BUS477

There will be three judges on the panel this year, their bio's are as follows:

(please do not contact the judges prior to the competition)

Alex Pop

Manager Subordinate Financing

Business Development Bank of Canada

Alex has been with the BDC since 1996 and is part of BDC Capital Corporation, providing subordinate and mezzanine financing, as well as equity. Alex is based in Vancouver and is covering B.C. and Yukon. Many of the transactions financed are changes of ownership of businesses including management buy-outs and acquisitions as well as working capital for growth.  Alex has a degree in electrical engineering, has an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, and prior to joining the BDC has worked as an engineer and is author of two patents, was an entrepreneur and has worked for the United Nations Development Programme as a financial expert in developing countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Jim Derbyshire

Mentor-in-Residence; Program Director, Student Mentorship

Simon Fraser University

Jim Derbyshire is a Serial Entrepreneur, CEO, Angel Investor, Mentor, Advisor and Consultant. Jim started as an engineer and moved through engineering management, management consultancy to the start up world for the last 18 years. He has been CEO at Symbionics (Cambridge, UK) and SiGe Semiconductor (Ottawa, Canada) and has co-founded or been actively involved with over ten start ups. Jim has experienced growing businesses in many business models, part time “student”, low capital “soft start”, Angel, Corporate and VC backed, raising over $100M of finance during his career. He has worked in multiple countries for large (ITT), medium (Racal, Decca, PA Consulting) and start up enterprises operating in Systems, Products, Components, Software and IP Licensing and Management and Technical Consulting Fields.

Jim has a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Kingston University in the UK, is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the I.E.T., participated in I.E.E.E. and E.T.S.I. standards groups and has several granted patents.

Ian Hand

Ian is a serial entrepreneur, educator, consultant, investor, board member and volunteer. He is the founder and principal of Northwest Strategies Inc., a privately held financial advisory and investment firm, active in the technology, industrial, health care, financial and investment sectors.

Ian has extensive business planning, development and corporate finance experience, having structured and raised over $750 million in private and public equity and debt financings and managing multiple acquisition, merger and divestiture transactions and liquidity events.

Formerly, Ian cofounded, financed and developed several world class high net worth, venture and strategic investor-backed technology and communications sector firms, including Digital Interactive Video Access, a silicon valley firm that pioneered the development of digital video on demand platforms for the cable television industry licensed by Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, TIVO, Replay TV and Pace Micro that that are now in use worldwide, as well as Canada's first competitive local exchange and international interexchange telecommunications carriers and Canada’s leading medical information company.

Ian teaches finance and new ventures in the MBA programs at Simon Fraser University's Segal Graduate School of Business and UBC's Sauder School of Business Robert H. lee Graduate School. He has instructed and coached student teams that, inter alia, have won or placed as finalists in the MootCorp™ International MBA Business Plan Competition, the IBK Capital Ivey MBA Business Plan Competition (Canada's National MBA Business Plan Competition ), New Ventures BC Business Plan Competition, Enterprize Business Plan Competition and the Jungle MBA Life Science Business Plan Competition as well as advising individual students and teams who have launched new business ventures. He is an invited speaker at conferences and events for organizations including New Ventures BC, SuperCom CableWest, SoftWorld, CFA Institute, Comdex, BC Film, New Media BC, NVCA, CMA Canada, CGA, Learning Strategies Group and UBC UILO, among others.