Our Board of Directors

After graduation, David continued his journey with the brand, joining the corporate team in 1992, where he held a variety of positions including Vice President of Operations for Western Ontario, Vice President, Training, Operations Standards and Research and Development and Chief Operating Officer, United States and International.

With his expansive expertise, brand passion and in-Restaurant experience, David became President and Chief Operating Officer for Tim Hortons Canada in 2014. Two years later, he was appointed to his present advisory position – Chairman of Restaurant Brands International Canada.

Nicolas stands out as a visionary and inspiring leader, renowned for transforming challenges into opportunities. His career within the Desjardins Movement and Bell Canada demonstrates his ability to achieve sustainable transformations.  He also attaches great importance to establishing an inclusive, diverse and efficient work environment.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in business administration.

Nicolas shares his life with Philippe, both lovers of outdoor activities.

Since 2003, Sophie has been a managing partner with Brightspark, an early stage venture capital firm. She has led or overseen more than 50 investments in technology companies in Canada and abroad over the past 20 years. Sophie was involved in a number of successful VC backed companies including Touchtunes, Servicesoft, Think Dynamics, Protecode and Grapple. Sophie also played a pivotal role in the investment, growth and exit of Radian6, leading to a 23x multiple on capital invested — one of the most successful technology exits in Canadian history. Brightspark Ventures has won the Canadian Venture Capital Association “Deal of the Year Award”, twice for the sale of ThinkDynamics to IBM and for the sale of Radian6 to Salesforce.com.

Sophie is also a Board member of Centech, the accelerator and incubator associated with ESTS (EScole de Technologie Supérieure) in Montréal. Sophie is active in the Montreal tech community and mentors a number of young founders with a special interest in helping young female founders to strive in the ecosystem. As managing partner at Brightspark Sophie sits on the Board of Directors of a number of companies. Sophie won the “angel of the year” award for her contribution to the angel investment community in 2017, nominated by the National Angel Capital Organization of Canada.

In addition, David is leading CIBC’s Enterprise Payments program. David serves as a Director of CIBC Mellon, a joint venture between CIBC and Bank of New York Mellon. Previous roles in Technology supported CIBC Retail Bank’s Branch, Mobile, Web and Contact Centers as well as responsibility for a global team maintaining CIBC’s data centers, operations and application infrastructure.

With over 30 years of IT and Operations leadership experience, David was previously with Hewlett Packard responsible for delivering Infrastructure Managed services in Canada and the US and also worked in Outsourcing and Software development organizations in Canada and Australia.

D’Arcy has broad financial service experience in Canada and the US mainly in Marketing, Product Management, Distribution, Customer Experience, and leading Money-In businesses. He’s worked in Banking, Wealth Management, Insurance and across many corporate functions; most recently D’Arcy lead the Retail Savings & Investing business at another big 5 Canadian bank.

D’Arcy completed his undergraduate degree at Laurentian University and completed his MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business. He’s a long time Board Member of the Wellspring Cancer Foundation, he lives in Oakville with his wife, Laura, and daughters Sydney & Chloe. In his spare time, he enjoys Biking, Skiing, Running, and Hiking.

At Sobeys, Bill was responsible for the leadership and oversight of all aspects of growing the company from a $9 billion to a $17 billion organization by leading the development and execution of the company’s long-term strategic plan, building an executive leadership team and executing Sobeys’ food-focused growth initiatives.

Bill began his career at Ferraro’s Ltd., Super Valu Stores, serving 13 years with the company in both B.C. and Alberta in a variety of store, operations, merchandising, procurement and general management roles. He has held a variety of progressively senior marketing and merchandising roles in the consumer packaged goods industry and has played an active leadership role in a number of industry and charitable organizations. He is the recipient of the Golden Pencil Award, the Canadian grocery industry’s highest honour; the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors Robert Beaudry Award of Retail Leadership Excellence; the Retail Council of Canada’s Lifetime Achievement Award; and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his commitment and service to Kids Help Phone.

Bill and his wife Donna reside in Meaford, Ontario.

In his current role, Mat is responsible for driving BMO’s digital transformation while overseeing the bank’s retail deposit, investing, unsecured lending and home financing businesses in Canada.

Mat joined BMO in 2010, where he has held progressively senior roles in the Corporate Strategy, Digital and Personal and Business Banking areas. He holds an Honours Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Mat also serves on the Board of Directors of Good Shepherd Ministries in Toronto, which provides over 450,000 meals and shelters over 1,500 people annually. In addition to sponsorship and advocacy, he is passionate about helping the organization leverage digital to drive more significant, sustainable, and consistent donations.

Mat’s expertise in digital transformation, strategy and product management will be an asset in steering the Interac growth strategy as the company continues to broaden access for Canadians to connect to the digital economy.

Sona’s foundational experience was set in successive Product and P&L Management leadership roles in Personal Banking. She has had complementary experience in Branch Banking, Analytics, Technology and Credit Risk. In addition, Sona served in key enterprise assignments; leading the Personal Banking scope of the Sales Practices Review (2017) and TD’s Apple Pay project (2015). During her 18 years at TD, her roles have spanned Canadian Personal Banking, Auto Finance and Insurance.

Sona is an active supporter of TD’s passionate commitment to inclusion and diversity and serves on the TD Enterprise Visible Minorities Committee.

In the community, Sona served with Habitat for Humanity between 2008 and 2017, including as Chair of the Brampton Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors, and subsequently on the Greater Toronto Area, Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors. Sona earned her Bachelor of Arts and Science at McMaster University
and MBA at Queen’s University.

Sona and her husband Raj have 2 children.

Prior to this role, Ramesh led RBC’s Technology & Operations (T&O) Strategy & Transformation for more than two years, where he led the planning and coordination of the transformation program to build leading edge digital and solution delivery capabilities. Ramesh joined RBC in 2017 from A T Kearney, where he was a Partner leading consulting engagements globally on strategy, operations and technology transformation and innovation. Previously, Ramesh held a variety of roles in retail and commercial banking at HSBC over a 10-year period.

Ramesh is a Chartered Accountant and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) from the University of Delhi in India, and holds an MBA from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Ramesh is active in diversity and mentorship programs and serves as the co-chair of the Black Professionals in Technology Champion’s Roundtable. He has previously served on the Board of Payments Canada. Ramesh resides in Oakville, Ontario with his wife and two daughters.

Prior to joining Central 1, Sheila was Chief Financial Officer at Payments Canada, which operates the country’s payments clearing and settlement systems. This follows a 17-year career at the Bank of Canada as Chief Risk Officer, and Advisor to the Governor, and Chief Financial Officer.

As President and CEO at Central 1, Sheila is responsible for leading the organization to deliver on its purpose of enabling a thriving credit union system. Transformation is a key tenet of Sheila’s mandate as she guides the organization, its members and clients through challenging market conditions and the rapid pace of innovation that is changing the face of the credit union sector.

Jeremy can offer insights on the evolution of the payments and verification landscape and how Interac products and services help Canadians to digitally interact with confidence.