Board of Directors
Back row: Craig Hayashi, Matey Nedkov, Blake Witkin
Front row: Marnie Walker, Rob Koturbash
Rob Koturbash – Managing Director
Rob Koturbash is the founding Managing Director of Maple Leaf Angels. He is an active investor and has invested in several early stage companies. Prior to Maple Leaf Angels, Rob served as VP Finance and Operations for Snipe Networks. Mr. Koturbash was also VP at Mobile and RFID Data Systems. Previously, he was involved with the analysis and finance of rapid growth technology companies at Woodmere Court Investments. He was an associate at Helix Investments, a well established Canadian venture fund, and was a director of Agile Systems. Rob holds a BSME from Tufts University and a M.Sc. in Engineering Management from Stanford University.
Craig Hayashi
Craig Hayashi is a founding board director of Maple Leaf Angels. He has been involved with angel investing since 2005 and has invested in several early stage companies. Craig is a regular contributor to StartupNorth, Canada’s leading start-up blog, where he writes on various topics relating to early stage company financing. Previously he was head of IT for Marsh Canada and was responsible for Marsh’s e-commerce strategy, internal systems development, and technology operations. Craig holds a Masters and Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Carleton University.
Matey Nedkov
Matey Nedkov is a founding director of Maple Leaf Angels. Matey is the founder and current president of Nedcorp Holdings Inc, a corporation specializing in domestic and international Investment Banking, International Corporate Expansion and M&A among small- and medium-size enterprises. He is a shareholder and Chairman of Eminence II, a CPC/TSX Venture Company. Previously, Matey founded Infonet Media which became the largest in-store advertising company in Canada and Europe. Infonet was sold to Actmedia after 17 years of operations and is now owned and operated by Newscorp Canada, one of Rupert Murdoch’s companies. In addition to serving on the board of Maple Leaf Angels, Matey is on the board of the National Angel Capital Organization of Canada, a committee member of the Angel Capital Associations of the USA and the Canadian representative of La Baule World Investment Conference.
Marnie Walker
Marnie Walker is a founding board director of Maple Leaf Angels. A serial entrepreneur, Marnie has recently launched her newest venture, 401 Bay Centre, an innovative managed office solutions provider in downtown Toronto. Marnie is best known for her entrepreneurial achievement in building Student Express from a start-up in 1990 to a multi-million dollar school bus company with a fleet of 250 buses. She has been named Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year and Extraordinary Woman of the Year, and ranked 37th in the Profit W100 Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs of 2004. A keynote speaker and Angel investor, Marnie holds an ICD.D Board of Directors’ certification and teaches Entrepreneurship at the Schulich School of Business. She is a resident of Australia, where she owns an on-line pet supply company called ‘Petitude’.
Blake Witkin
Blake Witkin is a founding director of Maple Leaf Angels. Blake is currently a principal, executive and founding board director of high-tech start-up Atra Vision Inc. Blake was formerly Vice President of Photon Dynamics Canada Inc., and an original private investor and key executive of its founding firm Image Processing Systems Inc., a TSX-listed corporation ranked #1 in growth by Profit Magazine. Mr. Witkin is a veteran international business developer and for over 15 years has spent an average of six weeks each year in Asia, Europe and the Americas taking computer engineering products to market, including the development of significant business in Japan, Korea, China, Western EU countries, the United States and Brazil. Blake has long experience building and managing strategic technology development and supply alliances with multinational corporations, including firms such as Nokia, Toshiba, Philips and LG.