Shopster Team
Meet Shopster’s Management Team and Board of Directors. They are tasked to lead this dropshipping and ecommerce solutions provider to become a world-class company. Their cumulative years of experience and technical expertise combine to deliver the best services possible.
Management Team
Sarath Samarasekera, CEO and Founder:
Sarath directs Shopster's corporate strategy to enable businesses of all sizes to flourish online. Sarath has extensive experience in technology implementation and supply chain management from working as a consultant to some of the largest companies in the world - including Ford Motor Company, Texas Instruments, IBM, and Delphi. Sarath is a serial entrepreneur and has started several still-active businesses over the last 12 years - covering such diverse categories as hospitality, investing and real estate. Sarath has a B.Comm from the University of Calgary and MSc. from the London School of Economics.
Suzanne Vadori, Chief Operating Officer:
Suzanne brings 11 years experience in strategic management for technology companies to Shopster. She has held managerial positions in companies such as Andersen Consulting, Siebel Systems and Telus. Suzanne was with Customer Relationship Management software company Janna Systems through the technology boom and bust life cycle and eventual sale to Siebel systems in 2000. Suzanne brings a solid operations discipline to Shopster. She has a B.Comm. from the University of Calgary.
Paul McCluskey, Chief Technology Officer:
Paul overseas the design and execution of Shopster's hardware and software strategy. He has over 15 years of experience in software design/implementation, and systems administration in Oil and Gas, e-Commerce, and Finance. As both a Senior Server Developer and a production System Administrator Paul brings a deep knowledge of system hardware and software development, scalability, and optimization. Paul obtained a B.Sc. in Computer Science and a B.Sc. in Cellular, Molecular and Microbial Biology from the University of Calgary.
Board of Directors
Dickson Chu, Citibank (CitiCards) Head of Global Product Development and Alliances
Dickson has recently moved to Citicards to head up their new products R&D, and had previously led global product strategy at PayPal, an eBay company, as Vice President of Global Product Experience. He brings perspective on development and user experience design and has over 20 years experience in technology and financial services firms.
Matt Cox, Director, is co-founder of Shopster.com.
Matt has over 10 years experience conceptualizing, planning and developing large scale web applications, with a specific focus in the e-commerce sector. Before founding Shopster, Matt gained his stripes developing software for large distributed computing systems, where he was responsible for system architecture planning, data management, and user interfaces.
Brian McGurk, Director is the Vice President, People Services SMART Technologies LLC.
He is a high energy executive with more than 15 years of senior and executive human resources experience in a variety of different fast-paced and entrepreneurial environments ranging from airlines to wireless communications. Prior to joining SMART he served in the role of Vice President of Human Resources in the oil and gas service industry as well is the fuel cell industry where he was responsible for the development and implementation of innovative and strategic human resources services and programs.
Jeff Molander, Director is CEO of Molander & Associates Inc.
Jeff provides investment guidance and e-commerce strategy to financial services and marketing executives seeking to exploit the digital realm. He's an accomplished entrepreneur and public speaker in the internet marketing space. In 1999, Jeff helped found performance marketing services provider, Performics Inc. (now a division of Google) serving as Vice President Sales & Marketing. He is widely recognized as an online performance marketing expert and a leading thinker in the internet marketing space.
Oded Orgil, Director is the Senior VP and Director of Corporate Development for Canaccord Capital.
Oded's primary responsibility is leading Canaccord's national recruiting initiatives. Previously he was a SVP and Regional Manager with HSBC Securities in Ontario. Prior to his time at HSBC Securities, Oded was a Regional VP for Richardson Financial Partners, in Western Canada. Oded continues to play a significant role in private wealth management. He is also very active in corporate governance and provides both advisory services and directorships for several companies in industries including: software development, investment, and food and beverage producers. Oded completed his law degree at the University of Western Ontario.
George Tai, Board Secretary is a partner in the Corporate, Securities and Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Carscallen Leitch LLP.
Mr. Tai practices securities and business law with a focus on advising technology and oil & gas companies. George has extensive experience in structuring start-up companies, financings, and initial public offerings on both the TSX and the TSX Venture Exchange. George held senior executive positions in legal, finance and operations with private and public (TSX and NASDAQ) technology companies prior to returning to the private practice of law in 2004. With a business background in venture capital investments, George was also formerly registered at the Alberta Securities Commission as a registered investment advisor.
