Stanford University Graduate School of Education

Abertay University

University of Bristol

Canadian Personal Property Appraisal Canada - CPPAG

Strategic Innovation Leader  -  Creator of Startup Products  -  Collaborative Community Builder

Spatula's vision is to give Canadians a solution in the kitchen that's ultra-convenient and crazy delicious. They believe that you deserve to eat without compromising on time or quality.

They imagine a future where the full potential of high-quality frozen meals can be unlocked.

They aim to do this by curating a wide selection of restaurant-quality frozen dishes in Canada both through our own kitchens and through brand partnerships.

Spatula just received $500 K from Arlene Dickson of Dragon's Den - Congratulations !!

SPATULA Foods

Angel Investor

Usha is also the founding director of BReady Talent program delivered by Brampton Venture Zone. This program was launched in March of 2023 to solve one problem - the underutilization of immigrant talent. The City of Brampton with 800,000 people is rich with talented international students, mid-career professionals, New Canadians and other racialized community members eager to work but face challenges in finding meaningful employment that matches their skill sets and true potential. Find out more on how we are solving for this at - https://www.torontomu.ca/bready-talent-platform/

BReady Talent Platform

Founding Director of BReady Talent Platform

Brampton Venture Zone by TMU

Founding Director

Sid Buck Records (https://sidbucknor.com/) is a vintage reggae record label dedicated to re-releasing the iconic compositions of Norman "Sid" Bucknor. Worked hand in hand with the CEO on all aspects of the publishing and record label business. This included everything from cataloging the digitized music, developing the website, setting up social media pages (IG, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Youtube), email marketing, creating content and posts, registration of compositions in performing and mechanical rights organizations, growing the team to four employees, strategizing on digital and vinyl releases, executing on digital & vinyl releases through Distrokid & Bandcamp, finding competitive pricing for vinyl pressing, creating album covers on Mid Journey, researching song credits, finding global distributors, vinyl shipments, liaison with law firms for contract negotiation and disputes, establishing a DISCO account for sync opportunity exploitations and more.

Sid Buck Records

Co-Founder & VP of Catalog Development - Sid Buck Records

Petit Paris is a French-inspired patisserie on the beaches. Co-founded and ran day-to-day operations with a team of 3 to 4 employees. Managed everything from the initial concept development with CEO, working with contractors (electrical, plumbing, carpentry, painters) to design the store, finding vendors, developing menu, pricing, setting up Shopify inventory and website, setting up and maintaining social media (IG & Facebook), managing staff, finances with accountant and P&L analysis for CEO review.

Petit Paris

Co-Founder & COO of Petit Paris

At Elevate our focus is on promoting Canada & its tech community globally. As a nation that embraces diversity & inclusion and a growing tech sector we have the competitive edge to lead now on the global stage. We aim to drive the growth in our economy by attracting the world's best tech start ups and scale ups, global talent and investment to Canada. It was my pleasure to work with Razor and the Elevate team to realize this vision.
Key responsibilities included:
1. Full cycle HR - job posting, interviews, reference checks, contract development, onboarding, performance management for over 90 employees of 2019 Elevate Festival
2. Corporate Partnership - Working with a team to identify, engage, close corporate partnership and ensure partner success. Exceeded revenue target for 2019 Elevate tech festival.
3. Talent product - Technology acquisition of Startup open house (SOH), deployed SOH in four cities in 2019 with over 500 startups participating and 10,000 talent engaged,  managed Fedev metrics and financial reporting.

Elevate

Vice President - Partnerships and Talent

HausChef is a marketplace that connects foodies with Chefs of different calibre for a unique home social dinning experience at the chefs home.

HausChef

Co-founder and COO of HausChef

Customer centric program design – In the past ten years have systematically built programming to meet customer needs operating much like a start up, piloting the offerings and iterating when needed, and becoming a benchmark for other global players. 

Provincial and national reach – Program development is always done with a focus on reach within and outside the province - Eg: Ent 101 online course attracts over 2000 people globally every quarter. Developed a highly differentiated, one of kind, market intelligence services that is available to Ontario entrepreneurs and recently to other provinces.

Operations and budget – Empower a team of fifty employees (80% Millennials) in six distinct business units with six direct reports of Directors & Managers to develop the best in class programming. Enable the team to reach their full potential with focus on career progression and professional development funds. 

Co-chair of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging council @ MaRS - DIB's is a core value at MaRS and it has been an incredible journey to work with my team to embark on this journey together with the tech community and MaRS.

Manage a collective budget of about $20 M/year for various program development and funding programs. Successfully renewed many govt programs over the past 10 years and also secured new govt, private sector, sponsorship dollars and Fee for Service engagements over the years.

Stakeholder engagement – Strong working relationship with 17 Regional Innovation centers and 50 Campus linked accelerators across the province of Ontario & Canada. Long standing working relationship with ministries like MRIS/MEDG and MCYS as funders of many of the programs. 

Measuring Impact – First to implement real time client satisfaction and NPS scores to measure impact of programming. Deliver quarterly and annual reporting on activity and outcome metrics for government funded programs and internal MaRS board reporting.

MaRS Discovery District

Vice President - Venture & Talent Programs

Lecturer in U of T SCS "Certificate in Entrepreneurship" for the "Market Intelligence and Customer Discovery" module.

University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies

Lecturer

1. As VP of venture programs I am responsible for strategic planning, bringing alignment and operational efficiency of four distinct programs that include youth leadership development (Studio Y) and Entrepreneurship & Innovation support programs (Business acceleration program, Market intelligence services, Entrepreneurship education, Scaling companies voucher program), 2. Hiring, mentoring and managing a team of high output performers. A portfolio budget of $20.5 M.
3. Measuring impact of services and programs through quantitative and qualitative metrics & never forgetting the voice of the customer
4. Effective resource and budget management while actively exploring sustainability through sponsorship and fee for service activities
5. Contributor of thought leadership (Author of the Water asset map, Cleantech asset map produced for the Province of Ontario) 
6. Provide web content direction for market insights and entrepreneurship education

Vice President - Venture Programs

BAP is a provincial program that provides commercialization service to technology entrepreneurs in Ontario - advisory services, online and onsite education and access to market/industry intelligence.

Usha Srinivasan PhD, IVLP Alumna