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Tess Van Thielen is the Vice President of Advanced Services at Rogers for Business. With over 20 years experience in the technology and telecom industry, including 15 years at Rogers, Tess has held a variety of roles in product management, marketing, operations, and strategic planning.

Known for executional excellence in delivering critical team projects and results; Tess’s key strengths are in planning, resourcing, and directing complex activities – specifically for projects/programs that present a stiff challenge. She relishes putting plans into actions that achieve important goals.

At Rogers for Business, Tess and her team lead the strategy, business development, and commercialization of our 5G, Internet of Things, Data Centre, and Advanced Network solutions portfolio.

Prior to joining Rogers in 2005, Tess lived in Australia for 8 years and worked in the telecommunications industry in product management and product development. Tess has a BA from Mount Allison University and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.

John Mollenhauer is President & CEO of The Toronto Construction Association (TCA), Canada’s oldest and largest mixed trade association with more than 1,800 member companies. He is also President & Vice-Chancellor of The Construction Institute of Canada (TCIC), sits on several Boards of Directors, serves on the program advisories for a number of Ontario colleges and universities, and was the recipient of an honorary fellowship with the UK based Chartered Institute of Builders (CIOB). During his 35 tenure in the construction industry, Mr. Mollenhauer has held senior management positions with such companies as Mollenhauer Ltd., Contractors and Engineers, the Cadillac Fairview Corporation, and Citiplex Resources Inc., where he served as President & CEO before joining TCA in January 2005. Mr. Mollenhauer was educated at Upper Canada College and Queen’s and Ryerson Universities.

With a 30-year career in the built environment and technology in North America, Europe, and Asia, Mikele is a recognized leader in urban innovation.

In 2019, Mikele co-founded Innovate Cities, a not-for-profit funded by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario with a mandate to create a smart city cluster in the region, and acted as the organization’s Executive Director for its first year of operation, before returning to focus on her core business, Urban Living Futures.

Mikele founded Urban Living Futures in 2016 and created the UPPliftÒ Urban Pilot Platform, matching innovators with technical and business resources, and opportunities to deploy their solutions with global cities and building operators. She launched UPPlift: Toronto in 2018, sponsored by Microsoft, Intel, and IESO, to scout for and pilot innovations in the City of Toronto and QuadReal Property Group.

In 2015, Mikele established a pioneering program at Canary Wharf in London – Cognicity, an urban innovation accelerator, attracting novel urban technologies from around the world to pilot within a high-profile urban district. Prior to that, Mikele helped set up the UK Government’s centres of excellence: the Future Cities and Energy Systems Catapults and acted as a consultant to the Greater London Authority and the Smart Cities Expo World Congress in Barcelona.

Previously, Mikele led the Cities sector in General Electric’s Global Growth & Operations team, developing commercial models for sustainable energy solutions. Earlier in her career, as an urban planner, Mikele worked on sustainable development studies for new urban areas, regeneration areas, and urban infrastructure systems in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Mikele is also an advisor and mentor to smart city startups, and an industry expert assessor for SME funding for Innovate UK, MIT Technology Review, and Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster.

Brenda Beckedorf was selected as Executive Director of Alberta IoT on August 1st, 2019 by the Alberta IoT Board. Brenda started her career in technology with Graycon Group as Director of Business Development for Canada. Brenda moved on to start her own company “Launch Strategic Group” in 2017 with a focus on supporting growth in technology companies through sales strategies. She works closely with companies that focus on IoT Solutions across verticals such as mining. farming, and O&G to increase their markets, adding process and establishing new verticals. She has a vast array of vendor and partner connections that bring increased value to those who work with her.

She has strong business acumen and many years of experience understanding the business issues of clients across a multitude of technologies. Over her many years in building teams, Brenda has demonstrated leadership with both her teams and her strategic partners.

In her role as Executive Director, Brenda’s focus will be to increase government and local industry awareness of Alberta IoT through dialogue, events, and social. Investing in our IoT business community by highlighting their skills and building a community that can support and grow together will be part of her mandate.

John Boktor leads PCL’s Digital Construction team based in Toronto, Ontario. Under John’s leadership, the team is driving digital transformation in one of PCL’s largest districts, influencing change across the corporation. He is a frequent guest lecturer on the topic of construction technology, and a member of Ontario General Contractors Association’s established Technology Committee.

Travis Allan is an experienced and driven entrepreneur with a passion for cultivating start-up organizations. He first joined Eddy’s team as an investor and member of the board in 2018 and later that year stepped into the role of CEO and President. Recently, he built a privately-held retail services outlet from idea inception into a national, 40-site franchise employing more than 400 employees. With an MBA from Western University’s Ivey School of Business, Travis has the knowledge and background to facilitate a rapid growth in business development, profitability, and shareholder value.

With a passion for delivering exceptional value and education to property owners, Shkya has spent more than 14 years in the home and building services sector. Shkya has been with Eddy since its inception, working with Insurance companies and brokers in Canada and the US. She has provided Eddy’s accredited training on leak protection to thousands of insurance professionals in Canada.

As Eddy’s VP of Sales and PropTech, Elliott works with various stakeholders in real estate, at various stages of the asset lifecycle, to assess infrastructure challenges & risks associated with water damage in the built environment in order to establish data-driven solutions that protect against these risks through IoT powered technology; Elliott also works with other service and software providers across the real estate industry to establish partnerships and cross-functional use cases in the PropTech space.

John Harvey has spent the past 2 decades in the insurance industry having worked for major carriers in various leadership and consulting roles. He holds an MBA and certifications in risk management and lean six sigma.
John has led claims, operations, process excellence as well as retail sales and distribution (through direct to consumer retail insurance branches selling life, health, wealth and P&C products). John also spent several years as an executive working for one of the world's largest aftermarket franchisors serving Canada's largest insurance companies. After launching several of his own start-up companies; John recently founded Insurtech Canada, a community focused on advancing the cause for innovation in insurance. John also acts as the principal advisor for his own consulting practice (SAIL Consulting Group Inc.) in addition to partnering with several insurtech start-ups and other insurance related businesses as a fractional executive and strategic advisor. John is married with 4 children and lives in the Halton region just outside of Toronto.

Kevin is Executive Vice President of Client Experience at Long View. As part of the Long View leadership team for over 20 years Kevin has helped grow the organization from 9 people to over 1,300 and over 480 million in annual revenue to be the 5th largest IT service provider in Canada. Kevin also servers on the Alberta IoT Board focusing on the Center of Excellence initiatives. Kevin is also an accomplished endurance athlete having completed The Spine a 268-mile ultramarathon that is identified as one the top 10 hardest races in the world as well several ultra-marathons including the Moab 240, Canadian Death Race, and an ironman

John joined the PCL family in 1987 and has worked in various operational roles in Toronto, Ottawa, and Halifax. Prior to taking on his current role, he spent over a decade establishing and growing the PCL brand in Atlantic Canada.

John has a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Calgary, as well as a master of business administration from the University of Western Ontario. He is a Canadian Construction Association Gold Seal certified project manager, and a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario. During his career in the construction industry, John worked on many landmark projects including Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place), the Scotia Bank Place (formerly the Air Canada Centre) and the Canadian War Museum.

John was involved with the board of directors of the Construction Association of Nova Scotia for ten years which included roles on the executive committee and a year as chairman. He also served two, 3-year terms on the board of governors for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Nova Scotia Community College and was heavily involved with the United Way from 2003 to 2014.

John was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013 for his contribution to the construction industry and community, and was named one of Atlantic Canada’s Top Business Leaders in 2013 and 2014; an award that celebrates senior executives who define leadership excellence in business growth and management challenges while being civic and community builders.

Appointed to Vice President, Corporate Development, National Operations in 2015, John now leads relationship management and business development for PCL’s existing and prospective national clients and is an integral part of the Toronto District Business Development team.

Joseph founded Tribe in 2011 and has been overseeing its operations and expansion since. Prior to this, he was the Chief Operating Officer of TIO Networks, a former TSX listed company that was acquired by Paypal. Joseph currently serves on the Policy Advisory Council of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA). He is also a board member of OctoAI Technologies Corp. and Minehub Technologies Inc. Joseph studied Civil and Structural engineering and Business Management courses at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

Lawrence has an extensive background in technology sales - specifically in the delivery and implementation of new technologies in multi-family homes and buildings. For the past 16 years, he has been instrumental in delivering new hardware and software solutions to over 85,000 new multi-family homes across North America and has worked across a variety of industries including Telecommunications, Retail, Advertising, Hospitality, Real Estate and Software.