Our Board

Scot Speiser - Board Chairman

Scot recently joined Capri Insurance with experience from Royal Bank of Canada, Federated Co-operatives Ltd. and most recently, 20 years with Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Scot spent the last 11 years with BDC as Vice President, Financing and Consulting where he was responsible for BC North & Interior. In addition, Scot led BDC’s National Aboriginal Unit, served as the Lead for Business Development and Client Relationship Management of BDC’s National Transformation Project and was a founding member on BDC’s National Client Experience Committee.

Scot is a past Board member and Chair of the Economic Development Commission of the Central Okanagan and served as a board member for the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. In addition to representing as the Vice-Chair of Accelerate Okanagan, he is a Committee Member for metabridge and is a volunteer coach with Kelowna Minor Hockey.

Blair Forrest

Blair Forrest is a partner at Pushor Mitchell LLP, a longtime supporter of Accelerate Okanagan, and an AO Partner. Blair’s practice area is business law with a specific focus on corporate, securities, and technology law matters.

Technology transactions involve unique risks and Blair’s experience in this area includes the full spectrum of activities. He deals with complex transactions including mergers, acquisitions, public offerings, private placements, venture capital investments, corporate finance transactions, corporate structuring, and regulatory applications to the Canadian stock exchanges and securities commissions.

Corie Griffiths

Corie is a key resource for business retention and attraction initiatives, leading award winning projects such as Canada’s first Business Walks and the inaugural Okanagan Valley Economic Profile and Site Selection Toolkit. She represents the COEDC on the Kelowna International Air Route Development task force, Regional Advisory member to both Okanagan College and University of British Columbia Okanagan, served on the BC’s Economic Development Association EDABC Executive and also served on the Okanagan Valley Economic Development Society (OVEDS) executive since 2008 including two terms as chair from 2010-2012.

Corie is Director of the Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission (COEDC). Originally from California, Corie emigrated to the Okanagan in 2002.

Joshua Fraser

Joshua has over 10 years of digital advertising experience and is currently building Data Nerds in British Columbia, Canada.  He was accepted into the illustrious Techstars Boulder program where he met Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson from Foundry group.  After completion of the program, Foundry became the first US-based investors in Data Nerds and are working side by side the startup. Josh and the Data Nerds team have been through several Accelerate Okanagan programs and are deeply involved in the community while helping grow the tech sector in British Columbia.

Jason Kryski

An accomplished serial entrepreneur who has co-founded three companies in the digital marketing space, Jason assists US based venture and private-equity backed companies grow distribution and revenue. In 2015, Strawhouse helped drive $200M in partner revenue and created half a billion dollars in market value. 

Migrating from sales training and recruiting in his mid-twenties, he got his start in marketing and advertising via affiliate marketing. Leveraging performance compensation models, he learned early on that when all parties’ interests are aligned; profound things can happen.

Karen Hawes

Karen Hawes is Senior Vice-President, HR & Communications for Interior Savings Credit Union, responsible for 43 multi-community locations throughout the Interior, including Kamloops, South Okanagan, Merritt and the North Thompson region, in union and non-union environments.

Karen's 25-year career in the financial industry has been in a wide range of positions ranging from administrative to lending, with a particular focus on small business. Her six years of local Chamber board experience includes two years as president of the Kelowna Chamber, the largest Chamber in the B.C. Interior.

She joined the BC Chamber Board in 2014 and serves on the Succession Planning Committee.

Michael Macaulay

He has extensive experience working with entrepreneurs, emerging companies and venture capital funds in the technology, digital media, clean technology and life sciences sectors, including on matters relating to company formation and structuring, financing, mergers and acquisitions and commercial agreements.  He also has significant experience in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, securities and private equity and venture capital transactions. Michael has advised numerous start-ups, emerging companies, angel investors and venture capital funds and devotes significant time to organizations in the BC start-up community, including Accelerate Okanagan, Innovation Island, i4C Innovation Centre and entrpreneurship@UBC.  

Philip Ashman

Phil Ashman joined Okanagan College in 2002 as a professor in the department of Network and Telecommunications Engineering Technologies. He spend eight years in an instructional role before becoming department chair in 2010. Three years later he joined the College's leadership team as Associate Dean of Science, Technology and Health. He held that position for the last four years before recently taking on the role of Regional Dean for the Central Okanagan.

Phil holds a Master of Science in IT Network Infrastructure and Design as well as a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering.  Prior to joining Okanagan College, Phil spent 8 years working in Information Technology at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George and the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. Concurrent with his teaching responsibilities, he lead technology workshops, represented the college on the Board of Directors on the Okanagan Research and Innovation Centre, and spent three years as a Technical Lead with the Okanagan High-Speed Broadband Initiative.  

Dr. Philip Barker

Dr. Barker serves in the dual role of AVP Research for the UBC system and Vice-Principal Research for the Okanagan campusAs AVP, Dr. Barker works to deepen the research and innovation culture and build the structure and relationships to increase research and innovation capacity, as well as advocate for the University’s research and innovation mission, both inside and outside the University.

Quinton Pullen

Quinton is a Chartered Accountant and Senior Tax Manager at Grant Thornton LLP. Quinton’s primary focus is providing tax planning to owner-managed businesses, particularly with respect to divestiture planning, mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganizations, and cross-border transactions.

Born and raised in Kelowna, Quinton moved to the lower mainland to attend University and worked at Deloitte, specializing in international taxation. Quinton moved back to Kelowna in 2012, and has been involved in the community, as well as an active supporter of Accelerate Okanagan.

Nicole Rustad

Nicole is the founder of Vortoia and a champion for world change who uses equal parts strategy and passion to make things happen. Formerly the Corporate Citizenship Director for the tech division of Disney, for almost ten years she drove the corporate social responsibility vision, strategy, and programming across multiple lines of business. This included Disney’s Club Penguin where she created bold, immersive initiatives that spanned the globe.

Harry Singh

Harry is a Director at Intel Capital in San Francisco. Formerly, Harry worked at the Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park (California) driving Strategic Transactions and Partnerships to achieve Facebook’s strategic objectives. Previously at Intel Capital, Harry drove investments in Enterprise SaaS, Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning (AI/DL), and Security, IOT Security, Identity and Access Management (IAM), encryption, and anti-fraud. 

Doug Gilchrist

Doug started his career with the City of Kelowna in 2004 as Manager of Community Development & Real Estate before being named to the Senior Leadership Team in 2008 as Director of Real Estate. During his 14 years with the City of Kelowna, Doug has managed a variety of divisions and has overseen numerous complex projects, such as the acquisition of the CN Rail line for the Okanagan Rail Trail initiative.