Advisory Board

Arma Partners is an independent investment banking firm focused exclusively on corporate finance advisory services to Technology, Media and Telecoms (TMT) companies. Previously with Merrill Lynch, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Telecom Investment Banking for Europe, the Middle East & Africa, based in London. Prior to that Tom was a Managing Director in the European Telecom Investment Banking team at Citigroup. Before Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, Tom was Head of Corporate Finance for British Telecom. During his 15 years working within the telecom sector Tom has advised many of the leading operators on over $150 billion worth of transactions, including BT, O2, Cable & Wireless, BSkyB, Deutsche Telekom, TDC, TeliaSonera, Belgacom, KPN, Telekom Austria, Portugal Telecom, MTN, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile and MegaFon.

Tom began his career with Coopers & Lybrand, in Toronto and in London, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst after graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Queens University in Kingston, Canada.

Claude Germain is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Schenker, one of the largest logistics service providers in Canada . As the former Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of Grocery Gateway, Mr. Germain has extensive experience in building successful logistics organizations. Mr. Germain holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Nuclear Physics from Queen’s University.

Talisman Energy Inc. is an independent upstream oil and gas company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Talisman has operations in Canada and its subsidiaries operate in the UK, Norway, Southeast Asia, North Africa and the United States.

Mr. Thomson was previously Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Planning for both BCE and Bell Canada. In this role he reported to the CEO, overseeing the corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions and financial planning functions. Prior to joining BCE in 2003, Scott was a Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. focused on M&A in New York and Toronto. Scott has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from Queen's University.

Christopher Stait-Gardner was founder and president of Security Card Systems until it was acquired by Giesecke & Devrient. After the acquisition, Mr. Stait-Gardner served as President of Giesecke & Devrient Canada until his retirement. Prior to that, he was a Senior Vice President at the Bank of Montreal, Vice Chairman of Interac Association and President of MasterCard Association of Canada. Mr. Stait-Gardner currently serves as a director of both VRI Corporation and CENCOTECH and holds an Engineering Physics degree from the University of Toronto.

Dan is a partner at Miller Thomson LLP, one of Canada's most respected national business law firms. Dan's practice is based at the firm's largest office in Toronto, Ontario and is a member of the firm's Business Law Group. His law practice focuses on corporate finance and securities matters, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate and commercial law matters. Representative clients range from small owner operated businesses to large, publicly traded companies in a variety of industry sectors including: financial services, mining, real estate development, manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, e-business, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and computer software. He also acts as business advisor to several start-up and early growth stage companies.

In 1989, Dan received a B.Comm (Hons.) degree from the University of Manitoba, majoring in Finance and in 1993, received his law degree from the University of British Columbia. In 1987, Dan also completed courses in international finance and econometrics at Harvard University.

Thomas Hierlihy has more than four decades of experience in tax consulting with KPMG LLP and predecessor firms. Prior to his retirement from KPMG in 2003, where he served as a partner for 31 years and as a member of its Corporate Tax Services Group. He is currently a Board member of Oakville Hydro Corporation, President of the Board of the Renascent Foundation and a member of the Board of Regents of Mount Allison University where he also is Chair of the Audit Committee.

Mr. Hierlihy holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Mount Allison University and is a Chartered Accountant.

Michael Green is the President and CEO of ObjectSharp, a company that specializes in providing .NET consulting and training services to corporate customers. Prior to joining ObjectSharp, Mr. Green founded Visual Systems Development Group in 1992 and grew the company to 125 people in 5 offices across Canada until he sold the company to IMR Global. Mr. Green holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Systems Design from the University of Waterloo.