Board of Directors

With over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Mark is the President and CEO of Axine. His career journey includes diverse roles in drug discovery, operations, financial management, business development, licensing, and venture capital. He has been a board member for digital health companies including Wellth, xCures, and Optina Diagnostics, and represented Boehringer Ingelheim in a fund-in-fund investment. Mark’s academic background comprises an MS degree (Chemistry) from Memorial University (Canada) and an MBA (Finance) from the University of Connecticut. His vast expertise is an invaluable asset in shaping Axine’s vision for the future.

Greg Peet is an accomplished business leader, entrepreneur, angel investor, and corporate director specifically with technology companies. He specializes in creating customer-centric and operationally focused corporate cultures transforming early-stage companies from R&D organizations to viable commercial enterprises. While CEO at A.L.I. Technologies, he grew the business from 14 to 400 employees and over $100 million in annual revenues resulting in a sale to McKesson Corp. in 2002 for $526 million in cash, marking one of the most important transactions in the medical image management market.   Greg was recognized as Ernst & Young’s “Pacific Entrepreneur of the Year” (2002), B.C. Technology Industry Association. “Person of the Year” (2007) and NACO Canadian “Angel Investor of the Year” (2013).

Greg’s community service also includes appointments to the British Columbia Premier’s Technology Counsel (2002 – 2016 / Chairman from 2006),  governor of the University of British Columbia (2012 – 2016 / Chairman, Finance from 2014).  He has assisted BC Technology Social Venture Partners (director), a charitable foundation created by members of BC’s technology community to support innovative non-profit groups serving children, women at risk and BC Science World (Chairman’s counsel). He was the founder of the Student Inspiration Foundation, a charitable enterprise having the mission of funding exceptional educator proposals for innovative teaching projects in the secondary school system in BC.  Greg was a founding donor for the Entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Fund and serves as Chairman of the fund’s management company.

Roger Strauch is Chair of The Roda Group, an early stage venture capital group, based in Berkeley, California. The firm, co-founded in 1997 with Dan Miller, is focused on investment opportunities that address the consequences of climate change, stress on the Earth’s natural resources and the increased demand for low carbon energy. They are lead investors in Inventys, which has developed a post-combustion CO₂ capture technology for power plants; Gridtential Energy, Inc., which has developed an advanced lead acid battery that incorporates semiconductor wafers inside the battery to greatly increase performance in energy storage and automotive applications; and Axine Water Technologies, which has developed a low cost and chemical-free solution for treating industrial wastewater.

Roger is an investor in and advisor to PicsArt and SoloLearn – mobile apps developed in Armenia.  With over 100 million monthly users, PicsArt is a mobile suite of creative picture editing tools and a community of artistic content creators.  SoloLearn is a mobile based code learning application, with millions of monthly users, providing programming language courses.

Roger is Chair of the Board of Directors of Cool Systems, the manufacturer of Game Ready, a medical physical therapy system. He was the first CEO and former chair of Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com), a leading search engine on the web. Mr. Strauch was a board member and former CEO of Symmetricom, a public telecommunications equipment manufacturer.  He co-founded TCSI Corp., a telecom software company. As TCSI’s Chair and CEO, Mr. Strauch led the company from a start-up to a successful IPO and secondary public offering.

Mr. Strauch is a member of the Engineering Dean’s College Advisory Board of the University of California at Berkeley. He is the recipient of the Wheeler Oak Meritorious Award from the University of California at Berkeley. Mr. Strauch and his wife Dr. Julie Kulhanjian have been named and honored as “Builders of Berkeley.” He is Chair of the Board of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and is an executive member of the  Berkeley Repertory Theatre Board.  He is a Life Trustee of the Armenian Assembly of America. Mr. Strauch is a member of the Madison Council, a philanthropic advisory board to the Librarian of Congress. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Northside Center for Child Development, a mental health social services agency in Harlem, New York City.  Mr. Strauch is the Founder and Chair of The Paros Foundation, which supports and implements humanitarian projects in Armenia focused on education, development and culture.

Mr. Strauch endowed the Roger A. Strauch Chair in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and co-founded the William Saroyan Endowment for Armenian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Strauch earned a Bachelor of Science degree, with distinction, from Cornell University and Master of Science degree from Stanford University, both in electrical engineering. He holds two patents in the area of wireless communications.

Dr. Wal Van Lierop is an award-winning business leader and visionary in innovation, sustainability and cleantech, with unique industry insights gained through deep operational experience as a venture capitalist, corporate executive, international consultant and university professor.

Wal founded Chrysalix Venture Capital, one of the earliest and most recognised private equity firms focused on industrial innovation, where he has helped raise more than $250M and participated in more than $1B in venture capital funding. He has sourced, invested in and advised numerous startups, assisting them in building breakthrough solutions for the new world economy while working hand-in-hand with large multinational companies on their innovation strategies. Currently Wal is a member of the Board of Directors at Chrysalix portfolio companies General Fusion, Inventys and Axine Water Technologies.

Wal is a longstanding contributor to the tech community in British Columbia and abroad as the founder of New Ventures BC, a founding member of the BC CEO Alliance and Evok Innovations, contributor to various Vancouver greenest city projects, Advisory Board member of the Cleantech Group and judge of the Cleantech 100. He has been an adjunct professor at both SFU’s Beedie School and UBC’s Sauder School of Business, and is a frequent speaker at events like GLOBE Series, Oil & Money, the BCTECH Summit, Energy for Tomorrow and the Cleantech Forum.

Moe focuses on investments in the areas of cloud computing, machine intelligence, analytics, and cybersecurity. Prior to joining Vanedge, Moe was a Vice President of NetApp Inc. (NTAP:NASDAQ), a leading provider of enterprise data storage solutions. Before that, Moe was President and CEO of Bycast Inc., the world leader in storage virtualization software for large-scale digital archives and storage clouds. During his tenure at Bycast, Moe led the company from a seed stage startup to a profitable market leader with a global customer base. Bycast was successfully acquired by NetApp in the spring of 2010. Moe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TMX).

Moe has extensive experience in working with entrepreneurial companies and taking leading-edge technology products to market. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of HEAVY.AI (previously OmniSci), Illusense, xCures, Rigado, Plotly, and Echodyne. He has also served on the boards of Wurldtech Security Technologies (acquired by GE), Metafor (acquired by Splunk), MediaCore (acquired by Workday), Bitfusion (acquired by VMware), Xtract, and Boundless Spatial (acquired by Planet Labs), and Quantum Benchmark (acquired by Keysight).

In recognition of his work, Moe was awarded the BC Technology Association’s Person of the Year for 2011. He is also a recipient of Business in Vancouver “Forty Under 40” award. Moe holds a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of British Columbia and holds several U.S. Patents for his past technical work.

Geoff is a registered professional engineer and has 14 years of experience in industrial automation and process control and over 20 years of venture capital experience. Prior to joining BDC Venture Capital in 2001, he worked for Bailey Canada and Asea Brown Boveri — large multi-national industrial process automation suppliers. He has diverse operational experience in the process automation industry, including field service, system commissioning, engineering, management, and sales.

Geoff administers much of BDC Venture Capital’s Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology portfolio in Canada. He is active on the boards of a number of companies. He also volunteers in a number of programs promoting entrepreneurship, including chairing the final jury for New Ventures B.C. for many years.

Geoff holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia and an Executive MBA from Simon Fraser University. He has also completed the Canadian Securities Course. He recently completed the Institute of Corporate Directors – Rotman, Directors Education Program, (September, 2019).