Michelle Zatlyn is Co-Founder, President and COO of Cloudflare, the Internet security, performance, and reliability company on a mission to help build a better Internet. Cloudflare is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: NET). Prior to co-founding Cloudflare, Michelle held positions at Google and Toshiba and launched two successful startups. 
 
Michelle sits on the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Foundation Board. She has been named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list and was part of Marie Claire’s 7th Annual New Guard. She holds a B.S. degree, with distinction, from McGill University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was awarded the Dubilier Prize for Entrepreneurship. 

“No matter how amazing you are as a founder, you need a team. You need a great team. A lot of smart people want to join a company making an impact.” 

In this week’s episode of the #StartupCanadaPodcast, sponsored by Mastercard, Michelle Zatlyn encourages you to make your world bigger, explains the difference between good and great business and the role of companies when it comes to the future of work.

Startup Canada Podcast

Startup Podcast E327 - Making Your World Bigger with Michelle Zatlyn

Jenn Denouden is the President and CEO of Avana, named Canada’s tenth fastest-growing company on the 2020 Growth List, making it the first-ever female-led company from Saskatchewan to break the Top 10 in the list’s 32-year history. Avana paves the way as a real estate development company with nearly $400 million in assets under management today. Avana is a purpose-led organization committed to building attainable, safe, quality housing. 
 
Jenn translated a successful career in private banking to found Avana in 2014 with her sights set on breaking down the “old boys’ club” of the real estate world. Avana has since gone on to achieve 9888% growth over five years and holds 45% of Regina, Saskatchewan’s new development permits. In addition, Jenn is passionate about helping women and children escaping domestic abuse through privately funded housing support and the extensive work of the Avana Foundation. With Saskatchewan leading provincial domestic violence statistics in Canada, Jenn’s mission is to provide single-mother families access to safe housing. Avana has also committed $2 million to the development of the YWCA Regina’s Women’s Centre. 
 
As a young female leader, Jenn is mindful about using her platform to raise awareness and has supported organizations like the YWCA Regina, SOFIA House, Walk a Mile Regina, and the Regina Food Bank. Having had to break barriers and a glass ceiling or two in a male-dominated industry, Jenn is an advocate for equality and female empowerment and makes it her life’s work to build a better community and society for her kids to experience. Jenn lives in Regina with her husband and four young children and can be spotted scouting development sites with her hot pink hard hat.

“I look forward to the day where there is competition for Avana and we can’t enter a market because there are too many people doing what we do. That would be a beautiful day for our country.”

In this week’s episode of the #StartupCanadaPodcast, sponsored by Mastercard and powered by Zensurance, Jenn shares how Avana is disrupting Canada’s real estate sector, the company's unwavering values, and encourages you to set goals that force you to think differently.

Startup Canada Podcast E328 - Institutionalizing Compassion with Jennifer Denouden

Sarah Jakeway is Vice President, CFO Canada for Mastercard, responsible for overseeing the Market’s finance activities.  She works closely with the President of Mastercard Canada to drive strategic growth and sits on the leadership teams for Canada and North America Finance. 

Since joining Mastercard in 2011, Sarah has held several roles with increasing levels of responsibility within North America Markets and Corporate Finance.  Sarah has a strong understanding of the payments industry and a broad view into managing a payments business gained through experience as a Director, Finance business partner for Services in North America as well as Director, Finance business partner for US Regional Banks. Prior to her business partner roles in North America, Sarah led the team responsible for the overall completeness and accuracy of the Quarterly Mastercard Report process and led the development and delivery of product profitability reporting for Mastercard.  Sarah is a recipient of 2 Mastercard CFO awards and is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. 

Sarah is an active volunteer, fundraiser and a passionate Mentor in topics around being your own personal finance champion, career development and life as a career mom. She graduated cum laude from Loyola University with a BBA in Finance and lives in Toronto with her husband Phil, sons PJ and Jonathan, and dogs Cricket and Brooklyn.

“Leadership during the pandemic - it’s not so much a change versus a reinforcement that during times of change, we really require stability.”

In this week’s episode of the #StartupCanadaPodcast, sponsored by Mastercard and powered by Zensurance, Sarah talks about the challenges that come with people management during COVID, approaching leadership through decency, and mission critical - diversity and inclusion.

Startup Canada Podcast

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