About Us

With over 20 years of executive-level financial and operational experience, John Gillberry is a seasoned negotiator on major capital and M&A transactions, garnering a stellar track record with leading venture capital firms, institutional investors and other financial stakeholders.

Mr. Gillberry is Chair of the Board’s Nominating Committee, and a member of the Board's Compensation Committee. John currently serves on the board of two public companies. He has held several executive level positions with firms in financial, health care, software and consumer electronics. John holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario.

John Karnes joined Quarterhill as CFO in 2022 bringing over 20 years of CFO experience within both publicly traded and private equity enterprises across technology, SaaS, e-Commerce, and energy. Most recently, he was CFO of Ontellus, the nation’s leading SaaS health record exchange network connecting over 190,000 hospitals, healthcare providers, and many of the US’ largest insurance carriers. Previously, he was CFO at Vertafore, a $5+ billion SaaS provider to the insurance industry serving over half-a-million insurance professionals, and Alert Logic, a national leader is cybersecurity.

Throughout his career, John served as CFO of numerous NYSE and NASDAQ companies, including Mariner Energy, The Houston Exploration Company, CyberCash, Inc., and KiOR, Inc, where he led active agendas including IPOs, public and private financings, and acquisitions, all the while ensuring regulatory compliance and operational efficiency. John began his career with Kirkland & Ellis where he specialized in securities offerings, M&A, and compliance in the US, Canada, and EU. John has an accounting degree from The University of Texas at Austin and a law degree from Southern Methodist University.

Prashant Watchmaker oversees all of Quarterhill’s corporate, M&A and securities legal requirements, and acts as corporate secretary for the company.

Prashant practiced corporate, securities and technology law and tax litigation with the Ottawa law firm of LaBarge Weinstein Professional Corporation for 10 years, developing extensive experience and negotiating many significant transactions for clients in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Prashant has also practiced banking law as Legal Counsel with the Canadian Payments Association.

Prashant holds an LLB and a BA from the University of Ottawa and an MA from the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Rish Malhotra is an accomplished business leader with 20 years of experience in the technology industry in operations, international business and technology management. Since joining IRD in 2008, Rish has progressed through various roles and is a well respected professional in the worldwide ITS industry and also serves on various industry boards.

Prior to joining IRD, Rish worked in commercial banking at the Bank of Montreal and other high technology industries. Rish is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) and has an MBA from the University of Saskatchewan.

Kevin Holbert, who joined ETC in 2002, is a knowledgeable and accomplished leader with over 28 years of experience in the tolling industry – as a manager of information systems at a tolling authority, a consultant, and an executive of a full systems integration provider. This diverse background, spanning engineering and delivery, informs Kevin’s unique and seasoned perspective as a business development leader in the industry. As an executive leader at ETC for nearly two decades, Kevin has been instrumental in steering the company through numerous corporate transformations, deliveries, and technology upgrades.

Andrew Parolin is President and CEO of WiLAN, a subsidiary of Quarterhill, where he is responsible for all operations at WiLAN. Andrew joined WiLAN as Vice President Business Development back in May 2007, moved to VP Licensing later that year and then got promoted to Senior Vice President Licensing on October 2010, responsible for the licensing of WiLAN’s portfolio of wireless, wireline, digital television and other technologies. During his tenure, the business unit negotiated license agreements with over 100 companies including global technology leaders including Apple, Cisco, Ericsson, Sony and LG.

Before joining WiLAN, Andrew worked at SiGe Semiconductor, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in next-generation RF integrated circuit and module designs, where he served as Director of Wireless Data Products.

Andrew has a MBA from the University of Ottawa, a Master of Applied Science from Queen’s University, and a Bachelor of Engineering from the Technical University of Nova Scotia.

With over 20 years of executive-level financial and operational experience, John Gillberry is a seasoned negotiator on major capital and M&A transactions, garnering a stellar track record with leading venture capital firms, institutional investors and other financial stakeholders.

Mr. Gillberry is Chair of the Board’s Nominating Committee, and a member of the Board's Compensation Committee. John currently serves on the board of two public companies. He has held several executive level positions with firms in financial, health care, software and consumer electronics. John holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario.

Jim Skippen is Vice-Chair & Past Chair of the Board of Directors of Quarterhill. From June 2006 to July 2018, he was President and CEO of WiLAN, a subsidiary of Quarterhill. Under Jim’s leadership, WiLAN assembled a world-class technology licensing team, its portfolio grew from approximately 20 patents to over 10,000 patents, established a stronger balance sheet and increased its market capitalization.

In his career, he has been responsible for license agreements in excess of $1.5 billion. To date, over 290 companies including technology leaders BlackBerry, Broadcom, Fujitsu, Intel, LG, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Panasonic and Samsung have licensed technologies in WiLAN’s patent portfolio.

A seasoned licensing executive and lawyer, Jim has managed several large and complex patent licensing negotiations and litigations. Before joining WiLAN, he worked for two of Canada’s largest law firms and held a number of senior management positions, including Senior Vice-President, Patent Licensing and General Counsel at another Canadian public company. Jim is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He is a former Vice-Chairman and board member of a large Canadian health charity. Jim is a frequent speaker at conferences and has delivered numerous papers and articles on topics such as management of intellectual property, patent licensing and technology law.

Roxanne Anderson is the CEO of March Advisory Inc. which specializes in transformation and turnaround mandates. She has over 25 years of corporate transformation and turnaround experience, including strategic reviews, financial and operational transformation, turnarounds, risk management and governance across a number of industries but with an emphasis on technology.

Roxanne was with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP for 27 years where she held various roles including Managing Partner of the National Federal Government Services Practice and Managing Partner of the Ottawa office. She is Chair of the Board of Directors of the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research and is an Advisory Board Member of TruReach Health Inc., a mental wellness company.

Roxanne holds BComm and MBA degrees from McMaster University, and is a Chartered Accountant, Chartered Professional Accountant and a Chartered Director of the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Dr. Michel Fattouche is an Emeritus professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering, at the University of Calgary. His research work has led to 26 patents issued and 17 pending.

Based on his research in W-OFDM (Wide-band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) he co-founded Wi-LAN Inc. in 1993, which led the IEEE to incorporate Wi-LAN's patented W-OFDM technology in its "WirelessMAN" Standard 802.16a.

Based on his research on Super-Resolution, Dr. Fattouche also co-founded Cell-Loc Inc. in 1995, a developer of a family of network-based wireless location products with several networks deployed in Canada and in Brazil. More than 200 companies worldwide have licensed his patents. He has been named “Prairies Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2000 as part of the Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Program.

Anna Tosto is a partner at Fasken LLP, an international law firm with offices primarily in Canada and has been since 2009. Her practice focuses on corporate law matters including lending, mergers and acquisitions and strategic partnerships primarily in the technology, transportation, agriculture and life sciences sectors.

She is currently on the board of the CHEO Foundation including its executive committee. She is also on the board of directors of the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa including its executive committee and is Chair of the Finance, Audit and Human Resources committee.

Rusty Lewis is a Senior Advisor to Brown Brothers Harriman Capital Partners, From 2015 to 2018, Rusty served as the Head of Brown Brothers Harriman’s Philadelphia Office for Private Banking. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Binswanger, a US private, full-service commercial real estate company.

Rusty has over 30 years of senior-level management experience as an owner and CEO of multiple private businesses and as a senior executive and director of several public companies. Prior to heading Brown Brothers Harriman’s Philadelphia office, he was the CEO of Zinio, a digital magazine newsstand application. Prior to Zinio, Rusty retired from VeriSign after having served in multiple positions, including Executive Vice President of Strategic Development and Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Naming and Directory Services business unit. From 1986 to 1994, Rusty owned and managed Transcore, which led the market in RFID electronic toll collection systems. He ultimately sold Transcore to SAIC (most recently owned by Roper Industries) in 1994.

Pamela Steer, FCPA, FCA, CFA, is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, one of the largest national accounting organizations in the world, and a member of the Board of Directors of the City of Toronto Investment Board, which is responsible for controlling and managing the investment of funds not immediately required by the City of Toronto including managing a large portfolio of investments on behalf of the City of Toronto. Pamela is also a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Sustainable Finance and a member of the Board of Directors of Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto. From June 2019 to January 2021, Pamela served, initially, as Chief Financial Officer and, subsequently, as Chief Financial and Corporate Strategy Officer for Payments Canada, the organization that owns and operates Canada’s payment clearing and settlement infrastructure. From May 2012 to May 2019, Pamela was, initially, Vice-President, Finance and, subsequently, Chief Financial Officer and Head, Finance and Employer Services for Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

Pamela has over 20 years of experience in accounting and finance from a variety of public and private corporations and professional services providers.

Pamela holds a Master of Accounting degree from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, holds a CPA Fellow (FCPA, FCA) designation from the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. She holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from the CFA Institute and the Chartered Business Valuator designation from The Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators. Pamela was awarded the title of Canada’s CFO of the Year in 2019.

Kim Stevenson is a business executive with deep experience in business, strategy and technology innovation. She has led large-scale, highly complex product technology and IT organizations and is an expert in digital IT and business transformation. She is highly regarded for embracing disruptive change resulting in significant performance improvement while never losing sight of customers’ needs.

Kim has led some of the largest technology brands in the world including her most recent roles as Senior Vice President and General Manager roles at NetApp and Lenovo, as well as COO, CIO and senior leadership roles at Intel, IBM, EDS, and HPE. She has served on several public & private Boards of Directors including Cloudera, Riverbed Technology, Boston Private Financial Holdings, Inc., Skyworks Solutions, Inc. and National Center for Women in IT. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Ambiq Micro and Mitek Systems Inc. and on the advisory board of TruU.

Kim is a vocal advocate for women in leadership and has a deep commitment for developing leaders, as well as increasing diversity in the workplace. She is consistently recognized for her leadership and technology contributions. She has won numerous awards most recently the HMG Strategy 2021 Global Leadership Institute’s “Leading into the C-Suite” award, Technology Magazine’s #19 of the Top 100 Women in Technology 2021 and Constellation’s 2020 Business Transformation BT150 award.

Kim holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Northeastern University.