You’re invited to join the U of T entrepreneurship community at our True Blue Expo-edition of the RBC Innovation & Entrepreneurship Speaker Series on March 21st at MaRS, featuring Michael Katchen of Wealthsimple as the keynote speaker.
New Canadian Entrepreneurship
Canada is known for many things—donuts, denim formalwear, polite apologies—but not the kind of bold thinking and risk-taking that propels the world’s biggest, most innovative companies. But the ingredients are all here: great schools breeding top talent, government infrastructure, institutional support. So why aren’t people around the world using Canadian products and services? And how can that change? In this keynote, Michael Katchen talks about why Canadian companies should be bolder and think bigger. And why, with the fast growth of companies like Shopify, Wealthsimple, Hootsuite, and more, we’re witnessing the dawn of the new age of Canadian entrepreneurship.
Speaker bio:
Michael Katchen is the CEO and co-founder of Wealthsimple, an innovative financial services firm operating in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. Frustrated by his options as a retail investor in Canada, Katchen started Wealthsimple to make smart investing easy, low-cost, and accessible to everyone, regardless of age or net worth. Wealthsimple launched in September 2014 and quickly established itself as a leader in Canada. In under four years, it has grown to manage $3 billion for more than 100,000 clients. Prior to founding Wealthsimple, Katchen led product and marketing at 1000memories, a Y Combinator startup that was acquired by Ancestry.com. Katchen started his career at McKinsey & Company, where he advised clients in finance and technology.
Katchen has been called an Industry Mover by the Financial Post, a Change Agent by Canadian Business magazine, and one of Toronto’s 50 most influential people by Toronto Life. He won Entrepreneur of the Year at the Canadian Startup Awards in 2017, is a winner of a EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award, was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 by Caldwell Partners International, and is a member of the Canadian Business Council.
We hope to see you at Michael Katchen’s talk. Don’t forget to walk through the True Blue Expo while you’re there. True Blue Expo registration is here. The True Blue Expo is the capstone event of U of T Entrepreneurship (March 18-22).
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