Advisory Team

Andrew Chisholm

Andrew has served on RBCs Board of Directors since 2016. Prior to this, he held leadership positions at Goldman Sachs including Senior Strategy Officer, Co-chair of Firmwide Commitments Committee, and Head of the Global Financial Institutions Group.

Mike Durland

Mike is the CEO of Melancthon Capital, a professor of Global Practice at the University of Toronto, a member of academic advisory committees for the University of Toronto, Queens, and Dalhousie, and was recently appointed as Chancellor of Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the former Group Head and CEO of Global Banking and Markets at Scotiabank.

Walt Macnee

Walt is Vice Chairman at Mastercard, and he was previously the company’s President of International Markets. Walt also served as Executive Vice President at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Senior Vice President at the Toronto Dominion Bank.

Carole Piovesan

Carole is a Partner and co-Founder of INQ Data Law where she focuses on data governance, privacy, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. Prior to co-founding this firm, Carole was a lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault where she served as co-lead of the firm’s National Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Management group and was a firm lead on AI. Carole has advised the Canadian government on legal and policy issues related to AI, and regularly advises companies on issues related to data collection, storage and use.

Tony Marinelli

Tony has held advisory and executive positions in multiple technology companies including Redock and Kwilt, and most recently was President of SMITH (formerly Ascentium), one of North America’s leading digital experience agencies and global commerce service providers.

Stephen McDonald

Stephen is the former Group Head and Co-CEO of Global Banking and Markets at Scotiabank, and the former CEO of TD Waterhouse, (the predecessor to TD Ameritrade). He has held a number of senior positions at TD Bank including Executive Vice President of Corporate Banking and Vice Chairman of Group Administration.

Laryssa Topolnytsky

Laryssa is a Senior Partner at Korn Ferry where she advises her client CEOs on how to optimize their company’s culture to drive corporate performance. Laryssa is an expert in CEO effectiveness, CEO succession and Executive Team performance and has co-authored a book on employee retention and numerous articles on employee commitment and organizational change. Laryssa holds a Doctorate and a Master’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the University of Western Ontario.

Executive Team

Prof. James W. Pennebaker

Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
Regents Centennial Chair of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and inventor of LIWC, James is an internationally recognized researcher in social psychology and language. He has authored nine books and over 300 scientific articles, and is among the most highly cited scientists in psychology and winner of multiple research awards.

Jonathan Kreindler

Co-Founder and CEO
Prior to founding Receptiviti, Jonathan co-founded a technology company that developed software for professional services firms, universities, and government agencies, and had a 15-year career as a strategy consultant working alongside executive leadership at global technology and financial services companies like SAP, American Express, Constellation Software, and Cisco.

Alain Chesnais

Chief Technology Officer
Alain is a software engineer and data scientist who has held technical leadership positions at Tucows, TruSpectra, ATI, and Alias|Wavefront. While at Alias|Wavefront, Alain spearheaded the development of 3D graphics application Maya, which received an Academy Award for scientific and technical achievement in 2003. Most recently, Alain co-founded Trendspottr, which was acquired by ScribbleLive in 2017.

Mike Friedman

Chief Analytics Officer and Head of Product
Prior to joining Receptiviti, Mike was Managing Director, Data Science & Analytics at Scotiabank. Mike has spent the past two decades building and managing teams of data scientists and engineers to design, develop and deploy advanced analytics for large enterprise businesses. He’s a Chartered Accountant in Canada and CPA in the U.S., with a Masters in Management Analytics and an adjunct lecturer at Queen’s University.

Mark Chaikelson

Chief Operating Officer
Mark has spent the past two decades leading innovative product and client service teams, with a focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences. His clients range from startups to F500 companies, including Sony, Dell, FedEx, Kraft, and Frito-Lay. Prior to joining Receptiviti, Mark was COO of Silver Sherpa, where he scaled its Elder Planning and Support Services for nation-wide delivery.

Kiki Adams

Head of Science
Kiki is a Computational Linguist and Data Scientist who specializes in psychology and natural language processing. Trained under Jamie Pennebaker at The University of Texas, Kiki leads science at Receptiviti where her team discovers and develops innovative ways to use language in modelling cognition, emotion, personality, and behavioural patterns.

Sharan Karanth

VP, Engineering
Sharan is a seasoned full-stack engineer with expertise in enterprise product development and engineering. He specializes in building enterprise-grade platforms, and has worked with companies such as Infosys, Fannie Mae and Thoughtworks.