Amy Matchen is Managing Director of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, a civil society organization dedicated to building inclusive communities by advancing reconciliation, active citizenship and belonging. The ICC celebrates and explores these ideals in Canada and around the world. Amy also directs the ICC’s Building Citizenship program, leading a team that conducts 75 enhanced citizenship ceremonies at iconic venues nationwide every year. Amy was the founding manager of startGBC, a hub connecting students, faculty and alumni at George Brown College with the resources to develop entrepreneurial projects and spirit on campus and beyond. She introduced the popular Why Not Me Speaker Series, attracting numerous partners from across the College and across the private, public and voluntary sectors of the innovation community in Toronto. Most of Amy’s career was focused on growing venture-backed technology companies, including Indigo Ltd, the digital printing pioneer, which was acquired by HP for some $850 million, and Check Point Software Technologies, (NASDAQ:CHKP), the Internet security software leader with annual sales topping $2 billion. Later, Amy acted as fractional CMO for some of the most innovative and successful start-ups in Toronto (including Flybits, VitalHub and eSentire). She earned a BA in Political Economy from University of Toronto and studied Organizational Behaviour at Tel Aviv University. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Vice President, International Affairs at the incomparable Weizmann Institute of Science, raising more than $100 million annually for pure scientific research. Amy is frequently invited to advise start-ups and judge pitch competitions at venues throughout the Greater Toronto Area. In 2016, She was an organizer of DementiaHack, in partnership with Facebook Canada and the British Consulate in Toronto. For several years starting in 2000, she served on the Board of Directors of Hand in Hand, an ambitious non-profit which runs the only bilingual, bi-national (Arab and Jewish) primary schools in Israel. She was also the founding Country Director of Common Purpose Israel, a non-profit leadership development program that aims to improve the diversity and prosperity of cities worldwide. More recently, she served for a number of years on the College of Electors, a Committee of the Board of Governors of University of Toronto. |
