Leadership

After Disney, Willem joined a private fast growing company with a China-based supply chain and distribution across North-America. He started and led several central planning functions; his last role as Executive Vice President included oversight of Financial Planning, Business Intelligence, Business Integration, and Demand Forecasting of Products and Distribution Channels.

Willem holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) and completed a program in Advanced Managerial Accounting.

Prior to Vendasta, Bryan held positions with Yardi Canada and Point2 Technologies in the area of brand and design. He earned a B. Ed. degree from the University of Saskatchewan and holds certifications in scrum and UX management.

Jean is an alumna at the University of Saskatchewan with a degree in Psychology. She spent 20 years growing retail brands in Canada such as Zara, Esprit and Target before moving into technology. With over 500 employees, Jean leverages her education in psychology and expertise in leading effective teams to ensure employees do not come to Vendasta just to work but are able to be their best and live out their passions.
Jean is involved with the SaskTech Board and has been a speaker at Edwards School of Business, the University of Saskatchewan, Co. Labs and various Technology events.

Prior to Vendasta in 2014, Janessa held positions with Shaw Cable in the areas of training and development and sales. She is an alumni from the University of Saskatchewan with a B. Comm degree.

During her volunteer hours, she serves on the board of SODS (a settlement agency for new immigrants), and also supports the emerging local tech community in Saskatchewan by working as a Tech Start-up Mentor for the provincial tech incubator Co.Labs. Shakya is intensely customer-focused with an intuition for consumer patterns and trends. She connects people across divisions and ideologies to drive innovation throughout Vendasta, and brings a contagious brightness to each project.

Roy Pereira has founded and led several tech startups based in Silicon Valley and Toronto. While at Cisco in California, Roy was an integral part of the team that launched the security business unit, generating more than one billion in annual revenue. As an inventor, Roy holds patents on remote access IPSec VPN software. In 2007, Roy started the world’s first Facebook marketing agency. In 2009, he started his fifth startup, known as Shiny Ads, to help the world’s top digital publishers better monetize premium ad buys and, in the process, invented an alternative to RTB called “automated guaranteed.” Shiny Ads was later acquired by Rubicon Project (NYSE-RUBI), based in Los Angeles, in 2014.

Ian Jones is Vendasta’s Vice President of Revenue. He leads Vendasta’s Sales and Customer Support teams of more than 140 professionals, driving a growth and customer-centric mindset. Ian is responsible for shaping and executing the strategies that deliver Vendasta’s revenue growth targets as well as the world-class customer experience we aspire to deliver each and every day. Ian started with  Vendasta in August 2020, and made the journey across the pond from Wales to join the team at our Canadian HQ in January 2021. He quickly picked up Canadian business culture, and has brought many new processes and ideas to Vendasta. 

Prior to joining Vendasta, Ian spent seven years working for Archant, one of the UK’s oldest and largest independent publishers, where he led the development of the Digital Marketing Services and Digital Sales Teams. He also spent almost 10 years working in the financial services industry, and enjoyed a brief stint in consultancy. Ian earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Biology at the University of Hull in 2002, and his Executive MBA from Cranfield University in 2019. Between his accent and his experience, Ian is a skilled, empathetic leader that Vendasta is lucky to have.