Meet our Speakers
Peter Norvig
Director of Research,
Google
Peter Norvig is a Director of Research at Google; previously, he directed Google's core search algorithms group. He is co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field, and co-teacher of an Artificial Intelligence class that signed up 160,000 students, helping to kick off the current round of massive open online classes. He is a Fellow of AAAI, ACM, the California Academy of Science, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Sabrina Geremia
VP & Country Manager,
Google Canada
VP & Country Manager for Google in Canada, Sabrina leads the strategic direction of Google’s cross functional business strategy in Canada and Google’s Advertising business.
As the world moves increasingly online, Sabrina believes that the intersection of technology and digital skills is an economic and growth engine for Canada. Her team’s focus is to help Canadian businesses thrive in the digital economy where Google’s ad business drives $23B in economic value for Canada and 200,000 jobs.
Sabrina leads the relationship with the local innovation community & the C-suite of Canada’s largest companies. Her insights are based on over 25 years of international marketing, technology sales and include general management experience at Procter & Gamble where she managed the cosmetics P&L for Italy, Reckitt Benckiser where she drove the first global internet strategy based out of the UK and start up experience at both Ask Jeeves and a mobile startup called Incirco in the UK.
Google / Alphabet Corporate Development Team
Corporate Development is the team that lead all acquisitions, strategic investments (different from GV, CapitalG), JVs, divestitures and other complex transactions (including alphabetizations). Our mission is to identify, champion, and deliver on strategic opportunities globally to drive innovation and sustain growth for Alphabet.
Pauline Cristofari
CorpDev Strategy and Scouting
Kateline Jabbari
CorpDev Integration Lead
Amy Arora
CorpDev Director
Sonal Somaiya
CorpDev Manager
Jason Scott
Head of Startup Developer Ecosystem, US,
Google
Jason came to Google in early 2018 as a Global Startup Programs Manager under Google Cloud. Today, he serves as Google's cross-functional US Startup Developer Ecosystem lead - managing Google's U.S.-based Accelerator programs and startup developer engagement strategy. In addition, he also remains an active seed investor, startup advisor, and the founder of FactionSF - a community for creatives, entrepreneurs, and early-stage investors. Prior to Google, he worked at a number of startups in the Bay Area, as well as on the investment team at Highland Capital Partners.
Sam Legge
Product Manager
Google
Sam is a Product Manager working on augmented reality interfaces & experiences. Creativity first, details second. Outside of work, Sam is planning his next outdoor adventure or pursuing his passion for puns.
Jenn Pretti
UX Lead, Entertainment at Nest, Nest Design at Google
Jenn Pretti is an experienced UX designer and leader, with a career spanning over 20 years. She has worked with a range of organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, and across wearable, web, mobile, and desktop product design for both consumer and enterprise solutions. She is now the UX Lead, Entertainment at Nest at Google.
SaLisa L. Berrien
Founder and CEO
COI Energy
SaLisa L. Berrien, Founder and CEO of COI Energy, has over twenty-five years of experience in the electric power and smart grid space. From working at electric utilities to smart grid, cleantech, and big data analytics companies, SaLisa has had a diverse career in energy.
Since 1996, SaLisa provided over 50 scholarships to high school and college students. In 2004, she established the Karl H. Lewis Engineering Impact Alumni Endowment at the University of Pittsburgh for minority students enrolled in Engineering.
SaLisa holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and an Executive MBA from Saint Joseph’s University. She’s been a guest speaker at various conferences and events including SXSW, Florida’s Women in Energy Leadership Forum, American Society for Engineering Education, and Morgan Stanley’s Sustainable Futures Summit to name a few. In 2019, she was appointed to the Board of Trustees at the University of Pittsburgh.
One of SaLisa's core values is philanthropy. Her mission in life is to positively impact the space she occupies by leaving it better than she found it.
Shani Dowell
Founder & CEO
Possip
Shani Dowell is the founder and CEO of Possip. Shani has grown Possip to serve almost 1,000 schools across 28 states and nearly 500,000 parents and staff members.
A product of Houston public schools and a public school teacher and parent, Shani sees Possip as a tool to strengthen schools and communities.
She started her career as a consultant at Bain & Co. and helped launch the Boston office of the Posse Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to increase student leadership, retention and engagement on college campuses.
She has also worked for Houston Independent School District, KIPP Foundation, Teach For America, Bridgespan Group, and Relay Graduate School of Education.
Shani earned her BA at Howard University in Washington, DC, and her MBA at Stanford University. Shani is part of the Google For Startups Accelerator: Women Founders program and Black Founder Fund. She is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Twende Cohort with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.
Julie MacDonell
CEO
Heirlume
Julie is the Co-founder and CEO of Heirlume, and a senior-level lawyer who specializes in Trademark, Intellectual Property (IP) and Entertainment Law. Julie is currently the most quoted trademark expert in Canada, regularly providing commentary for the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, CBC, Global TV, CTV and Newstalk1010.
Alan Ranciato
Learning Portfolio Manager, Application Development,
Google Cloud
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.
Mithra Ramesh
Customer Engineer, Analytics,
Google Cloud
Mithra is a Data & Analytics professional with expertise in Data Strategy, Cloud Data Architecture, Data Management and Business Intelligence. She has spent the last 9 years of her experience in technology consulting, supporting a wide range of customers across different industries such as financial services, retail, eCommerce and manufacturing before moving to Google to pursue Customer Engineering. She has driven “Women-In-Tech” initiatives and has mentored Cloud Data academies aimed at upskilling and certifying individuals in the cloud.
Erik Saarenvirta
Customer Engineer, Data & AI Specialist,
Google Cloud
Erik is a Data and AI Specialist supporting digital native companies in the Canadian region on their GCP initiatives. He has mentored at two of the GFSA cohorts in 2020 and can mentor on topics such as GCP architectures, HPC, Kubernetes, data engineering, analytics, machine learning and security.
Henry Wu
Customer Engineer,
Google Cloud
Henry is a Customer Engineer at Google Cloud, covering Canada regional accounts. He has been in the industry for more than 8 years, working with customers from Startups to traditional enterprises. Prior to Google, Henry was a Technical Consultant and Technical Evangelist at Microsoft. He loves to learn technology and build applications.
Alec Roos
Customer Engineer, Looker,
Google
Alec works as a Customer Engineer supporting Looker. In his role, Alec consults startups across all areas of the data stack in their efforts to develop internal BI and/or externally facing embedded analytic products. His background is in data science and analytics, having worked in the financial services sector prior to joining Google Cloud.
Sandy Jones
Customer Engineer - Workspace,
Google Cloud
Sandy has been working at Google for the past 7 years focused on collaboration and productivity. During this time he has had the opportunity to work with some of Google's largest customers as they look to digitize their workplace. Sandy currently resides in Toronto with his wife, 2 daughters, 2 dogs and a cat.
Juana Mahadik
Senior Account Manager,
Google
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.
Jonny Silberman
Analytical Lead,
Google
Jonny Silberman is an Analytical Lead at Google where he works supporting the Walmart business across measurement, analytics, and insights. Prior to Google Jonny was a digital marketer within the CPG world starting his career at Dannon Yogurt and then moving to lead Data Strategy and execution at Anheuser-Busch InBev. Jonny lives in the great city of Atlanta!
Srushti Sawant
International Growth Consultant,
Google
Srushti Sawant is an International Growth Consultant helping Canadian businesses expand their footprints beyond Canada. She has been at Google for 9 years, and is an expert at Google tools and how to leverage them to make the best decisions for your business' success. Srushti has vast experience in working with Canadian startups and helping them scale up to mature businesses.
Jamie Gargatsougias
Head of Industry, Direct-to-Consumer and eCommerce Retail,
Google
Jamie advises top brands how to get the most out of the platform by building great creative, media and measurement strategies (aka, ads you want to watch!). Before Google, Jamie spent almost a decade as a brand marketer at P&G, leading marketing for Pantene, Olay, CoverGirl and Duracell.
Annie Jean-Baptiste
Head of Product Inclusion,
Google
Annie Jean-Baptiste is the Head of Product Inclusion at Google. She leads Product Inclusion strategy across the company and consults with several Alphabet companies, including consultation, communications, scale and research.
Annie is passionate about making Google’s products work for underserved communities while ensuring that Google is a place where everyone shines for their differences. She’s responsible for working with Google product teams and senior leaders on the creation and execution of their inclusive design strategy.
Outside of Google, Annie is a former American Heart Association spokesperson and a One Young World ambassador, focused on healthy lifestyles in underserved communities. She is also a former Hack the Hood mentor.
She currently serves as an intrapreneur in residence at the University Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and a member of the IEEE's Executive & Ethically Aligned Design committees.
Sara Tangdall
AI Principles Ethics Specialist,
Google
Sara is an AI Principles Ethics Specialist on the Responsible Innovation team at Google where she works to operationalize Google's AI Principles, which includes collaborating with product and function-specific teams and conducting ethical analyses of advanced technology. She previously worked at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, specializing in business, leadership, and nonprofit ethics. Sara earned a B.A. in theatre performance from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL) and an M.A. in English from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She has a special interest in mentoring college students who are interested in working in tech but have studied the humanities.
Jeremy Neuner
Head of Startup Content & Curriculum,
Google
Jeremy is a fellow founder and startup CEO. He started and ran a company for seven years, and is now the lead of Google's startup content and curriculum program.
Lucero Tagle
Co-Founder,
PitchNinjas
Lucero has over 20 years experience in People Operations. She started her career in the US and then moved to the UK in 2003 to complete a Masters in Organisational Psychology. For the past 16 years she has been working for Google leading talent, leadership & org development, growth and retention both on an EMEA and global level. Over the last 5 years she's dedicated her time helping founders and startups solve their most critical organisational challenges. She encourages her clients to go to the 'uncomfortable' and take action to increase the impact of their own individual leadership, and improve the health and performance of their teams. She is a frequent speaker and facilitates a number of 'people strategy' workshops and seminars. Most recently she launched a startup called PitchNinjas.com with the mission of teaching individuals the art of influence and the science of impactful communication - 1:1, anytime, anywhere, at the touch of a button.
Melisa Seah
Associate Product Marketing Manager,
Google
Melisa Seah is a Google Product Marketer and entrepreneur with a background in building inclusive products. Prior to Google, Melisa founded and scaled a community-based non-profit in Shanghai, incubated a networking startup in the Harvard Innovation Labs, and worked at a handful of early-stage consumer startups in virtual reality and e-commerce. She currently resides in San Francisco and gives talks on diversity, equity, and inclusion in technology to students and founders across the nation.
Wendy Manton
Communications Manager,
Google
Wendy Manton started her communications career seven years ago, working on the agency side for some of Canada's largest brands like Google, YouTube and Starbucks. Now, Wendy leads economic impact and executive communications at Google Canada, where she tells the story of how Google is helping Canadian businesses grow and contributing to the local communities where we live and work.
Enjoy the Work Team
Enjoy The Work (formerly ETW Advisors) is a San Francisco-based startup advisory firm founded in 2014 by Jonathan Lowenhar. Our unique, hands-on approach to startup mentorship empowers founders to pick the right path. We provide informed counsel every step along the way, helping founders navigate the unknown in times of inevitable turbulence and uncertainty. We come from a variety of backgrounds — consumer Internet, enterprise SAAS, finance, sales, and more. But one fact remains consistent for all of our advisors: we have deep and successful startup experience both as founders and as early stage operators.
The Accelerate Performance Sales Consulting Team
The Accelerate Performance Sales Consulting Team has supported Googlers and Google Partners/Founders since 2007. This group provides skills, practice, and best practices to equip you and your team to show up to win, as the best version of yourselves, in your biggest sales and partnership opportunities. Get ready for a fun, interactive, and valuable experience.