Meet our Dedicated Mentors
Aditi Bhargava
Senior UX Researcher,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Aditi Bhargava is a Senior UX Researcher working at Google, currently working on building products that enhance people's financial health. Her work includes identifying user problems to drive new feature ideation, validating product-market fit for early concepts, and measuring success metrics for launches. Recently, she has relaunched Google Finance to make investing information more accessible and Google Pixel's call screening feature that has the Google Assistant answer your unknown phone calls.
Adriana Olmos
Product Designer,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Equal parts design researcher and interaction designer. In addition to designing visually-driven interfaces across multiple device types and contexts Adriana has been fortunate to work on audio-based interfaces. She believes the best part is working with a wide variety of communities, from blind people to power plant managers to cardiac surgeons.
Alan Ranciato
Customer Engineer,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Alan’s current focus and passion is on DevOps transformation including application modernization, microservice architecture, containerization, CI/CD, and cloud architecture. He has been with Google since June 2019 and specializes in Application Modernization and Hybrid Cloud architecture. Alan holds an undergrad degree in Technology Management and an MBA from the University of Florida. Additionally, he has earned multiple industry certifications including the Google Cloud Professional Architect, Data Engineer, Cloud Developer, and DevOps Engineer designations.
Amber Heinbockel
UX Lead,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Amber Heinbockel is an accomplished user experience leader, and public speaker, with a track record of building smart, ambitious digital experiences. Currently working on Firebase - Google’s mobile development platform, she has had experiences working across multiple teams, including Google Area 120, WearOs and Twitter.
Austin Ciamaricone
Customer Engineer - Digital Native,
Google Cloud | Startup Success Manager
Austin is a Solution / Customer Engineer working with companies across multiple industries and sizes (Fortune 10 to 1 person startups) Led National Implementation and Customer Success team at Oracle and a certified GCP architect. He’s also a Digital Native lead with focus on strategic growth opportunities.
Bruno Rodrigues
Field Sales Rep,
Google Cloud | Technical Anchor Mentor
Bruno is a tech professional & aficionado with years of experience working with Founders & at Startups. Background includes HealthTech, FinTech, Gaming, Media & Entertainment, MarketingTech and beyond. He is a certified Google Cloud architect that has onboarded 50+ Startups to Google Cloud across North America, and comfortable with both infrastructure and data layers of tech stack.
Chelsea Harding
Field Sales Representative,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Chelsea has extensive experience in building, developing and hiring sales teams. She has managed and built out sales and marketing programs to enable customer success across business lines. She cares passionately about enabling females in the tech space and has been recognized for her work on this at a volunteer and organizational level. Chelsea was named Woman of the Year in 2020 during her time at Oracle.
Conchita Diaz
Technical Trainer,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Conchita is the head of Machine Learning and Big Data training in Europe at Google Cloud and trainer of Google's Advanced Solutions Lab program.
Dinesh Chahlia
Engineering Manager & Trusted Advisor for GFS,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Engineer leader with Google Shopping and Trusted Startup Advisor for Google for Startups. Dinesh has worked with over 50 startup founders over the last year and advised them on Vision, Roadmap, Product Market Fit, OKRs, Pitching and Fundraising.
Fernando Belfort
Head of SMB, Waze Ads,
North America | Startup Success Manager
Fernando is a former business consultant, working in Tech markets since 2005 and with digital media sales since 2014. As a curious, high-energy and results-driven professional, he has exponentially grown the business unit's market shares, revenues, and margins both rapidly and sustainably.
Juana Mahadik
Senior Account Manager,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Juana is an experienced Googler with over 12+ years in the Digital Marketing Industry across India, US & Canada in both Google and start ups. While currently working with the Tech & Telecom industry, she has experience across the Healthcare, Retail, CPG & Media & Entertainment industries; helping them drive profitable sales while using Google's entire suite of advertising products.
Justin Pedro
Engineering Manager,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Justin has had a long history of advancing technology within startups and large enterprise settings. As Technical Director of Cloud DX Inc., he was honored with the Ontario Regional Winner for Startup Canada Award for Innovation (2015) and the Qualcomm Tricorder X-Prize Bold Epic Innovator award. Justin is currently a manager for Google Nest and helping build the next generation of Assistant-enabled devices.
Kas Houshidar
Field Sales Rep,
Google Cloud | Startup Success Manager
Kas comes with a very broad experience working across many industries from a technology sales background. Having worked with large enterprises, governments, and startups, he understands the balance of people and process needed to be successful.
Keith Richards
Analytical Lead,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Keith is an Analytical Lead helping large Canadian companies prove and maximize the value of their advertising with Google. He's been at Google Canada for 5 years and previously worked at Expedia - totaling >8 years digital marketing & analytics experience.
Kenny Vassigh
Technical Program Manager,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Kenny is a Technical Program Manager (TPM) in Google Cloud's technical networking infrastructure. He is passionate about technology, product development and anything deep tech. Kenny has been a startup mentor over the past two years at several Silicon Valley incubators and accelerators including Draper University, Founder's Embassy and Bay Angels. His technical background is diverse across hardware, software and system development.
Kris Braun
Product Manager,
Google Cloud | Startup Success Manager
Product-focused practitioner of the lean startup movement. Former founder of SaaS and IoT startups, and VP Eng of Series A to IPO GovTech venture. Kris is currently a Google Cloud PM with focus on serverless.
Lee Payne
Staff Software Engineer,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Lee is an accomplished software innovator with a wide breadth of experience including: product management, design, programming, and marketing. His career has been focused on user-centric software that can grow to meet ever-changing demands. He has a passion for building a healthy and inspiring culture to maximize the creativity and productivity of himself and his team. Creating software that can truly enhance the lives of users motivates him above anything else.
Marie Bantje
Senior Technical Account Manager, Customer Success,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Marie has over 7 years experience in digital marketing and extensive expertise in helping customers and partners grow on Google Marketing Platform. Prior to joining Google, Marie worked at Media Arts Lab, Apple's full-service creative agency planning digital campaigns across the EMEA regions. Marie has earned her Bachelor's degree at The Hague University in the Netherlands and just finished her certificate in Graphic Design from Shillington in New York City.
Michael Mckay
Supplier Strategy Lead,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Michael’s a Supplier Strategy Lead at Google currently within the Real Estate and Work Services space. He has nine years of Google experience across a number of business areas and a global background having worked and lived in the UK and Germany before the USA. Michael is passionate about mentoring, leadership and supporting diversification efforts in and outside of Google.
Mieke Goeijenbier
Senior Account Manager,
Google | Startup Success Manager
Mieke has 8+ years of experience in digital marketing and brand building. Currently she is a Brand Strategy Lead helping the largest Canadian advertisers grow their brands with YouTube. Before joining Google she worked in the startup scene in Amsterdam and Berlin, working with various startups and organizing accelerators.
Mikhail Sirotenko
Tech Lead,
GoogleAI | Technical Anchor Mentor
Mikhail is an AI and startup enthusiast. He did his PhD on deep learning back in 2008 and since then worked as a researcher and research manager at large companies (Samsung, Amazon, Google) and co-founded a startup (CVisionLab.com) and served as Chief Scientist on a Dresr startup that has been acquired by Google. Currently he’s an investor and adviser in few AI-based startups.
Nazih Almalki
Software Manager,
Google | Technical Anchor Mentor
Nazih is an Engineering Manager of Chrome Graphics at Google. Prior to Google, Nazih was a consultant in the areas of machine vision, wearables, drone power system, mobile OS security, and sensors, for startups and global companies. Nazih aims to provide technical and management mentorship to startups, in the area of hiring, technical architect, medical grade sensors, battery life estimation and safety mitigation, manufacturability and scalability.
Osmond Ng
Enterprise Customer Engineer,
Google Cloud | Technical Anchor Mentor
Osmond is an experienced G4S Agent and technical mentor. He has in depth experience with helping startups realize their design and map to cloud/open technology.
Stephanie Abouatallah
Senior Account Executive,
Google | Startup Success Manager
With over 14 years experience, leading a global team at Amazon and building digital programs for established Canadian brands like Indigo and Canadian Tire, Stephanie’s passion for digital marketing shines through in everything she touches. In her role at Google, Stephanie guides her clients through strategic adoption of technology, advertising and measurement solutions to meet their respective business objectives. Stephanie has a Political Science and Women’s Studies degree from Western University and a Marketing Management masters from Humber Collegiate Institute.