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Board of Directors
Rainer Paduch, Chairman
Rainer Paduch has a proven and successful track record as a serial entrepreneur, leader and manager. Rainer has 25 years of in-depth business management and team building experience as well as expertise in software design, telecommunications and data networking. Rainer is currently a local Ottawa angel investor, founder of the Band of Scoundrels investment partnership, Chairman of start-up Pinpoint Selling as well as serving on the Advisory Board of the Entrepreneurship Center of Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI).
Rainer was most recently a venture partner at Novacap, a Montreal based venture capital firm investing in early stage technology start-ups and later stage operating companies. Prior to that he was also a co-founder of Coventus Inc, a service provider developing offerings for the business traveler while on the road or in conference centers and hotels.
Rainer was the founder of iSTAR Internet Inc. where he served as President, Chief Technology Officer and Vice Chairman. He successfully led iSTAR from start-up to rapid growth and through IPO. Under his leadership and technical expertise, company sales rose to a $40 million annual rate. He also led a team that raised $76 million during the early development stages of the company. In February 1998, PSINet Inc. acquired iSTAR. He was also an investor in and a Director of Milkyway Networks, another Ottawa based start-up that achieved a successful IPO.
Over the course of his career, Rainer has held senior-level positions including Vice President of Technology at fONOROLA Inc., Director Application Engineering at Newbridge Networks Corp. and co-founder and Vice President Engineering at Enfin Technologies Inc. Rainer held technical positions at Mitel Corp., EDS-Systemhouse Ltd., and Canadian Marconi Ltd. He holds an Honors Bachelor of Engineering and a Masters of Engineering from McGill University in Montreal.
Rick Escher, President & CEO
When Recognia President & CEO Rick Escher founded the company in March, 1999,
he brought with him a wealth of experience, including the successful
launching and management of two startups - Pricedex Software Inc.
and MacSys Inc. Under Mr. Escher's guidance, Pricedex became a leading
supplier of price management software throughout North America and
Europe. Mr. Escher had previously led MacSys from inception in 1988
to final sale in 1996. Before that, Mr. Escher worked for CAL Corporation
as a space systems engineer, where he designed and implemented thermal
simulations for space flight hardware and also trained astronauts
in the operation of the equipment.
Mr. Escher was presented with the Small Business International
Expansion Award from Canadian Airlines International for the best
international sales and marketing plan as well as an Excellence
in Entrepreneurship (Best Business Plan) Award from the Kanata Chamber
of Commerce for the most promising, emerging Kanata-based business.
Mr. Escher is a graduate of the Florida Institute of Technology,
where he earned a Master's degree with Highest Honor in Space Science
in 1985.
Although the majority of his time is devoted to growing Recognia,
Mr. Escher is involved in several organizations. One of these, a
drop-in center for under-privileged youth in the Ottawa-Carleton
region called The Door/La Porte, provides guidance and mentors to
help develop skills in areas such as entrepreneurship. Mr. Escher
is a founding member of the Software Developers' Network (SDN),
a forum for software executives to discuss business management,
an associate member of the Sigma Xi scientific research society
and a past member of the Young Entrepreneur's Organization (YEO).
John Dill
John Dill is President and Chief Executive Officer of McGraw-Hill
Ryerson. The renowned company, which today focuses on education
and non-fiction for the general public, has seen its sales more
than double since he came on board in 1993.
Mr. Dill's past experience in the publishing field is extensive.
Prior to joining the McGraw-Hill Group of Companies, he was President
of Wiley Canada for seven years. Before that, he was with Holt,
Rinehart and Winston of Canada as President of the School Division
and Vice President of the College Division. Earlier in his career,
he held various sales and management positions with Addison-Wesley,
based in Toronto and Vancouver.
A current officer of the Canadian Publishers' Council and former
co-chair of the Canadian Copyright Collective, Mr. Dill describes
his involvement with Recognia as "an opportunity to set the
industry standard in terms of the effective use of information for
financial decisions."
Jeff Feldgoise
Jeff Feldgoise is a creative technology leader who has brought to market
large and innovative online services that have revolutionized online
investing for millions of customers.
Mr. Feldgoise is currently leading the online product development for
wis.dm. Prior to joining wis.dm, Mr. Feldgoise was general manager of
Stock Research Services for Fidelity Investments, where he developed
innovative online services that brought institutional-quality research
capabilities to Fidelity's individual investors. Under his leadership,
Fidelity's stock research offering experienced tremendous growth,
surpassing all competitors to become ranked #1 by Kiplinger's Personal
Finance in 2006. Earlier at Fidelity, Mr. Feldgoise led the design for
much of Fidelity.com, redefining the customer experience and online
information architecture. Prior to Fidelity, he co-founded InnerVue, a
software company that helped sell complex products online using 3-d
visualization.
Mr. Feldgoise has particular interest and expertise in computer graphics
and information visualization. He holds both undergraduate and
graduate degrees in design from MIT, where he studied at the School of
Architecture and the Lab for Computer Science (Graphics Group).
Dr. Paul Halpern
Dr. Halpern lectures in the Rotman
School of Management and the Faculty
of Law at the University of Toronto. He is the Toronto
Stock Exchange Chair in Capital Markets and the Director of
the University of Toronto
Capital Markets Institute.
Dr. Halpern's teaching and research interests include mergers and
acquisitions, high leverage transactions, corporate restructuring,
corporate governance and capital markets. He has published books
and articles in numerous financial, legal and economic journals.
Brian O'Higgins
Mr. O'Higgins is seasoned professional in the security industry, and is best known for his role in introducing
PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) technology and products to the security landscape. He is also a recognized speaker
on IT and Internet security.
Mr. O'Higgins is Chief Technology Officer of Third Brigade. Prior to joining Third Brigade, Mr. O'Higgins was
the co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Entrust,
a leading Internet Security company. While at Entrust he had overall responsibility for the technology vision
and direction for the company. He was previously with Nortel where he established the Secure Networks group
in 1993, and was instrumental in spinning-out this group as an independent company, Entrust. Prior to this,
Mr. O'Higgins was with Bell-Northern Research (BNR) where he was involved in a variety of technology development
programs including public key security systems, technology for new telephone products, in-building wireless
communications systems and high-performance computing architectures for digital telephone switches.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and its various applications have
always been of particular interest to
Mr. O'Higgins. "Recognia has an extremely rich AI technology
base which it is applying as an analytical tool to help predict
the stock market," he says. "As more and more automation
and regulations on fair disclosure are introduced to the financial
community, it would seem that Recognia's predictive technology will
provide greater chances of recognizing trading patterns as they
are forming, and so help to make money on the market."
Mr. O'Higgins' current list of affiliations includes advisory board positions with
Defence R&D Canada, Information Technology Association of Canada, Communications and Information
Technology Ontario, Algonquin College, and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
In addition, he currently serves on the boards of Recognia and Fischer International.
Jim Linnehan
Jim Linnehan currently runs the Institutional Research business for
Thomson Financial. He has been with Thomson for close to four years and
has built a platform that is designed to facilitate the security
research workflow from idea generation through research document
publication. He also identifies and structures partnering and
acquisition opportunities.
Prior to joining Thomson Mr. Linnehan spent five years as an equity
analyst working for Montgomery Securities (subsequently BancAmerica
Securities) and Thomas Weisel Partners. While at TWP he formed the
telecommunications research practice where we became a Starmine rated
4-Star analyst.
From 1986 to 1997 Mr. Linnehan worked in the Future Technologies
division of AT&T Bell Labs. He was a member of a business development
group that built business cases and procured necessary financing for
projects designed to bring new consumer-based technologies to the market
place. Among these projects was the first Interactive TV trial, the
first application involving Video Telephony (two-way over cable
networks), and the first Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial network.
Mr. Linnehan has a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University
of Delaware, and an MBA from New York University.
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