Two Ted Rogers School grads receive DMZ’s Women of the Year award
Ted Rogers MBA graduate Rebecca Rose and Business Technology Management graduate Snita Balsara have been recognized for their impactful work in the tech industry by receiving DMZ’s Women of the Year award (opens in new window) .
The DMZ at Ryerson University is a world-leading incubator for tech startups around the world. Its new annual Women of the Year award is an esteemed list curated by the tech community to honour inspirational women within the Canadian tech ecosystem for their outstanding accomplishments and contributions to creating impact. Nearly 600 nominations were received across Canada this year, and 32 women were named to the list.
Rebecca Rose
Rebecca Rose (MBA, 2015) is co-founder and CEO of Studeo (external link, opens in new window) , an automated interactive storytelling company. It is built on two main ideas: 1) the vision of transforming online content from data-centric information to a human-value driven experience, and 2) to make that experience both accessible and scalable by using artificial intelligence, machine learning models and automation.
Rose co-founded the company with her husband, Nir Betan (Chief Strategy Officer) and her friend Brodie Hanbuch (Director of Technology) in 2013. The original idea stemmed from the advertising agency that Betan founded in 2007, and that she helped him run in the early years of their relationship.
“We were both entrepreneurial at heart, but hated the agency business model and wanted to build a technology company that had a much greater potential to both scale and have an evolving impact on the market,” Rose explains. “Creating an automated interactive storytelling company was the literal intersection between the backgrounds of the three co-founders: film, business, mathematics and software engineering.”
Rose says that she did her Ted Rogers MBA in Technology and Innovation with the precise goal of using it to launch Studeo. “I came into the program with a BFA in Film, and while I had a lot of exposure to creative processes, digital media production and marketing strategy in my education and work experience, I knew I was lacking in some business fundamentals that would be crucial to leading a technology company,” she explains. “Every course I took during my MBA was chosen strategically to ensure I closed that gap as fast as possible.”
Rose and the other Studeo co-founders bootstrapped their company into a leading Canadian tech platform, seeing 100% year-over-year growth and seven-figure revenues. Studeo won the Ignite Capital Women’s Entrepreneurship Award and was featured by Inman as one of real estate’s top tech platforms of 2020.
Rose says that it is an incredible honour to be listed as one of DMZ’s Women of the Year, but fully recognizes that it is really the entire team and everyone over the years that has contributed to the evolution of Studeo that is being honoured by this award. “I’m just thankful and grateful that we survived the roughest years of bootstrapping to even be here to accept it,” she adds.
Snita Balsara
Snita Balsara (BTM, 2005) has been an investor for nearly a decade and currently works with Graphite Ventures (external link, opens in new window) , a leading early-stage venture capital fund. Her journey as an investor started while she was at the Herjavec Group, and had the opportunity to support Robert Herjavec with his Shark Tank portfolio. “It was amazing to roll up my sleeves on diligence, closing deals and supporting companies post-investment. That experience illuminated a career path I hadn’t thought about before,” she says.
In late 2016, Balsara joined MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF), which opened the doors to the Canadian Innovation Ecosystem. As an early stage investor, she has the opportunity to work with passionate entrepreneurs, alongside investors and an ecosystem focused on scaling Canadian start-ups.
“While part of MaRS IAF, I had a front row seat and the opportunity to support Michelle McBane as she built StandUp Ventures, a Toronto-based venture firm that invests in high-growth, women-led companies across Canada,” Balsara explains. “And more recently, I found myself on the ground floor of a new fund as our team launched Graphite Ventures.” Founded in 2021, Graphite Ventures is an evolution of MaRS IAF, one of Canada’s most active VC firms, having invested in 175 companies over the past decade.
In addition, Balsara is an active member of Canada’s Innovation Ecosystem. She is a founding member of the Canadian Women in VC Community, and the Diversity and Inclusion Small Council, a platform to help under-represented tech founders. She also volunteers her time on the Board of Directors with Golden Triangle Angel Network, and as an advisor with Ella, an accelerator focused on supporting women-led businesses.
Balsara says that graduating from Ted Rogers School’s BTM program provided her with a diverse set of skills to code full stack, and also understand how businesses operated. “Having that duality of experience allowed me to be a better communicator and liaison between the tech side and the business side, articulating the needs of both,” she points out.
She was also actively involved in the Tri-Mentoring Program, the Student Initiatives Fund and the other student associations during her time at the Ted Rogers School. “These experiences built the foundation of doing more than just what is necessary, and how to be a contributing member of the community that I’m part of,” Balsara explains. “Mentorship has continued to be an important part of my own growth and development as well.”
Balsara says that it’s a humbling experience to be recognized as one of DMZ’s Women of the Year, even more so with all the support and congratulations from her colleagues and peers. “My hope is simply that what I'm doing leaves a positive impact on our ecosystem and those around me, and it's really lovely to be recognized for the efforts,” she adds.