2013 Cantech Letter TSX Venture Exchange Tech Exec of the Year Finalists

When your company is smaller, it could be argued that good leadership is even more critical. With limited assets, one bad move can impact a fledgling concern’s balance sheet in a much more material way than it can a more established company.

The CEOs who are finalists for the 2013 Cantech Letter TSX Venture Exchange Tech Executive of the Year have all had to navigate through rougher waters to get to the relative calm that was 2013. The theme of hardiness and resourcefulness paying off runs strong through this short list.

This year, for the first time ever, the Cantech Letter Awards will be open to the public. A gala awards dinner, brought to you by Difference Capital and the TSX, will follow the First Annual Cantech Investment Conference, on January 16th, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Tickets to the Cantech Letter Awards, including a limited number of tables of ten, are still available. Click here, or contact Contact Karen Renaud at Cambridge House to reserve. (karen@cambridgehouse.com or Direct at (604) 398-5356). For tickets to the Cantech Investment Conference, featuring keynote speaker Commander Chris Hadfield, click here.

On to the nominees for the 2013 Cantech Letter TSX Venture Exchange Tech Stock Executive of the Year. For these awards, we asked fourteen of Canada’s top technology analysts to give us their top three picks. The finalists are the companies that received the most points in this process (we gave three points for first place, two for second and one for third. In the event of a tie, the company receiving the most first place votes was chosen.) The judges will vote on the consensus picks using the same scoring system.

We told our judges we were looking for the most outstanding candidate and asked them to use their own discretion to weigh factors such as revenue and earnings growth, share price appreciation and gains in market capitalization. Is a stock that gained 100% but moved from $0.15 to $0.30 more worthy than one that gained 75% but added billions in market cap? These are the decisions we left to their discretion as a professional.

After learning of the nominees, you can cast your vote at the bottom of this page. In the TSX and TSX Venture Technology awards voting, the readers of Cantech Letter will count as a single judge.

Here are the three finalists for the Cantech Letter TSX Venture Exchange Tech Executive of the Year, listed in alphabetical order.

Al Hildebrandt, QHR Technologies

QHR’s Hildebrandt might have been one of the busiest executives on the TSX Venture Exchange in the time since tech was last in vogue. The Kelowna-based company, which has consolidated the Canadian electronic medical records space with thirteen acquisitions since 2000, is starting to see an increase in its organic growth. Hildebrandt says there is still runway left in the Canadian EMR space, but the company’s long term future growth will be spurred by the U.S. and international markets, where he says he is confident the company can compete effectively.

Aly Rahemtulla, BSM Technologies

Timing may be everything, but the ability to swim against the tide is a skill every leader must master. Months after Aly Rahemtulla joined BSM Technologies, the markets suffered a once-in-a-generation collapse. Rahemtulla steeled his resolve and guided the Woodbridge-based company that sells GPS technologies that manage large fleets of trucks and secure other mobile assets, monitor fixed assets and automate vehicle security, out of the dark. The company’s recent Q3 revenue of of $4.68-million was a 39% bump over last year’s third quarter, but the company is only scratching the surface of its market potential, says Rahemtulla.

Bill Tempany, FLYHT Aerospace

Few companies have played the long game with as much persistence as FLYHT. FLYHT’s roots go all the way back to the dot-com days, having been founded in 1998. The space the company plays in – it has developed an automated data collection and delivery service for the commercial aviation sector – is widely noted for its red tape and glacial pace of progress. Today, however, Tempany has carefully engineered a landing that would move the Calgary-based company past a regulatory tangle that now represents a significant barrier to entry for would-be competitors.

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