Al Kassam

Al has been a successful serial entrepreneur in the software and services industry for the past 40 years and currently serves as the Head of North America for the U.S. operations of a UK based software analytics company.  Al has had several successful exits from companies that he founded or held a senior position with, the most recent and notable being part of the executive team that sold i2/COPLINK to IBM’s Smarter Cities Division, where he held several positions including Worldwide Services Leader, Smarter Cities as well senior level roles in the Business Development and Corporate Development organizations within the IBM Security Division. Al’s other entrepreneurial ventures included Benchmark Technologies, a boutique software services firm founded in 1995, in Vancouver, Canada, which was later re-organized into a publicly traded software development company with Al as the President, CEO and Chairman of the Board.

Al is a graduate of Simon Fraser University located in Burnaby, British Columbia, where he studied Computer Science while simultaneously working with a private commercial entity to develop some of the earliest and most sophisticated rendering techniques for 3-D images.  Several years after completing his undergraduate studies, in 1993, he went on to complete the MBA program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he specialized in International Marketing.