The Manitou Islands appearing to float above Lake Nipissing in a Fata Morgana mirage

North Bay is not where I'm from. It's what I'm from.

My grandfather was a Federal Labour Officer during the Depression, working on behalf of people who had nothing. My father taught himself electricity and built a trades business from scratch. He died at 38 in a workplace accident when I was eight. My mother went back to teaching on $6,000 a year and raised two sons on that, and her own considerable strength.

That formation, people who built things with their hands and their will and asked only for a fair chance, is what I carry into every boardroom and advisory engagement.

I have been called an Iconoclast since I was 39, in a private note from a mentor who cited Gwynne Dyer and closed with: The future is yours, live it. I had been trying to live that since I was 15.

I have spent forty years in enterprise technology, building, advising and challenging the path most organizations are on. My career ran from Moore Business Forms in Northern Ontario through a Northern Ontario telco, Bell Canada, EMC, Savvis and OpenText. That is what Move Add Change is built on.

Three things I know to be true

Canada's digital infrastructure gap is a sovereignty failure.

The communities built on railways and rivers are being left behind by the digital economy. Bridging that gap requires dual-use thinking: the same infrastructure that connects remote communities can strengthen national security. Canada has the assets. It has not fully recognized what it possesses.

Indigenous reconciliation and digital inclusion are the same conversation.

My family's relationship with Dokis First Nation on the Upper French River predates my professional work by half a century. The professional work followed. Ontario Northland was Canada's first telco to become an Internet Service Provider, and I helped bring the World Wide Web to Moosonee, Moose Factory and Temagami before internet service was available in North York. That is Development Road work: connecting the communities railways and rivers built to the digital economy they were being asked to wait for. The childhood relationship with Dokis is why this work was never abstract for me. The early career at Ontario Northland is why I know it can be done.

Good governance of technology requires understanding it.

Most boards govern technology from a distance. The boards I sit on and help build govern it from the inside.

Appointments and memberships

Board member, Ontario Centre of Innovation, appointed by the Government of Ontario in February 2024, and a member of its AI Steering Committee.
Governance consultant and strategic advisor to Sierra Sun Group since February 2026.
Member, Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD).
Member, Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI).
Member, Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
Member, Canada's Rural and Remote Broadband Community (CRRBC).

The future is yours. Let's build it.

If you are forming a board, preparing for public markets, adopting AI or entering a new market, I would like to hear about it. Send me a note here, or use the details below.

I meet on Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or in person in Toronto.