Team

J. Joly (CEO/Founder)

A background in mass media rather than traditional start-ups, J. Joly began his career path at 15, working as an usher at theatre on a Canadian NATO base in Germany. At 17, while working at a video store in Calgary he landed his first film job on a Japanese samurai epic. During his undergraduate at Queen’s University he founded, performed-in, and managed the Van Allen Belt, a rock group that recorded 2 albums and toured with such acts as The Tragically Hip, Sheryl Crow, Wilco, Los Lobos, and Primus. Upon graduation he wrote and directed, “Les Furies,” a bilingual short that opened the 1st Canadian Film Festival, served as Producer’s Assistant on the Just for Laughs Comedy Tour, and as Stage Manager at the 2001 festival in Montreal. Relocating to Toronto, he worked in the film industry gaining production and management experience on Features, MOWs, TV series, music videos and commercials including the award winning “OMNIVAC” which played international film festivals and was licensed to the CBC. Moving to Vancouver, he turned his focus to multiplatform narrative production, receiving Telefilm development financing for a convergent project, which led to him founding OverInteractive Media.

Benson Wong (CTO)

For more than half of his life Benson has been making computers do interesting things.  In 1995’s pre-Internet Prince Rupert, he built Infinity BBS, enabling happy Rupertites to chat and play videos games online. In 1996, he won the Northern BC Web Development Challenge and a ticket to the national competition.  At 19 years old he moved to Vancouver to join his first dot-com in 1999.  In 2003, after three dot-coms and two start ups – including Flickr (Ludicorp) – he joined Sutton Group Realty Services.  His first real taste of management, Benson led his teams to build new web and email technology for 9000 real estate agents across Canada.  He is an active member of the tech community, including a published author for Zend, consultant for PCWorld, former director of the Vancouver PHP group and a veteran blogger.

Andrew Gracie (VP of Marketing)

Joining Super Rewards (acquired in 2009 by Adknowledge) at the very beginning, he had an integral role in driving social game developers into effective monetization since the early days of the Facebook Platform integration.  Due to his successes and extensive experience clients and colleagues considered an expert in social game monetization.  In the role of Senior Game Analyst has been instrumental in guiding many of the largest Facebook mafia, farming, and restaurant apps to adjust their game mechanics to optimize monetization. He is an expert at utilizing the creation of correct sources and sinks that promote high volume virtual currency spending by users.  Prior to working at Super Rewards Andrew formed his own Film Production Company in the UK, producing multiple commercial projects and documentary films. His film “Together” aired on the BBC in 2006.

Paul Watson (VP Design)

Paul is a creative media designer in the 15th year of his career, spanning the perspective of both solo freelance artist and leading team member of various design firms. He began his career as a freelance illustrator, and quickly gained recognition from a growing number of international clients such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Macleans, and Penguin Publishing. Paul’s work ranged from magazine and book covers to featured spreads, from advertising campaigns to packaging. He also served on the Faculty/Alumni board at Sheridan College and contributed to designing the Post Graduate Illustration program. Be it illustration, graphic design, photography, video, music and other forms, Paul pursued combining these disciplines and creating new avenues of work. You can see portfolios of his work at knowoffhand.com.

Jim Derbyshire B.Sc.(Hons), C.Eng. F.I.E.T. (Board Chairman)

A serial entrepreneur, start up CEO, and angel investor, Jim has been CEO at Symbionics (Cambridge, UK), and SiGe Semiconductor (Ottawa, Canada) and has co-founded or been deeply involved with over ten start-ups.  He has personally raised over $100M of financing, worked for venture capital organizations, planned an IPO and been actively involved with, or managed, seven acquisitions. He is currently Chairman at Veridae, advisor to EcoBuddies and mentor in residence at SFU assisting MetroLeap, Layerboom, MAPT amongst others.

JAMES TOPHAM, B.Comm (Hons)., CA (DIRECTOR & AUDIT COMMITTEE CHAIR)

James was an audit partner in KPMG’s technology practice from 1988 to 2008 where he  worked with over 100 technology companies, with more than 25 clients on mergers and acquisitions on both the buy and sell side and with over 10 initial public offerings in Canada and the US.  James is currently working as a financial advisor with Konductor, a content management software developer and dpoint technologies, a clean energy technology company.  James is also on the board of Day4 Energy Inc., a public company developing and selling high performance solar panels, Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of BC and Chair of BC Social Venture Partners (BCSVP).

JOSEF LOEW, B.Sc Applied Physics U of Munich, MBA U of Calgary (ADVISOR)

Angel Investor, Business consultant.  Former Chief Strategy Officer Transportation Matlin Patterson LLC, NY, Airline Chief Commercial officer (ATA), VP Revenue Management for major US carrier (US Airways), VP airline transportation product Priceline.com Europe (start-up situation, built the business line from scratch) and entrepreneur SMG (airline fare management software, sold to SITA London).