Thrive through tech transformations

Ray Kruck (MBA’92) is a serial entrepreneur with over 24 years of experience in enterprise security with executive leadership roles in corporate development, marketing, and sales. In 2011, he co-founded Nexgate with a breakthrough platform to help brands discover, monitor, and secure their social presence. After Nexgate, Ray co-founded early-stage venture investment firm Pointgrey Partners, focused on deep technology plays that drive competitive disruption in enterprise and life science. In 2017, he founded and became CEO of security assurance platform Tugboat Logic Inc, which leverages advanced technology and embedded guidance to automate and simplify security management. He mentors startup ventures as an associate at the Creative Destruction Lab.

Dr. Joel Atwater (BASc’05, MASC’08, PhD’15) is an engineer, program manager, and entrepreneur. Presently he leads portfolio management at Google Research. Before Google Research, he spent five years at X, The Moonshot Factory (fka Google[x]) developing various technologies such as Makani, Tidal, Tapestry, and more. Before Alphabet, Joel founded HydroRun Technologies and Crosswind Power, and was an Industrial Research Scholar at BC Hydro. He has published scientific papers on energy policy, fluid mechanics, and environmental science; is an inventor on numerous patents; holds a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s and PhD in Civil Engineering from UBC; and is a professional engineer (BC).

Marianne Wu (BASc’90) is an investor, board member, and advisor. She is a venture partner at Congruent Ventures and Standard Investments, is on the board of several leading climate and deep tech companies, and advises groups fostering and scaling innovation to solve global challenges. She was previously president of GE Ventures where she managed a $1B portfolio focused on energy, industry, and healthcare, and advised senior GE executives. Earlier, she was a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures and VP Marketing at ONI Systems through IPO. She earned an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a BASc Engineering Physics from UBC.

Rebecca Ye (MASc’98, MBA’01) is the CEO and co-founder of Kyros.ai, which uses machine learning and AI to provide a one-stop College Prep solution to guide middle/high school students on the journey to college. Prior to that, she was a founding member of Google’s Cloud, where she spent six years building the partner ecosystem and spearheaded the launching strategies for various Big Data and AI products. She was also the co-founder and COO at Xcalar Inc., which developed next-gen Big Data and AI technologies for Fortune 500 customers.