John honed his skills in marketing and sales with global marketers Bristol-Myers and Warner-Lambert. Following that he became Vice President of Telemedia Publishing, then Canada’s largest consumer magazine publisher. He entered the entrepreneurial ranks when he joined a start-up in the prepaid card market, which was ultimately sold to AT&T. This led to the acquisition of Orlando-based New Horizons, a cell phone company that John and his partners took public and eventually exited. John spent the next 6 years mentoring entrepreneurs with Mars Discovery District, Bioenterprise Corporation, and Innovation Guelph. John was the founding Executive Director of the Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre at Georgian College and served in that role from 2014 to 2019. Having lost 110 pounds in the past year, John wanted to share his success with other men struggling with their weight. He is currently pursuing a new entrepreneurial venture, Accolade Weight Loss for Men.
John has some experience with angel investing which he has pursued independently and describes his results as “spectacularly unsuccessful”. He has been involved with Angel One and through his Henry Bernick tenure with GAN. The Centre became a significant feeder of high potential startups to GAN and five of these companies have been funded by GAN members over the years. (Earth to Kids, LinkGreen, Freshspoke, Luisella and Frauxmagerie). Under John’s direction the Henry Bernick Centre became a member and sponsor of GAN and the Bluewater Angel Investment Group and ultimately the Centre became a founding investor in the GAN Xcelerate Fund.