Mission + Vision

Be an impact-driven network that supports the growth of accelerators and incubators across Canada through collaboration, education, connection, and national and international stakeholder strategic exchanges.

A network of sustainable and successful accelerators and incubators across Canada, marking Canada as an international leader in values-driven innovation and ecosystem growth.

OUR TEAM

Founder and Board Chair

Stacey Wallin

Stacey Wallin is the Founder and Board Chair, with a background in founding and growing companies and in the investment banking industry. Through her role as Director of Venture Programs for the BC Tech Association, she led the team developing accelerators for companies in BC with a mandate of solving the largest ecosystem and policy-related challenges facing growth and scale stage technology companies.

Stacey herself has founded three organizations, including CAIN. The first was LifeBooster, a tech startup now helping Fortune 100 clients detect and proactively respond to workplace injury risks. Stacey was also the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Numinus, a publicly traded company on the TSX-V creating an ecosystem of health solutions centred around developing and supporting the safe, evidence-based, accessible use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and at the forefront of addressing the growing prevalence of mental health issues and the desire for greater wellness.

CEO

Chris Diaper

Chris has a wealth of experience in startup ecosystem development. In his previous role as Managing Director at CAIN he developed the startup tracker service and established CAIN’s lead role in the Business Accelerator and Incubator Performance Measurement Framework, a multi-year data project between CAIN, MAIN, Stats Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and Canadian incubators and accelerators. Prior to that, he was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at TEC Edmonton where he built and ran their international startup programming and secured $15M in funding.

Chris started his career by obtaining a PhD in chemistry and working in the pharmaceutical sector. He ran the medicinal chemistry program for a Canadian startup before transitioning to business development, covering sales in European and North American markets for a Canadian contract research organization. 

Advisor & Research Lead

Matt Mayer

Matt has extensive experience applying systems-thinking, facilitating strategy and advancing leadership in all sectors across North America. Unifying people and fostering collaboration is his specialty in the pursuit of evolving organizations into those that the future requires of us. Matt has founded and grown 2 consulting firms in the last 10 years working with organizations across all sectors, company sizes (mostly with mid-market companies) and various industries (many in the natural foods and energy sector) to strategically move towards a sustainable future, including facilitating collaboration and innovation between them. Examples of the latter include accelerating an energy transition in Canada (Energy Futures Lab), creating a circular economy in the packaging sector in Ontario (Circular Economy Innovation Lab), engaging citizens in Red Deer on climate leadership (Climate Leadership Lab), increasing the adoption of regenerative agriculture in Alberta, and more.

Matt has a MSc in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, a BComm. degree in General Management from University of Victoria and is currently working towards a Doctor of Business Administration degree at the University of Calgary. He is a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University on business courses related to strategy, innovation and sustainable development.

Manager - Stakeholder Relationships

Johanna Lau

Johanna Lau is the Manager of Stakeholder Relations at CAIN, where she supports strategic initiatives to share ecosystem learnings and strengthen member relations.

She is currently pursuing a BCom degree at McGill University, with a triple concentration in Sustainability, Operations, and Labour Relations. Originally from Edmonton, she always focused on giving back to her community – whether it was serving as Student Trustee to provide student voice on policy decisions in her school division, or advocating for youth citizenship as a United Way Youth Ambassador. At McGill, she is the Editor in Chief for ESG McGill, a youth-founded business club that publishes articles on ESG topics. Johanna deeply believes that business innovation can be a force for social good, and aims to be involved in the developmental shift toward sustainable business.

CAIN Board