of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta, where he led as Risk Management Chairman. He was also the VP Events of Western Capital Markets, as well as VP Finance of the Nspire Innovation Network.
During his free time, Jonah loves to find ways to travel-hack, learn foreign languages, and write or perform slam poetry.
Martina Montero (FundThrough):
Martina is currently the Customer Success Manager at FundThrough, an invoice funding platform that allows small businesses to access their payment for outstanding invoices immediately. She joined this quickly-growing startup because they are as passionate about helping the hard-working entrepreneur as she is.
After holding positions in various fields, including two NGOs, a top financial services firm, a local tech start up, and her family’s business, she decided to focus on nurturing her passion for creating and helping small businesses grow. Working in a growing startup has further grown this passion for scaling impactful businesses.
She recently came back from a month-long Technology Program held at Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology. There she was able to learn from some of Israel’s top startups and revolutionary technologies, including Wix and Google-acquired Waze. To make her time in Israel even better, she got to explore the country, including bathing in the Dead Sea.
When she is not on the soccer field or rock climbing, she is out salsa dancing (or at least trying).
Meghan MacDonald (Affinio):
Meghan MacDonald graduated from the Gerald Schwartz School of Business at St. Francis Xavier University in May 2016, majoring in Leadership in Management. She is currently a Sales Engineer at Affinio in Halifax, NS.
Affinio is a marketing intelligence platform. Their award winning algorithm extracts cultural insights from personal connections that exist within an audience and groups individuals into clusters based on the people, content, and brands they engage with.
Meghan had her first taste of the startup world and entrepreneurship in 2013, when she lived in Cape Town, South Africa and worked for a social enterprise that aimed to make green and sustainable living more accessible. The experience of living and working abroad gave her the confidence to become more involved on campus. Throughout her following three years at St. Francis Xavier University, she was a leader in the Student Life Department, The Business Society, The Students’ Union, and also volunteered for Enactus StFX and The Coady Society.
While at StFX Meghan took part in an international exchange to Newcastle, Australia. Having already been bit by the travel bug, she took this opportunity to explore a few other countries in the South Pacific including New Zealand, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Thailand. Needless to say she is always thinking about her next adventure.
In her free time Meghan can be found practicing Yoga, running in Point Pleasant Part in the South End of Halifax, reading, and most importantly spending time with friends and family. She is a member of MP Andy Filmore’s Youth Council and a Venture for Canada fellow.
About BDC Capital
With more than $2 billion under management, BDC Capital is the investment arm of BDC, serving as a strategic partner to Canada’s most innovative and high potential firms. It offers a range of equity, venture capital and flexible growth and transition capital solutions to help Canadian entrepreneurs scale their businesses into global champions. To find out more, visit bdc.ca/capital.
