Kevin Hood

Kevin Hood, President of Market Access Corporation, has worked for the Accelerator Centre (AC) since February 2008 to meet the demand for a senior sales/marketing advisor for clients who are close to or at the stage of selling their product/services.

Kevin Hood is the founder and President of Market Access Corporation. He is described as an innovative, creative and results driven entrepreneur and has over twenty years' experience working with new business ideas, new entrepreneurs, "turn-arounds", start ups, joint ventures and major corporations.

Recognized as an outstanding communicator and relationship builder, Kevin provides key input and support tools that help to increase the sales of client organizations. He originated and co-developed the "Tech Sales Program" through the Schlegel Centre at WLU and Communitech. This eight seminar program helps tech entrepreneurs and sales people to focus on the "value" of their solution and create a measurable process to achieve sales results. He is also an MBA student adviser for the "Start-A-Business" program at Wilfrid Laurier University and instructs on marketing and sales in the Masters in Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program at the University of Waterloo.

Chris Howlett

Chris has lived with his family in Waterloo for fifteen years. During that time he has held executive positions with Geosign (VP) , Maplesoft (CTO), and Freedom Intelligence/Aruna (CEO). He has served on the Boards of Directors of Maplesoft, Freedom Intelligence and Aruna. He was very active with Communitech in its formative years and is delighted to be working with the Communitech team again. He loves solving business problems with software systems and most of his experience is with companies that try to do that. Chris holds a PhD in Mathematics (McMaster) and an MBA (York).

Jackie Lauer

Jackie provides all Accelerator Program Clients with Human Resources Consulting services focused on assisting entrepreneurs in building human resources solutions that will support business performance and growth.

Jackie Lauer is a Senior Partner with Kirwin Group a boutique HR firm specializing in fast growth companies. In this role she plays a key role in the design, development and implementation of human capital strategies critical to supporting business development and growth. Jackie specializes in organizational design and development, one on one executive coaching and leadership development, building and developing high performance teams, developing leading practices in the attraction and retention of talent, the creation of total rewards strategies, and the management of organizational change. With over twenty years of operational and human resources experience, Jackie has worked closely with many venture-backed companies and has developed best practices to help entrepreneurs manage the human resources challenges that companies often face in the early stages of their business.

Jackie holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Labour and Employment Law from Carleton University , is certified in change management methodologies, four coaching programs, emotional intelligence and relationship systems theory and has recently been accepted into her Masters for NeuroLeadership.  

Gary Pooley

The Accelerator Program provides it's Clients with access to a number of finance and accounting services. Finance mentoring and related advice is available to Clients as part of our overall programming.  The following are areas our finance mentors can assist (or enlist our accounting services to assist) - note:  fees are associated with some of these services:  Finance mentoring, Accounting services, Management information & Financial reporting

Gary has been active with the Accelerator Centre since it's inception as a board member, interim executive director, a mentor and CFO. He is currently a board member and CFO as well as a mentoring AP Clients. He is a retired Ernst & Young partner on his "second career" that includes advisory work with a number of companies, board membership with several private companies and board membership with the KidsAbility Centre for Child Development and the KW YMCA.

Ellyn Winters-Robinson

As part of the Accelerator Centre (AC) Mentorship program, Ellyn Winters-Robinson of Ignition Inc. has been providing AC client companies with Communications and PR consulting services since October 2009. 

Ellyn's focus is on delivering creative marketing, communications advice and leadership to the high technology sector - something she's been doing for more than 15 years, as a VP of Marketing with MKS and now flying her own flag under the Ignition name. As a seasoned marketing executive and business communicator, she brings to the table a well rounded understanding the go-to-market challenges facing companies from start up phase through to maturity. Ellyn is unique in her ability to move from strategy development & design to tactical execution across the full marketing mix to transform a company's corporate and brand identity from lacklustre to brilliance.