Daniel Debow

Entrepreneur, Investor, and Executive based in Toronto

Daniel Debow is the Vice President of Product at Shopify, a position he has held since January 2019. He previously founded Helpful, a startup that was acquired by Shopify in 2019, and has a rich background in technology and entrepreneurship.

Career Highlights

Founder and CEO of Helpful: This startup, backed by Bessemer Ventures, focused on providing solutions that align with Shopify's mission.
Senior Vice President at Salesforce: Debow served as SVP of Emerging Technologies and was also a co-founder of Rypple, which Salesforce acquired in 2011.
VP of Marketing and Corporate Development at Workbrain: He worked there until its acquisition by Infor in 2007.

Investment and Academic Involvement

Debow is also known as an angel investor in over 50 technology companies, including notable names like Wealthsimple and SkipTheDishes. In 2015, he was recognized as Canada’s “Angel Investor of the Year.” He holds a JD/MBA from the University of Toronto, an LLM from Stanford University, and a BA in Psychology from Western University. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto and a founding partner of the Creative Destruction Lab, among other ventures.1 3 2

Highlights

Oct 31 · twitter

annual reminder:

halloween is the best holiday

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Oct 30 · twitter

this is very good advice for all canadians

adopting “say the thing” mentality would drive noticeable GDP improvement in 🇨🇦

Apr 4 · Business Insider

Shopify Leadership Forging Its Plan for the Future of Ecommerce - Business Insider

Apr 30 · TechCrunch

Heirlume raises $1.38M to remove the barriers of trademark registration for small businesses - TechCrunch

Experience

VP, Product (special initiatives) at Shopify since January 2019

Director at Loblaw Companies Limited (April 2020 - Present), Adjunct Professor at University of Toronto Faculty of Law (January 2016 - Present), Director at North (2015 - July 2020), CEO and Co-founder at Helpful.com (November 2015 - April 2020), SVP at Salesforce.com (February 2012 - August 2015)

Education

LLM from Stanford Law School (2003 - 2004), JD/MBA from University of Toronto, Faculty of Law & Rotman School of Management (1996 - 2000), BA from University of Western Ontario (1992 - 1995)