Company Info for nextcanada.com | IcebreakerMembers
Jon French is the Director, University of Toronto Entrepreneurship (UTE). He is responsible for supporting and championing all entrepreneurship initiatives across U of T’s three campuses and provides leadership to the UTE team, while managing ONRamp – 16,000 square feet of co-working and event space on the St. George (downtown) campus. He is a central liaison for the leads of the university’s campus-linked accelerator programs and well networked to U of T’s many industry, government and other partners that foster entrepreneurship. He provides support on various external and internal funding programs for U of T entrepreneurs and will play a key role with the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre – a 750,000 square ft innovation hub, slated to open 2022-23.
Jon has a decade of experience at the intersection of the innovation economy and academia, with industry and university connections across Canada and globally. He was the first full-time employee for NEXT Canada (formerly The Next 36), where he held numerous roles, including Senior Director, Global Recruitment, Community and Alumni. Jon joined NEXT in 2011 and helped the organization expand into a nationally and internationally recognized network that supports Canadian innovators and entrepreneurs. He also led the launch NextAI, an artificial intelligence accelerator in Toronto and Montreal.
Jon has served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Career Educators & Employers (CACEE), DECA and Venture for Canada. He has volunteered for the MLSE Foundation's 3TO6 Team to benefit Regent Park. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Masters of Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business, York University. He recently completed the Rotman School of Management - Executive Primer in Artificial Intelligence. 
I'm a brand and growth strategist who turns early-stage ideas into culture-shaping ventures. Over the past decade, I’ve helped startups go from zero to their first 100,000 customers by building brands people actually care about — and communities that keep them coming back. My work lives at the intersection of storytelling, systems, and scale — from positioning and creative content engines to performance channels and GTM playbooks.
I’ve co-founded and exited two companies: Bon Temps, a cult-favorite CPG brand acquired by Private Equity, and Juniper Creates, a creator commerce platform acquired by Imprint Creations. Today, I lead marketing and venture development at Boardroom Labs and advise emerging consumer brands through Hieroglyph.
Outside of work you'll find me hiking the Canadian wilderness, reading, taking pictures of bees, and making art. 
I'm an experienced product executive with a proven track record of building world-class B2C, B2B, and B2B2C products.
In 2022, I joined Product School full-time as their VP of Product (Enterprise) to set up a strong foundation for Product School's growth in enterprise training.
In 2020, I co-founded Bloom and led our engineering, product, and design teams. Bloom offered the world's first comprehensive set of cohort-based programs designed to prepare professional retirees for a fulfilling retirement, with support from certified retirement coaches, and a likeminded community.
Before co-founding Bloom, I was CareGuide’s VP of Product & Design. CareGuide is a portfolio of 26 online marketplaces (petsitter.com, housekeeper.com, sitter.com, etc.) with a mission to pair families and businesses with great care providers. We grew our marketplace to 7,400,000 registered members with more than $140,000,000 in processed payments.
Prior to CareGuide, I was CrowdRiff's Head of Product and my team built the world's first AI-powered visual content marketing platform used by the world’s best travel and tourism brands such as Visit California and Zürich Tourism.
Before joining CrowdRiff, I led the product innovation team at Financeit powering over 7,800 merchants and $3 billion in payment plan applications.
In 2015, I led “Shopify for Startups” program and worked with Shopify’s business and engineering teams to build a world-class developer ecosystem (crucial to Shopify's path to IPO). I worked with more than 400 app partners all around the world to help them build and scale their products. My team and I managed the growth of the Shopify App Store leading to a 84% increase in revenue, 1250 more published apps and a 32% increase in merchant app spend.
Prior to starting my career in Product Management, I worked as a Software Engineer and API Engineer at Fortune 500 companies like Google, Series B/C organizations like AppDirect and startups like Tradable Bits.
Let's work together and transform your company into a high-performing, customer-centric, design-driven, and product-led organization 🚀 As the CEO & founder of Xatoms, I lead a talented team dedicated to redefining the way we discover new materials.
At Xatoms, we are using AI and quantum chemistry to build the world’s largest photocatalyst discovery platform for multiple applications, starting with water.
Water has been a huge part of my life. At 17, I used quantum chemistry software to discover a sunlight-activated photocatalyst and received a Diploma of Excellence from the Swedish Royal Family during World Water Week. This achievement led to me receiving the most prestigious full university scholarship in Canada.
In 2023, we received our first cheque from Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, and since then, we’ve been grinding our way forward—expanding our team and building real-world, impactful solutions with a mission to clean water for more than 2 billion people. I am convinced that quantum computing is going to revolutionize material discovery.
Being named to Forbes 30 Under 30 North America in New Materials & Industry, as well as an Emerging Leader for 2025 by Canada’s Clean50, proves that Xatoms is unstoppable and ready to make a huge mark on the industry.
We are expanding our team! If you’re interested in being part of the movement, email me at diana@xatoms.com 
