The team behind SmartSkin.
Meet our talented management team and board of directors.
Management Team
Evan Justason
Kumaran Thillainadarajah
Kumaran developed the initial concept of SmartSkin Technologies. He first developed the technology for use as a prosthetic glove or touch sensor for prosthetics in 2008. Since then, several other commercial markets were also identified, including sports training and industrial packaging. SmartSkin has won a variety of awards since its inception in 2008, including several business plan and engineering competitions and a Special Award for Social Awareness at the Canadian Engineering Competition in 2009. At the NBIF Breakthru Competition in 2009, SmartSkin won four awards: Best Young Entrepreneur, Best Presentation, Best University Venture and the Viewers’ Choice Award. Kumaran himself has been recognized as a promising young entrepreneur and has raised $6 million to fund the research and commercialization of SmartSkin’s novel sensor technology.
Page Betts
Paige brings more than 25 years as a leader, consultant and coach in Human Resources and Operations to SmartSkin Technologies. Prior to joining, Paige worked as a Senior Director of Contact Centre Operations for one of Canada’s largest banks. In that role, she led teams and leaders in delivering world-class employee and client experiences for nearly 20 years.
Paige holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of New Brunswick, and a Bachelor of Education degree from St. Thomas University.
Peter Clark
Ryan Proudfoot
Ryan is a world class product manager with deep experience in building and delivering cloud based analytics applications. Ryan leads SmartSkin’s engineering activities and holds a Masters degree in Computer Science.
Board of Directors
Gerry Pond
Gerry Pond has extensive experience in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.
As the CEO of NBTel and the President of its successor, Aliant Telecom, he was at the helm during a period of significant deregulation in the Canadian industry. Under his innovative leadership, NBTel emerged as an international ICT leader.
Born in Quebec and raised in New Brunswick, Gerry Pond’s educational achievements include a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New Brunswick; Organizational Effectiveness Program, Harvard University; Executive Program, McGill University; and Senior Executive’s Program, University of Western Ontario.
Pond is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Mariner Partners Inc., and has co-founded a number of successful ICT start-ups in Atlantic Canada, including iMagicTV, Q1 Labs, Brovada Technologies, Radian6, Shift Energy and Cirrus9. He is also the Co-Founder of Propel ICT, a start-up accelerator, the Co-Founder of the Pond-Deshpande Centre at the University of New Brunswick, and the Co-Founder of East Valley Ventures, an accelerator for Atlantic Canadian start-up companies with a mission of helping passionate entrepreneurs launch meaningful and enduring technology companies. He is a Director of Upside Foundation, NB Business Council and the National Angel Capital Organization.
Gerry Pond has received many honours, both regionally and nationally, including the prestigious 1997 Canadian Information Productivity Association (CIPA) Innovator of the Year and Hall of Fame, the NB Knowledge Industry Recognition and Achievement (KIRA) Awards Person of the Year in 2002, the 2003 Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, Atlantic Business Magazine’s Top 50 CEO Award in Atlantic Canada in 2003 and 2005, an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of New Brunswick, and an Honorary Doctor of Commerce from Saint Mary’s University. For his tireless contribution to regional economic development, he was inducted into the New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame in October 2007.
An inspiring innovator and social entrepreneur, Gerry Pond also earned recognition as 2011 Canadian Angel of the Year from Techvibes & KPMG. In 2012, he received the Canadian Red Cross Humanitarian award for New Brunswick. He was twice honoured in 2013, first by The Learning Partnership as a Champion of Public Education, and then as the recipient of the Order of New Brunswick for his innovative spirit and critical contribution to many of New Brunswick’s IT and telecommunications success stories. At the 2014 Canadian Startup Awards, Gerry Pond’s passion for supporting innovation and entrepreneurship was recognized with the prestigious Wolf Blass Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015, he was awarded the first-ever Business Development Bank of Canada Entrepreneurship Champion – a national award that recognizes the achievement of a Canadian entrepreneur and community leader who has created and grown one or many successful small or medium-sized businesses while significantly contributing to the prosperity of the Canadian entrepreneurship ecosystem. In 2017, Gerry received the EY Atlantic Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his enduring contribution to Canadian business, philanthropic endeavours and outstanding leadership within the community and across Canada. Most recently, Gerry was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. It is the cornerstone of the Canadian Honours System, and recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation.
Fabian Stöcker
Joe Regan
Martin Van Trieste
Martin joins the Board of Directors as the retired founder and President Emeritus of CivicaRX. He is an accomplished entrepreneur, board governance expert, executive coach and biopharmaceutical executive. He has used his entrepreneurial expertise to create a successful non-profit consortium. He has established board governance from scratch and moved boards to a more strategic operating culture. Martin is passionate about changing quality cultures, leading large organizations, quality improvement, and compliance initiatives in complex biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing environments.
Martin’s comprehensive knowledge and experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing, quality systems and government regulations, both domestic and international. He is well-known and respected in the industry as a thought leader in anticipating, troubleshooting, and resolving quality and regulatory issues. . Martin currently sits on the boards of Temple University School of Pharmacy, Phlow Corporation, Redica Inc., and Civica RX.
Advisory Board
Joe Norris
Joe is an experienced packaging professional with global experiences, leading to new consumer packages and product commercialization. He was part of Global Packaging teams at Colgate-Palmolive Co. in New York and New Jersey, and at The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, Georgia, where he retired in 2013. Joe’s work is built on a foundation of consumer insights, packaging technology development, and novel package converting methods. His responsibilities included early pipeline ideation, identification of opportunities, project business case development, sell-in with business teams and intellectual property development. He holds 12 US patents, and has six pending applications. He won the Colgate Global Technology Award for Dual Tube Commercialization in 2001 and has won five Colgate “You Can Make a Difference ” Awards sponsored by the Chairman. He is President of Packaging Strategies and Solutions LLC and is a Smart Skin Technologies advisor. Education BS Mechanical Engineering, with focus on Material Sciences, Union College, Schenectady, NY Institute of Packaging Professionals (IOPP) member.
Dr. Ing. Franz Mader
Mihaela Simianu
A life-long learner with a passion for science applied towards medical innovation and manufacturing processes, Mihalea Simianu, PhD. has spent the past 25 years at the forefront of pharmaceutical research, standards, manufacturing, quality, and commercialization for some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical brands including, Eli Lilly, Amgen, and Merck.
Dr. Simianu is recognized by her peers as a transformational leader in the biopharmaceutical industry. Her focus has been on delivering business operation outcomes; the modernization of development, quality and manufacturing systems, as well as the adoption of new technical capabilities. Mihaela’s career has taken her around the world and her technical knowledge has helped with the approval of seven new commercial products, and the introduction of commercial processes at nine manufacturing sites in the United States and Europe. She has overseen the manufacturing of 20 commercial products both internally and through contract manufacturing sites.
Dr. Simianu is considered to be an authority and sought-after speaker for pharmaceutical commercialization, quality, and innovation. She regularly speaks on data and knowledge-based R&D: product and process QbD development, validation, transfer, and life cycle management for a large range of therapeutic modalities. She sponsors and engages industry peers and partners to advance global parenteral manufacturing, parenteral products closure systems design. She engages in adoption and advancement of new technologies, adding laboratory and pilot capability as platforms for investment into rapid experimentation and change from status quo.
