Draft:Sherry Shannon-Vanstone

Sherry Shannon-Vanstone (born December 29, 1954) is an entrepreneur, mathematician, innovator, philanthropist, and mentor who holds joint citizenship in both Canada and the United States. She is the CEO of Profound Impact Corporation.. which she founded in 2018, based out of the Toronto-Waterloo tech corridor, Calgary, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Seattle.

Shannon-Vanstone currently serves as a board member and vice chair for Canada’s advanced internet research hub CANARIE, along with board and advisory positions with Protexxa, APMA’s Project Arrow, and others. She is also an angel investor as a Limited Partner with Phoenix Fire, which supports women entrepreneurs in technology. Shannon-Vanstone, along with Deborah Rosati, and Lara Zink, have created a collective known as Women Funding Women Inc. to challenge the status quo in the venture capital world to help address the funding gap for women led ventures by increasing the number of female angel investors.

Shannon-Vanstone has been recognized as an advocate for women entrepreneurs in STEM and technological fields. Previously, Shannon-Vanstone co-founded and co-chaired the Waterloo Region chapter of Women in Communications and Technology (WCT-WR), and co-chaired and later chaired the Perimeter Institute’s Emmy Noether Council.

Personal life and education
Shannon-Vanstone was born in Oneida, Tennessee and grew up in Franklin, Ohio. She moved to Canada in 1994 and married the late Professor Scott A. Vanstone on August 26, 2000.

She holds a Master of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Tennessee. In 2019, Shannon-Vanstone received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Western University.

Career
After working as a cryptologic mathematician with the US Government, Shannon-Vanstone worked in the private sector as VP Electronic Commerce at MasterCard International, as well as executive positions with information security start-ups Cylink, Certicom, and TrustPoint Innovation.

At Certicom, Shannon-Vanstone led the commercialization of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which formed the foundation of the security system for Blackberry Limited (formerly Research in Motion).

Shannon-Vanstone mentors female entrepreneurs in tech industries, is a respected speaker on founding and growing start-up companies, and the Founder of Profound Impact Corporation who developed a tool called Research Impact, which uses advanced Artificial Intelligence to match research funding opportunities and grants for academic researchers and industry partners globally. Shannon-Vanstone appears regularly on podcasts advocating entrepreneurship, technology, and the leadership of women in technology.

Awards
Her range of accomplishments include the prestigious WCT Leadership Excellence Award in Entrepreneurship for 2020 from Women in Communications and Technology (WCT), an Honorary Doctorate of Laws (LLD) from Western University in June 2019, and the World Waterloo Region’s Female Innovator of the Year in 2015. Shannon-Vanstone also received one of the 2015 Rogers K-W Women of the Year award in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math, she was a Woman of Influence in 2016, and in 2015 she was also named the ‘WOWtheworld Waterloo Region’s Female Innovator of the Year.