By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
June 8, 2009

Click here to view this article on OBJ.ca.

Shift from Canadian GAAP to new standards not just a matter for finance departments

Although it isn’t until Jan. 1, 2011 that reporting issuers must officially switch from using current Canadian accounting standards – known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles – to the new International Financial Reporting Standards, many firms have already started the complicated, multi-phase process.

And not a moment too soon, experts say. “It’s not just an accounting change,” says Carol Devenny, who’s in charge of PricewaterhouseCooper’s audit practice.

Among other things, the level of disclosure required of a company will increase, meaning most departments, if not all, will have to start gathering new and more detailed types of information to comply. A firm might find it has to overhaul its entire IT system to accommodate the changes, some say.

As well, adds Ms. Devenny, shareholders will have to be appraised Continue reading →

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Aug. 4, 2008

Click here to view this article on OBJ.ca

Internet TV products maker Espial began its public life with a bang, with the company’s stock price soaring by more than 12 per cent on its opening day in June 2007 on the TSX, quickly reaching a high of $9.25 about a month later.

Since then, however, Espial’s shares have dwindled to a mere 95 cents each, an 87-per-cent plunge from the company’s debut price of $7.85. Partnership agreements with significant service providers have been fairly thin, and the company was forced to cut 30 per cent of its staff at the end of 2007.

But now, the company is hoping to turn itself around with the $6.6-million acquisition of California-based competitor Kasenna Inc. But what will the market think of Espial’s prospects with this addition, which the company has said will expand its footprint to Continue reading →

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
April 28, 2008 (May 1 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

The idea of literally giving something away but still profiting from it isn’t a new concept, but with the advent of the Internet there’s now a new dimension to it – and soon, all products and services we now pay for could become free, says Wired Magazine head honcho Chris Anderson.Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson previews his new book on how everything online will soon be free

It’s the subject of his new book, aptly named Free, which he will be previewing at Celebridee during the Canadian Tulip Festival, held from May 2 to May 19 in Ottawa. The OBJ picked Mr. Anderson’s brain to find out more about the new free economy and what it will mean for businesses.

OBJ: So tell us a bit more about what it means to have an economy where everything is free.

ANDERSON: It’s a broad economic trend that affects every industry everywhere. Any company, product, service that is digital is either going to eventually become free or compete with free; it’s the law of gravity in digital economics. It’s the Google model, where they don’t charge you: Google doesn’t show up on your credit card bill, Google’s free to consumers.

Software’s increasingly moving from a product that you buy to a free service that you go to on the web, the software-as-a-service model. And increasingly, services are moving from professional people you pay for to places you go to for free, be it Continue reading →

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
April 14, 2008 (April 16 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Carleton University’s new business school dean and president will be starting their jobs on the same day this summer, and both say they are excited to strengthen what they see as a school with great potential.

The university recently announced that it has selected its first female president, Dr. Roseann Runte, and picked Dr. Jerry Tomberlin as the second dean for the Sprott School of Business since the business school was awarded full faculty status in 2006. Both start on July 1.

The new president will be taking over from interim head Dr. Samy Mahmoud and the incoming business school dean is succeeding acting dean Roland Thomas.

Mr. Tomberlin is the former dean of the John Molson School of Business at Montreal’s Concordia University, while Ms. Runte is currently serving as president of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.

“It’s a very exciting school that’s very strong and one of Canada’s well-kept secrets. I plan on making it stronger,” said Mr. Tomberlin in an interview with the OBJ. Continue reading →

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Feb. 11, 2008 (Feb. 13 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

It’s not often that you see a CEO taking a break from a busy, growing company, but when Fidus chief executive Michael Wakim decided it was time for a sabbatical, he found a reliable stand-in with his interim president, former Tropic Networks CEO Kevin Rankin.

So what do you do when you’re thinking of taking a long break and need an executive replacement, or if you’re looking for someone to fill a hole while you search for a more permanent person to take on the role? The OBJ spoke to Mr. Wakim about how he found Mr. Rankin, and other tips to finding the perfect interim executive.

OBJ: So why did you decide to do this interim hiring?

WAKIM: I’m part of the Mindtrust group of CEOs in Ottawa, we meet for breakfast once a month and it’s a really helpful time … I’ve gotten to know the people that go to Mindtrust quite well, and when I was looking for someone to help me at Fidus, naturally I looked at some of the people I’d made friends with in the Mindtrust group, and Kevin was one of them.

The reason I wanted to do it was because the company was doing so well that it couldn’t have been a better time. We have a record backlog of work that needs to be done, four-months worth of projects and financials are the strongest they’ve ever been, so I thought it was the best time I could possibly think of to take a break.

OBJ: It’s rather an unusual step to take a break from a busy company that you’ve founded and hand over the reins to someone else, isn’t it?

WAKIM: It’s hard to believe but the company is over six years old now and it’s grown by 20 or 30 per cent every year for six years in a row Continue reading →

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Feb. 11, 2008 (Feb. 13 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Local life sciences firms Liponex Inc. and ImaSight Inc. are mulling over a $10-million merger, at the same time as Liponex is facing delisting from the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The two companies, both of which were among the OBJ‘s 2007 Startups to Watch, have entered into a non-binding letter of intent for a business combination that would see current ImaSight shareholders own about 65 per cent of the combined company.

“We’ve been looking at strategic options for a number of months now,” Liponex CEO Bill Dickie told the OBJ. “We felt we needed to widen the scope of the company so we weren’t entirely dependent on one product line, and what attracted us about ImaSight was that it’s a revenue-stage company which is quite stable going forward.”

The deal would see Liponex acquiring all of the issued and outstanding shares of ImaSight through some kind of share purchase arrangement, with the value of the merger “in the range of $10 million,” according to ImaSight CEO John Brooks.

Both companies have said Continue reading →

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Feb. 4, 2008 (Feb. 7 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

Everyone’s been talking about the talent crunch in Ottawa and elsewhere, but fast-growing optical networking company BTI Systems had no problems finding a new executive to oversee its global operations.

BTI’s management team got a little help from its friends to identify former BreconRidge president John Haydon as the ideal candidate for its senior vice-president of global operations role, and he joined the company earlier this month.

Franca Marinelli, BTI’s vice-president of global organizational development, and CEO Lance Laking shared with the OBJ some of the elements to consider for an equally smooth ride in the executive recruitment process.

OBJ: Could you describe John Haydon’s role in the company?

LAKING: Global operations … includes our overall manufacturing strategy, it takes in our customer care, customer service organizations. It also includes our information management systems, our IT strategy as being a critical deliverable for the senior operations executive. In that, we have John Haydon working very closely with our sales organization to help drive the business scaling, and with that there’s an extension to his involvement both with our customers and supporting them from the operations side, and our channel partners. It’s a pretty multi-faceted and involved position that is certainly part of our senior executive team.

OBJ: And why did you decide to hire for this particular role at this particular time?

MARINELLI: The company, having sort of focused in the last couple of years on development, was at the juncture where Continue reading →