Vendasta was formed in January of 2008 and quickly drummed up $3 million in venture capital funding later that summer. After acquiring another $8.25 million of funding in 2013, we grew from a handful of developers to a 200+ strong team working at a landmark location in downtown Saskatoon. This success has come under the leadership of Vendasta’s executives.
Brendan King
Chief Executive Officer
Intense, boisterous, imaginative. Brendan King, co-founder and CEO of Vendasta Technologies, is the innovative force of the company. Responsible for providing the vision, thought leadership and business strategy, it is Brendan’s ability to focus on the big picture while maintaining quality on the finest details that facilitates Vendasta’s success. Prior to co-founding Vendasta, Brendan proved his worth through many business ventures, including founding two other successful companies, one of which was nationally franchised. He also provided the entrepreneurial force behind Point2 Agent, a real estate software, where he grew its membership to over 165,000 agents and brokers in 85 countries. Brendan and Vendasta are almost synonymous. Both are governed by four core values: drive, innovation, respect and agility. Brendan is extremely passionate about upholding these core values while leading Vendasta down a path of innovation to become the number one provider of essential brand management products.
Richard Cheung
Chief Financial Officer
Richard Cheung is responsible for keeping the books in order, organizing our finances, and acting as the CEO’s right hand, money-focused man. Richard is a seasoned C-level executive with broad financial and operational experience in a range of high-growth, venture-funded, and early stage companies through to NASDAQ-listed public companies. Richard previously held the role of CFO at Vancouver-based TIO Networks Corp. which was sold to PayPal, Inc. for $305 million in 2017, and also served as Vice President of Business Development for Fusemail, a subsidiary of j2 Global, Inc.
Jeff Tomlin
Chief Marketing Officer
Jeff Tomlin is a visionary in all things marketing, SEO, business strategy and digital. As a co-founder of Vendasta, Jeff’s passion and innovative nature drives the success of the business. While conducting market research and business analysis, Jeff is always measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of the marketing efforts. He is constantly developing and iterating marketing and PR plans, seeking out the most effective paths. In working with channel partners to help their business clients to grow revenue with digital media solutions, strengthen traditional media assets and develop digital sales strategies, Jeff is known to many of America’s top media companies. Prior to co-founding Vendasta, Jeff was the VP of strategy and business development at Point2, where he helped grow a real estate platform from the ground to power over 185,000 agents in 84 countries.
George Leith
Chief Revenue Officer
George is responsible for business development with Vendasta’s large media partners, as well as managing our in-house sales team. A digital interpreter, George has preached the gospel of online reputation management directly to the local businesses of hundreds of cities across North America. He translates his knowledge of the digital landscape into accessible information for those still stuck in the rut of traditional media. With nearly three decades of experience in marketing, sales and promotion, George is a highly compelling speaker, always in demand across North America — vital content and emphatic delivery are combined for an enlightening presentation. George’s expertise in sales, training, networking, management and marketing comes from the numerous executive and ownership positions he has held across multiple media and service related businesses. His track record of success is continued here at Vendasta.
Dale Hopkins
Chief Technology Officer
Dale is a technical visionary with a passion for the big picture. A constant forger of new ideas, his deep understanding of system-level programming equips him with the right skills to strengthen Vendasta’s reputation as a world leader in distributed applications using cloud-based infrastructure. He also brings an entrepreneurial background to the table—having co-founded LucidHelix Solutions in 2008, a company that specialized in diagnostic software for digital television networks—along with an Engineering Physics degree and over twelve years experience as a developer and architect. He revels in large-scale thinking and hands-on prototyping, and spends most of his time identifying new technologies that push our limits, lower our costs and continue to ensure Vendasta is the number one workplace for Canadian software developers.
Jacqueline Cook
Chief Strategy Officer
Jacqueline is responsible for driving a growth mindset throughout Vendasta. She encourages alignment, focus and execution cross-functionally with Engineering, Design, Product Management, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Support and Success. She leads Vendasta’s internationalization strategy and analyzes key customer insights and trends in order to feed back throughout the rest of the organization. Jacqueline is an alumnus of The Next 36 Entrepreneurial Institute, Canada’s premier entrepreneurial leadership initiative. During the program, she co-founded and was CEO of Triumf Mobile Rewards: a tablet and Smartphone-based platform for small and medium-sized businesses to customize their own loyalty rewards programs. She has been a speaker at events such as TEDx UofS and WE DAY 2015, and has represented Canada at the 2010 G8 and G20 Summits, the 2010 APEC Summit in Japan, and at the 2011 G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit in France.
Ed O’Keefe
EVP, Marketplace
Heading up Vendasta’s Marketplace, Ed powers mass sales channels of thousands of reps with a breadth of innovative products. Anticipating innovations for forthcoming problems, he has successfully owned and built organizations in both large media and start up environments. Having lived and operated some of these ventures internationally, Ed is a lead strategist in Vendasta’s internationalization blueprint, forging essential relationships in North America, Europe and further. An ambitious visionary who’s passion is rivalled only by his keen sense of business acumen, Ed has long been a pioneer in the digital advertising ecosystem. Aligning pertinent vendors, a rapidly growing salesforce and Vendasta’s vision is not only Ed’s job, but what he is resoundingly passionate about.
Jeff Folckemer
Executive Vice President
Jeff was Vendasta’s very first customer and joined the team after a decade of working with the platform. He is the steward of Vendasta’s high-value business partnerships, working daily to make its enterprise partnerships stronger. He has more than 20 years experience in sales, marketing, and operations in U.S. media, helping newspapers, tv stations, radio groups, and yellow page companies transition to new digital revenue streams. He has spent his career helping to build and scale digital solutions that solve real world issues.
Gib Olander
Executive Vice President of Product
Gib Olander has more than two decades of experience in the local digital marketing ecosystem, specializing in SaaS and data solutions. Gib most recently led product strategy at Infutor, and also lead product development and strategy for SIM Partners (Reputation,com) Local Viewpoints (PowerReviews), Localeze (Neustar), iCrossing, Advo, and Citysearch.
Jesse Redl, Lead Site Reliability Engineer
Kevin Harder, Director of Finance
Bryan Larson, VP Product Design
Doug Campbell, VP of Revenue
Troy Wruck, GM of Marketing Services
Devon Hennig, VP of Demand Generation
Desiree Kupietz, VP of Partner Development
Michael Watkins, VP of Partner Success
Jean Parchewsky, VP of People Operations
Dani Mario, Director of Corporate Marketing & Communications
Light Go, In-House Counsel
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