Team Mentorship Program
Based on the model developed by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS), the Team Mentorship Program matches companies with skilled mentors who are experts in their fields to provide practical advice on key issues and strategic support, relevant to a company’s stage of development, to advance their business objectives.
The gold standard in mentoring programs, MIT VMS model is unique in its methodology, using a strict code of ethics to assure objective, conflict-free and confidential advice. The MIT VMS model has a proven set of best practices for supporting company development through the selection and training of a community of highly qualified and committed volunteer mentors.
Emergence Client Expectations:
Emergence clients that are selected to participate in the Team Mentorship Program have demonstrated rapid growth and transformation, and could benefit from the professional advice, strategy sessions and expertise of the Emergence mentors.
For more information on the Team Mentorship Program and to submit interest, contact jennifer@peibioalliance.com.
Our Mentors
Betsy Bascom
President & CEO of Global Connectworks
Betsy Bascom, M.B.A., is President & CEO of Global Connectworks, a business consulting firm in Toronto. She has a strong track record and a broad scope of experience in business development, negotiations, management, board governance, marketing, product development, business communications and strategy, lobbying, conference and event management. Betsy has superior leadership, project management and organization skills, and is a results and detail oriented, strategic thinker. She is known for helping companies find innovative and resourceful solutions to challenges.
Byron Beeler
Founder & President of Beeler Consulting
As company founder and president of Beeler Consulting, Byron brings his broad management and consulting experience to the table. His career path has included positions as Director of the Soils and Crops Branch, Ontario Department of Agriculture; General Manager of Stewart Seeds; Vice-President of Ciba-Geigy’s agricultural division; and President of Novartis Animal Health. Byron has played key leadership roles in many of Canada’s professional agricultural associations. Since establishing his consulting firm in 2001, he has worked with governments as well as with local, national and international companies. Beeler Consulting offers an extended range of consulting advice to the life sciences industry.
Byron was made a Fellow of the Agricultural Institute of Canada (1995) and inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame (2005). Additionally, McGill University honoured him with a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009 and the E.P. Taylor Outstanding Service Award in 2010.
Ron Keefe
Ron has been a member of the PEI BioAlliance since its inception and served as its chair for a number of years. He is currently counsel to Stewart McKelvey having previously been a partner in the firm. He is also a partner in the general partnership of Island Captial Partners, a venture fund providing equity funding to early-stage life science and other companies. He is the former CEO of BIOVECTRA and Diagnostic Chemicals Limited (now Sekisui Diagnostics), two of the largest businesses in the PEI bioscience cluster. Ron is a present and past board member of many companies, several of which are engaged in life sciences. He also spends a considerable amount of time mentoring founders of new businesses.
Wayne Fisher
President at Fisher Enterprises
Wayne has over 40 years’ experience in the North American healthcare industry. He has led multinational organizations in the pharmaceutical and consumer health markets as well start-up ventures in the electronic health care records, health information and supply chain markets. He has held senior management positions in sales, marketing and general management including President of Novartis Consumer Health. He co-founded Plexus 360, a SaaS company where he created an innovative web-based marketing supply chain solution for the Canadian Healthcare market. Wayne served on the Boards of the Consumer Health Products Association (Chair 1996-97) and the Council of Drug Abuse.
Throughout his career he has successfully grown his businesses through a combination of organic growth, acquisitions, licensing, and mergers. Wayne’s experience working with large multinationals as well as early-stage companies provides him with a good perspective on the needs of companies at each stage of their corporate life cycle.
Robert Kincaide
Bob has mentored MBA students and their subsequent new ventures, and has led brand strategy workshops throughout the US for the American Marketing Association.
Kenneth J. Rotondo, DVM, MBA
Dr. Ken Rotondo, a veterinarian, speaker, consultant and entrepreneur, has
collaborated with a variety of groups and organizations to optimize business and
personal performance. Recognized as an expert in practice management and the dynamics of successful practices and businesses. He specializes in effective client communication, customer experience engineering, and consumer insights. He has owned and operated 5 veterinary hospitals in New York, is a Past President of the NY State Veterinary Medical Society and has served on numerous boards within local, state and national veterinary organizations. He served as an adviser to veterinary pharmaceutical companies, reference laboratories and veterinary corporate ownership groups. He has represented New York State to the AVMA House of Delegates. Most recently he served on the AVMA Futures Commission and collaborates with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine applying behavior economics principles and machine learning to improve patient compliance.
Dr. Rotondo has been a featured presenter on the topic of “patient/client engagement” at Thought Leadership Summits and conferences for such diverse industries as Auto, Insurance, Pharma, Financial Services, Medicine, and international marketing. He currently serves on the Canadian Bio-Alliance Mentoring Board providing advice and counsel to entrepreneurs and startups in agriculture, aqui-business, pharma, medicine, and veterinary medicine. He has presented at IBM THINK Conference, IBM Watson Conference and HIMSS19, HIMSS20, AVMA Veterinary Economic Summit.
Ken has lectured extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Dr. Rotondo lectures annually at the Wharton Business School and other universities on such diverse topics as behavioral economics, marketing analytics and applying machine learning principles to patient/client communication.
Dr Rotondo holds a DVM degree from Cornell University and MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
He resides in historic Saratoga Springs, NY with his wife Jill and their dog Lucy.
Dale Zajicek
Dale has a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from Illinois Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Elmhurst College. He was a member of the process development team that developed commercially viable manufacturing processes for new drugs under development at G.D. Searle, Inc. After working on the commercial process for aspartame, in 1982, he joined The NutraSweet Division of G.D Searle, (acquired by Monsanto in 1985) as Operations Manager, overseeing the commercial production of Nutrasweet. In 1992, Dale was appointed Manager, New Business Development where he worked in conjunction with partners such as Kraft-General Foods and Pepsico developing new products for these key clients.
Dale joined BIOVECTRA in 1995 as Engineering & Biochemical Operations Manager and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer & Vice President, Business Development in 1998 and later to President from 2011 until he retired in 2015. Dale is currently a director of the Regis Duffy Bioscience Fund, and has served as a Director for publicly traded biotech companies and a number of start-up companies locally.
Dr. Regis Duffy (Mentor Emeritus)
After serving as Chair of the UPEI Board of Governors from 1996 to 2006, Regis was named Board Chair Emeritus in 2007 for his contributions as a board member and chair, and for his many years of service to the university. His many honours include being named a member of the Order of Canada, receiving the PEI Region Canadian Red Cross Humanitarian Award, being awarded Atlantic Canada’s Innovator of the Year and Atlantic Canada’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and being inducted into the PEI Business Hall of Fame. He is the founding chair of the PEI BioAlliance, a leadership organization for the bioscience cluster, and he is a member of the NRC Institute for Marine Biosciences-Institute for Nutrisciences and Health (IMB-INH) Advisory Committee. In April 2008, a state-of-the-art bioscience and health research centre at UPEI was named the Regis and Joan Duffy Research Centre.