Shawn Abbott

Shawn has over 25 years of experience building and investing in Internet and technology companies. He is the founding chair of the A100, past chair of the Banff Venture Forum, a member of the Creative Destruction Lab, and current chair of the Venture Capital Association of Alberta. Shawn currently serves as a director on the boards of: Drivewyze, Top Hat, WorkFusion, Bench, Swept, CoolIT, Peraso, Solium and Olameter. Prior to inovia capital, he pioneered internet security as CTO, then President, of publicly-traded security powerhouse Rainbow Technologies. In this role, he saw the company grow tenfold in profitability before being sold to SafeNet for nearly a half-billion dollars. He previously founded, built, and then sold the AND Group, an early encryption-based eCommerce success used on millions of CDs. Shawn holds an early patent as an inventor of the USB key, has taught software design courses internationally and has presented at more than one hundred conferences on digital security and enterpreneurialism.