Team:

• 

  Mike Silagadze

  Co-founder, CEO

  Mike has worked in engineering roles at Siemens, GM, and Kimberly-Clark. He was also an early employee, and R&D lead at Miovision Technologies.

  Mike started Top Hat Monocle in his living room and grew it into the giant empire it is today.

• 

  Mohsen Shahini

  Co-founder, COO

  Mohsen has a solid academic background in science and engineering and has spent most of his time in academia.

  Mohsen co-founded Top Hat Monocle to facilitate learning via effective use of information technology. He is a recipient of the best teaching assistant award from University of Waterloo.

• 

  Anson Mackeracher

  VP of Technology

  Anson is working on keeping the servers running, putting out fires, and crushing bugs. He likes working on difficult engineering problems, and loves discussing all aspects of programming and process. He watches "StarCraft" competitively, and would like to someday play that way too.

• 

  Jean-Marc Skopek

  Senior Web Developer

  Jean-Marc Skopek is passionate about making education more accessible to students around the world. His undergraduate work on in-class communication systems served as a perfect backdrop to his current role at Top Hat Monocle. He is an expert at Nerf combat.

• 

  Phil Drennan

  Academic Solution Consultant

  Phil is a recent graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University, graduating with a Bachelor of Business Degree with a Concentration in Marketing.

  He has experience in Marketing, Accounting and Customer Relations while working with a firm in Toronto on his Co-op Term. Furthermore, being freshly out of University, Phil has the ability to relate, understand and identify the needs of current student users and give valuable input to the developing team in continually improving their tool for the student's benefit

• 

  Ben Walker

  Academic Solution Consultant

  Ben is a recent graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University majoring in Communications. He has experience in product management, marketing as well as customer service. At his ripe young age Ben has worked with several Waterloo startups in both consultant and full-time roles.

  Ben claims that all he needs is three hours to become the best in the world at any video game. That's right, three hours.

• 

  Dave Liptrot

  VP of Sales

  Dave has over 25 years of high tech sales and marketing experience. He has led teams for both small start up companies as well as large multi-national corporations. Dave is leading the sales effort at Top Hat Monocle.

  Dave is an avid basketball player and tells us he is the "Michael Jordan of his over 35 league, when compared to other players who are over 45 and are under 6 feet tall". Hard to believe the NBA isn't knocking on his door.

• 

  Nick Kenny

  Academic Solution Consultant

  Nick is an ex-corportate banking rat and graduate from the University of Waterloo. He sales focus is putting the customer first and brings to the team experience in both design and marketing.

  Nick is an avid world traveller, recently spending a month backpacking India. A voracious reader and claims he can find anything on the internet.