Inside Entrepreneurship - Exit Strategies: From Success to New Beginnings

Following the conversation, we invite you to join us for a meet-and-greet with the speakers and refreshments.

Speakers:

Ali Asaria, Founder, Well.ca & Tulip

Craig Follett, Co-Founder, Universe & Peggy

Sarah Landstreet, Founder, Georgette Packaging

Moderator:

Ahmad Ayyub (MBA '13), Director of Strategy and M&A, Corus Entertainment

Event Synopsis:

Dive into the dynamic world of entrepreneurial reinvention at our panel event, 'Exit Strategies: From Success to New Beginnings.' Join us as seasoned entrepreneurs, who have successfully exited their previous ventures, share their compelling stories and insights. Explore the strategic decisions, challenges faced, and lessons learned from building their companies and during the exit process. Discover how they leveraged their experience to embark on new ventures and how they navigate uncharted territory. This event will provide insights and inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs, business enthusiasts, and anyone eager to unravel the fascinating journey of entrepreneurial evolution.

About our Speakers:

Ali Asaria is a Canadian entrepreneur and software developer, known for founding two successful Canadian retail technology startups, Tulip and Well.ca. In his career, Ali has raised more than $100M dollars from venture investors. Ali studied computer engineering at the University of Waterloo and lives in Toronto.

Craig Follett is a serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder & CEO of peggy.com, the secure marketplace to buy and sell investment-grade art. Prior to Peggy, Craig and his same co-founder & CTO together founded universe.com - the social marketplace for events. Universe was acquired by Live Nation Entertainment in 2015. Following the acquisition, Craig grew the business by 30x (and team by 3x), and expanded to UK, Europe, Australia and Asia before leaving the company in 2019.

Craig is an angel investor, advisor, and/or board member at companies including ada.cx + guild.host + freshline.io and a Limited Partner in multiple VC funds. He is a classically trained software engineer and business analyst, with hands-on experience at BCG, Credit Suisse and in product development and software engineering roles. He is also an avid rock climber (competed in the Canadian Bouldering Nationals), amateur surfer, aspiring author, and artist at heart.

Sarah Landstreet studied mechanical engineering at McGill University and began her career designing an environmentally sustainable embassy for the British government. She quit engineering at age 23 to start her first business, a bakery in Northern Ireland; after 3 years in a cloud of icing sugar, she returned home to pursue her MBA at the Ivey School of Business. Her second business, Georgette Packaging, is a carbon-neutral packaging company that she ran for 8 years before exiting in 2021. Sarah is now part of the entrepreneurship faculty at Ivey, and is considering her next adventure...

About our Moderator:

Ahmad Ayyub is a graduate of the Rotman MBA programme and currently works in strategy and M&A at Corus Entertainment. Prior to that, he worked in strategy and M&A at TELUS and EY. While at EY, he was involved in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme which exposed him to the stories of great Canadian entrepreneurs. He wanted to share these valuable stories with the wider public which led to this speaker series which is now in its sixth year.

Event Logistics:

This event is available to attend in-person only.

Rotman Events is committed to accessibility for all people. If you have any access needs or if there are any ways we can support your full participation in this session, please email [events@rotman.utoronto.ca] no later than 2 weeks in advance of the event and we will be glad to work with you to make the appropriate arrangements.

General Admission: In-Person Ticket Details

• The event will be hosted in the Desautels Hall at the Rotman School of Management (105 Saint George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3E6). Your registration fee includes a seat at the session and the networking reception.
  

Cancellation & Refund Policy

• Refunds will only be issued for cancellations received in writing NO LATER than 24 hours prior to the event. Please email events@rotman.utoronto.ca for processing.

Questions: events@rotman.utoronto.ca, Mandi Gosling