Shannon Friesen is a designated CPHR with more than 30 years of experience in her chosen field. She is also a licensed professional investigator in the province of Alberta.

Shannon has extensive experience working with unionized and un-unionized organizations to create high performing workplaces with a strong corporate culture. She has conducted many workplace investigations such as harassment, sexual harassment, bullying and working with Safety teams on incident investigations. She not only investigates workplace issues but also works with organizations to create, implement and train all employees on respectful workplace policies to ensure that all employees have a safe place to work, every day.

Shannon’s career has spanned across law firms, government, utilities, and oil and gas. She is currently Principal and Sr. HR Consultant with ACTivate HR Corp., a Workplace Investigation and HR solutions consulting company founded by Shannon and her two business partners.

Dan Polonenko is a Principal and Registered Patent Agent in Gowling WLG’s Calgary office. His practice involves patent drafting and prosecution in the fields of life sciences focusing on biotechnology, health, medical devices, oil, gas, and environmental technologies, and process engineering. Additionally, Dan provides business-focused strategic and tactical intellectual property (IP) services.

Dan has over 20 years of scientific and business experience in the Canadian biotech Industry with 13 years at the executive management level with responsibilities that included strategic business plan preparation and implementation, budgeting and cost management, as well as the development and management of IP portfolios. During his scientific & business careers, Dan co-authored 20 peer-reviewed scientific publications, several book chapters and in addition, was a co-inventor of six issued patent families.

Dan has been listed in: (i) IAM Patent 1000 – World’s Leading Patent Practitioners since 2014 to present, (ii) IAM Strategy 300 – World’s Leading IP Strategists during 2014-2016, and (iii) is the recipient of the 2016 Clients’ Choice award from ILO/Lexology for patent services in Alberta.

Luke Wang is a Principal and Registered Patent Agent in Gowling WLG’s Calgary office. His practice involves patent drafting and prosecuting patent applications relating to a wide range of subject matter, including electrical, software and mechanical engineering.

Luke has many years of experience in research and development in electrical engineering, and is skilled in finding patent solutions for high-tech and oil and gas companies. His particular areas of expertise include wireless communications, signal processing, image processing, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), and Software Engineering, including web technologies, databases, computer networks, and audio/video codecs. He also has experience in finding patent solutions for mechanical inventions.

Educated in both Canada and China, Luke obtained his PhD from the University of Alberta, and had an extensive engineering career working in large high-tech companies prior to becoming a patent agent. He is the co-inventor of six issued patents, and has co-authored publications in top IEEE journals and conferences.

Monica Rovers is an international strategy professional who assists organizations to grow through her international experience and connections. She is Partnerships Director at Export Development Canada, Canada’s Export Credit Agency offering trade finance, export credit insurance, bonding services and foreign market expertise. She ran her own international strategy consulting firm, Global Connect Corporation, and was a Global Partner at Rainmaker Global Business Development, specializing in Africa and Latin America. She has consulted with Business Development Bank of Canada and was previously Head, Global Energy at Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange where she helped companies across the globe to finance their international projects. She was the Business Development Manager, International at Calgary Economic Development where she helped Alberta companies to expand their operations into international markets. She has spent many years in International Marketing in the education industry and has over 20 years of international relations and business development work experience in non-profit, private and public organizations across multiple sectors.

Monica facilitates global development by assisting Canadian companies to grow internationally and encouraging foreign companies to enter the Canadian market. She has led and hosted numerous incoming and outgoing international trade missions and has built a strong network of local, national and international colleagues and organizations. Monica is invested in building connections between international organizations and businesses. She has worked and travelled in: Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Oman, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, UAE, UK, USA and Vietnam. Monica holds an MBA in Global Management and a Bachelor of Business Administration and is a guest speaker and moderator at global events.

Monica has recent experience in Africa and has spoken and moderated discussions in France, Nigeria, South Africa and the Canary Islands at Africa focused events (Africa Energy Assembly, Nigeria-Canada Investment Summit, Africa Investment Forum and Global Economic Institute on Africa). She also has years of experience assisting companies expanding their operations into Latin America.

Monica has held Board Chairperson positions on Canadian Council for the Americas and Immigrant Services Calgary and has board experience with Stonechair Capital and Imperial Helium. She is presently on the board of the Nigeria-Canada Trade & Investment Group.

A member of the global Sandler network, Hamish and his team supports private organizations in Southern Alberta create and maintain scalable, repeatable, consistent sales engines and differentiate on *how* they sell not *what* they sell.
In March 2020, Hamish became the first Canadian winner of the David H. Sandler Award, which recognized his embodiment of the Sandler principles, the spirit of David Sandler, the Sandler brand and his outstanding dedication to supporting his Sandler colleagues and the Sandler organization as a whole. He was the first two time author in the Sandler network. His first book was on accountability and his second on change. Hamish is regularly invited by Sandler Home Office to speak at Sandler’s train-the-trainer conferences and Sandler’s public Sales and Leadership Summit in Orlando.

Committed to giving back so other entrepreneurs can enjoy the same opportunities he had when he launched his business, Hamish is an active mentor with Futurpreneur Canada, is a Maple Leaf Club donor to Enactus Canada and is a volunteer judge for regional and national student entrepreneur competitions.

From 2002 to 2017 Will worked at leading Canadian law firms in the areas of corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities regulation. In 2017 Will founded Socium Law, a law firm focussed on supporting the growth of technology companies and entrepreneurs generally. Will is a passionate builder of innovative businesses, acting as a board member or officer of several private and public companies, and is a member of both the National and Alberta Advisory Committees of the TSX Venture Exchange. Will obtained his Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Business Administration (Electronic Commerce) from the University of New Brunswick.