Student Features

Stephan Cantanna, MMIE’24

Stephan Cantanna has built his career on connecting dots. In his decade working in progressively senior platform and product roles at the wealth-management firm Investment Planning Counsel, he’s learned to synthesize the diverse (sometimes very diverse) perspectives of business and technical stakeholders into the development and integration of software products that align with business strategy and help advisors do better work. He’s become a go-to problem solver.

He didn’t get there on his own. In 2020, Stephan was asked to join a small internal task force to assess the viability of a new discretionary wealth management platform for portfolio managers. The team’s MO was to try things, fail fast, make tweaks, and try again, which unlocked something in Stephan’s brain: “It gave me the itch,” he says. “I grew hungry to refine my entrepreneurial mindset and to learn to innovate more effectively.” He had been toying with the idea of pursuing an MBA, but the Master of Management Innovation & Entrepreneurship (MMIE) seemed much better aligned with his desire to create new value within the organization. So, he went for it.

Stephan’s hunch proved correct. As he dove into MMIE coursework on market research, design thinking, and user-centric solutions, and as he immersed himself in pitch competitions, case studies, and simulations, he felt his whole approach to launching solutions begin to evolve. “I came to really understand that ideas don’t have to come out fully formed,” he says. “The program demonstrated to me that the most successful products go through an iterative process of research, refinement, and execution.”

Moreover, as he worked through building and refining his final thesis—an exercise aimed at understanding how to better engage the next generation Canadian investor, who are often underserved, underinvested and undervalued—he realized how stocked his innovation toolbox had become. In particular, the process gave him fresh appreciation of the foundational importance of conducting effective market research and validating a problem statement before developing a product—learnings he leverages in his work to assess platforms and products today.

As an “intrapreneur with an entrepreneurial mindset,” Stephan has grown passionate about the value of the skills he picked up in the MMIE program, even—perhaps especially—in big, established corporations. Like many industries, the wealth management space is in a period of great change—with unprecedented technological advancement, regulatory changes, massive intergenerational transfers of money, and new business models with evolving client expectations—and few organizations can lean on the status quo. “My view is, if you’re not approaching your work with an entrepreneurial mindset, you need to start to take this lens,” he reflects. “Because the world is changing fast, especially in the age of AI. Thinking like an entrepreneur in any job has become essential to taking control of your career and making an impact.”

Monika Virdi, MMIE’24

Monika Virdi has always understood the appeal of entrepreneurship. She grew up immersed in the world, with a father running his own business. In her job with RBC’s commercial banking arm, she spends her workdays helping a portfolio of 75 mid-sized companies find new and better ways to grow. At any given moment, she is percolating venture ideas of her own that she might someday make a reality. “I like to tickle the entrepreneurial side of my brain,” she says with a smile.

So, Monika went into the Master of Management Innovation & Entrepreneurship (MMIE) program seeking neither inspiration nor motivation, but rather structure. She wanted to support her naturally entrepreneurial mindset with a better arsenal of tools, skills, and processes to turn ideas into reality. And she also wanted to stress-test her own nascent business concepts. “The entrepreneurial thoughts we carry in our minds don’t always come together in the way we’d like in the real world,” she explains. “I wanted to learn how to figure out which ideas are not worth it, and how to create business plans to support the ideas that are.”

The immersive nature of the program gave her exactly what she was looking for. With each case competition, group project, and pitch presentation, she honed her ability to methodically work through the stages of entrepreneurship—from research all the way through to execution. “Having a bit of structure and getting a bit of feedback can go a long way,” she reflects. “It really pushed me forward.”

What’s more, the MMIE gave her a fresh appreciation for the value of connection—in class and outside of it. With every boot camp residency, post-lecture debate, and social gathering with the “totally brilliant minds” in her cohort, she learned how to quickly consider and synthesize a truly diverse range of perspectives—a very handy ability for a business banker to have. “The cross-pollination between entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and other individuals in the program was quite remarkable,” Monika says. “It really gave me more of a global perspective: Something that may not be an opportunity here may be a massive opportunity in Asia, in Africa, or in Europe.”

Monika says the knowledge she picked up in the program allows her to better engage with—and help—the entrepreneurs on her client roster. And when the time is right to bring of one of her entrepreneurial dreams to life, she’ll know exactly what to do. “For me, the program was the perfect marriage of intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship,” she explains. “It gave me the skill sets for both.”

Ali Zaydan, MMIE’23

Ali Zaydan’s ambition is infectious.

When describing his corporate career, the sales whiz-turned-entrepreneur lists off highlight-reel achievements—including leading the growth of key accounts for Nestle, managing the world’s second biggest retailer Carrefour, and spearheading the launches of Amazon and Instacart/Instashop in the United Arab Emirates—with the earned confidence of someone who expects great things of himself, and usually delivers. When explaining the goals of his startup, Drivisa—a platform designed to streamline the process of getting a driver’s licence—his vision is unequivocally bold: “I want it to take over Canada.”

Ali enrolled in the Master of Management Innovation & Entrepreneurship (MMIE) program in service of his go-getter tendencies. He wanted to reinforce his natural aptitude for problem-solving with some formal training, and, possibly, apply what he learned to a venture of his own. “I knew I could do it within the companies I worked for, and that doing so helped their stock go up,” he reflects. “I thought, ‘I want to do the same for my stock.’”

Right away, the MMIE presented the type of constructive challenges that told Ali he’d made the right call, especially the program’s first-phase focus on ideation and innovation: “It was all about letting your mind wander, which was not my comfort zone,” he says with a laugh. “But I came to understand the process and see the value in it.” Other program components, like the more experiential second phase, allowed him to flex more familiar muscles: “It was all about targets, numbers, and strategy,” he explains. “That was the fun part.”

As the program progressed, Ali acquired an increasingly potent motivation. Shortly after arriving in Kingston, he’d booked a course to get a Canadian driver’s licence. He was paired with driver Fares Albonai, who had—since coming to Canada in 2016 from Syria with no English or technical training—conceived of and built the basic app behind Drivisa. The two bonded, and began discussing and debating the finer points of the nascent venture. Ali started incorporating Drivisa problems in his coursework, case studies, and—eventually—his MMIE capstone project.

Through this work, Ali developed the mindset to innovate in the unpredictable and fast-moving world of a startup—a totally new context for someone who came up in corporate life. He recalls a few tough-love conversations with JP Shearer, Associate Director of Smith’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Social Impact: “He’d tell me, ‘Your projections are outdated.’ I’d say, ‘What do you mean? The numbers are two months old.’ He’d say ‘You’re in a startup. Things develop quickly, and are changing. Let’s go over the numbers again.’” These exchanges (and many similar ones with classmates and faculty) gradually rewired Ali’s brain, forcing him to proactively challenge assumptions, think things through, and look for loopholes before they become a problem—even when it’s easier not to.

Ali applies these skills every day in his work at Drivisa, which he formally joined as Co-Founder and CEO midway through his MMIE studies. Indeed, the program’s influence is all over the company: JP and Elspeth Murray (Associate Professor and Founder of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Social Impact) serve as advisors, two former classmates have joined as senior staff, and several others have helped with positioning, governance, and social media. As Ali explains, the program taught them how to think innovatively and solve problems together, and now they get to do it every day: “It’s opening all sorts of opportunities.”