Sherry Shannon-Vanstone Interview with National Angel Capital Organization
Sherry is the founder of Profound Impact, which offers the AI-powered tool Research Impact that helps academic and industry researchers find optimal research funding.
She is a purpose-driven, successful, serial tech entrepreneur known for building high-performing teams. As a trailblazing woman in information security and STEM, she is a strategic risk-taker who has led startups to successful exits in Silicon Valley and the Toronto-Waterloo Tech corridor, achieving two IPOs and two acquisitions.
Sherry earned her MSc in mathematics and worked as a cryptologic mathematician with the US Government. This experience provided the foundation for her career in information security in the private sector, including roles such as VP of Electronic Commerce at MasterCard International and executive positions with information security startups: Cylink, Certicom, and TrustPoint Innovation.
At Certicom, Sherry was the catalyst in the commercialization of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which formed the foundation of the security system for Blackberry RIM. Today, ECC is utilized to provide the highest level of security in every mobile device worldwide.
In 2019, Sherry received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Western University. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Leadership 2020 Excellence Award in Entrepreneurship from Women in Communications and Technology (WCT), and in 2021 she received the Rogers KW Oktoberfest Woman of the Year in Science Technology Engineering Arts and Math (STEAM). In 2015, she was named WOW – the World Waterloo Region’s Female Innovator of the Year.
She currently serves as a board member and vice chair for CANARIE, along with board and advisory positions with Protexxa, APMA Project Arrow, and other organizations. She is also an angel investor as a Limited Partner with Phoenix Fire.
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About National Angel Capital Organization:
National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) members have invested $1.54 billion into more than 2,000 entrepreneurial companies. Angel investors are individuals and pre-institutional funds that put their capital at risk in the early-stage ecosystem. This includes individual Limited Partners (Angel LPs) that invest passively or semi-actively in venture capital funds; family offices and funds that invest in pre-seed and seed stage companies, and individuals that invest directly into early-stage companies on their own or with the support of an angel collective. Angel investment fuels the pipeline of companies that grow to raise venture capital and scale into the global success stories of the future.