Directors & Advisors
Charlotte Burke
Director
Charlotte Burke serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors, and currently serves as an entrepreneur in residence within the information and communications sector of BDC Venture Capital. Burke brings over 25 years of operational and marketing expertise in commercializing new technology and driving business expansion within the high tech sector.
Prior to BDC, Burke served as senior vice president and business unit leader of Bell Canada’s consumer Internet group, responsible for marketing, sales channels, product development and all aspects of operations. Burke also served as vice president of product marketing of Bell Mobility and lead Bell through three major technology transformations; the launch of digital cellular, wireless data services and the roll out of residential broadband. Previously, Burke served as senior general manager of consumer electronics at Sony Canada and national sales manager at Compaq Canada.
Douglas Parrish
Director
Douglas Parrish serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors, and is currently the executive vice president of global operations at Ascent Media Group, a provider of creative, technical and content distribution services to the media and entertainment industries. He is responsible for leading Ascent’s core media management operations and content distribution services.
Prior to Ascent Media, Parrish served as senior vice president, operations and development at Move Networks, an early leader in the Internet video streaming technology with its proprietary adaptive bit-rate protocol. Parrish also served as executive vice president and chief technology officer at the Walt Disney Internet Group, and divisional chief information officer at Polaroid Corporation.
Brian Collie
Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Brian Collie serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors and is the Founder and CEO, responsible for SeaWell’s overall management and strategic direction of the company, as well as business development and partnership activities.
He is a recognized technology entrepreneur who has started five new businesses in the last fifteen years, including co-founding both SeaWell and Chantry Networks. Chantry is a WLAN (WiFi) equipment provider, named one of Canada’s top 10 High Tech Stars in 2002 by the National Post and acquired by Siemens AG in January 2005. While with Siemens, Brian held the role of Senior VP, Business Development and established a new HD Video Conferencing Business Unit. Prior to Chantry, Brian co-founded the first Internet division at Nortel Networks and started their first VoIP business unit. Both of these divisions contributed significant revenue growth for Nortel. Brian has also held positions at Motorola’s Internet and Data Networking Group and started his career with Bell Canada.
Brian holds a B.Sc. in Honors Physics from the University of Waterloo and a M.Sc. in Systems Science from the University of Ottawa. He is in high demand in the tech community, where he spends time sharing his vision and experience with young and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Andrew Harrison, CFA
Director
Andrew Harrison serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors, representing Northwater Capital’s Intellectual Property Investment Fund where he is currently a Vice President and member of the investment committee. Northwater is a privately owned asset management firm with offices in Toronto, New York and Chicago . The Intellectual Property Fund was launched in early 2006 to invest in market changing ideas, protected by strong intellectual property, paired with world class management talent.
Andrew joined Northwater from Celtic House Venture Partners, a prominent venture capital fund with operations in Canada and the UK. Prior to Celtic House, he was with Primaxis Technology Ventures, a member of the RBC Ventures group of early-stage funds, where he contributed to the financing and development of many early-stage and growth companies, including Chantry Networks. Previous to his work in the venture capital and private equity industry, Andrew was a research engineer with the National Research Council of Canada.
Andrew holds a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and a B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from McGill University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Robert Myers
Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Director
Bob Myers serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors and is the Founder and CTO, responsible for setting the company’s technology direction and promoting ongoing innovation.
Bob has extensive experience in launching new businesses, building and executing product strategies, managing M&A activities, and developing OEM relationships. He has defined successful high-revenue product strategies for dial access, IP-VPN, VoIP, wireless LANs and video conferencing portfolios. Along with Brian Collie, Bob co-founded Chantry Networks and served as CTO, pioneering the evolution of wireless LAN solutions. After the acquisition of Chantry by Siemens, Bob served as VP of Emerging Solutions at Siemens Enterprise. Bob also helped found several key new businesses at Nortel Networks including the first program to address VoIP for carriers and the first initiative to directly address the Internet Service Provider market. While with Nortel he held several senior positions in product management and architecture, leading product strategy efforts.
Bob holds a BSEE degree from the University of Waterloo. He holds a number of patents on networking technologies, and his work has garnered two “Best of Shows” awards at Network World/Interop.
Kris Alexander
Advisor
Kris Alexander is an Advisor to SeaWell Networks, using his marketing experience in the digital media, gaming and high tech industries to provide guidance on the company’s products and go-to-market plans. Kris is the Product Line Director for the Media products at Akamai Technologies Inc., the leader in web application, acceleration and performance management, streaming media and content delivery. At Akamai, Kris has developed strategies and executed plans for the successful launch of new solutions and products including the Akamai HD Network with HD for Flash, HD for iPhone, HD for Silverlight, and Media Analytics, and the Akamai Media Delivery Solution.
Kris sits on the Advisory Board of Bigfoot Networks, a private company which provides hardware and software for gamers and mass market consumers that significantly enhance the online experience by maximizing network performance. Prior to Akamai, Kris held several positions with Genuity (formerly BBN Networks) including Director of Marketing and Strategy and Product Manager and also worked as an independent Marketing and Business Consultant. In 1999, he founded an independent record label, Empire Underwater Records in Boston which released multiple CDs, some at a national level.
He holds a BSE in Computer Engineering and BSBA in Marketing from Northeastern University and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson College.
Margo Crawford
Advisor, Human Resources and Administration
Margo, an Advisor through her organization, Business Sherpa, provides support with respect to people and process management at SeaWell. Margo’s career has spanned diverse and challenging environments with a focus on the high tech industry. Margo has provided HR and administrative services to Kindsight, a spin-out from Alcatel-Lucent, which is a value-added services provider specializing in network-based security solutions for residential internet use. Prior to Kindsight, Margo was a co-founder of Meriton Networks, a successful Ottawa-based start-up that raised over $75 million in equity financing. She was instrumental in hiring Meriton’s worldwide team and setting up office locations for offshore development and to serve Meriton’s customers around the world. Prior to Meriton, Margo worked for several years with EMS Technologies (formerly CAL Corporation). In addition to the high-tech industry, she has worked in the public and non-profit sectors and served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations.
Margo has an undergraduate degree from Carleton University and an MBA from Ottawa University. In Ottawa in 2005, she was recognized as a leader in her field, receiving the prestigious Vision Awards as Human Resources Professional of the Year.
Richard Mavrogeanes
Advisor
Rich Mavrogeanes is an Advisor to SeaWell Networks, using his experience to help shape the company’s technology development and go-to-market plans. Rich is the Founder of VBrick Systems, Inc., a world leader of live online networked video solutions. Rich serves on the board of directors of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance, the MPEG Industry Forum, the Connecticut Technology Council and the Connecticut Commission for Education Technology.
Rich previously served as CEO and Chairman of VBrick, a company he founded in 1997. Rich has spent the last 35 years in the communications industry and has been a founding executive at several other successful technology companies. His background includes senior technical, marketing and management positions at Avidia, Switched Network Technologies, Dataproducts Corporation (Government Division) and General DataCom. He also served in the U.S. Air Force.
Rich has received the “Innovator of the Year” award and was named one of seventeen industry executives to Federal Computer Week’s “Federal 100″ list for making a difference in Federal Information Technology. He was named an “A List” executive by Telecom Magazine, received the Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist Award, and accepted ComputerWorld’s Hero’s Award. He has authored many articles on the subject of networking, video, and streaming media and was named one of the top most influential people in the streaming media industry by Streaming Media Magazine.
Per Suneby
Advisor, Strategic Alliances
Per Suneby is an Advisor to SeaWell Networks, using his experience to help shape the company’s business and financing plans and to pursue strategic alliances.
Per is an established entrepreneur and start-up company executive with more than 20 years experience in the IT and network communications space. He currently serves as Executive Chairman of LiquidPiston, Inc. and SVP, Business Development for SiCortex, Inc, a Massachusetts-based “green computing” company.
In 1996 Per co-founded and served as President & CEO of Indus River Networks, Inc., an Internet communications company that was acquired by Enterasys Networks Inc. in January 2001. Following that acquisition, he was SVP of Corporate Development and responsible for Enterasys’ mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships and strategic technology investments. Per joined Flagship Ventures in 2002 as a Venture Partner and Executive-In-Residence. In 2004, he joined Chantry Networks, a Flagship portfolio company, as Vice-Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer. Following Chantry’s sale to Siemens AG, Per joined Converged Access Inc. as Chief Strategy Officer and later served as President & CEO. Per spent the early part of his career with General Electric and then joined Motorola, where he completed his 12-year career there as the head of the industry-leading cable data modem and enterprise data networking businesess.
Per has an Electrical Engineering undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.