Anne Martel, once an enterprising kid with a lemonade stand on her street, grew up into "wonder woman" at work.
The art aficionado took over Genie Audio, her father’s medical devices manufacturing and distribution company, which she restructured and sold, while studying fine arts and then finance.
While VP of operations at Element AI, a top artificial intelligence company with an enviable talent pool, Martel completed her MBA degree. Co-founded with husband Jean-François Gagné, artificial intelligence pioneer Yoshua Bengio, and three others, Element AI became the darling of Canada’s AI startup ventures. Martel was chief administrative officer last year until it sold in January to ServiceNow.
Proudest moment
Element AI will always be special to me. I’ve never had the opportunity to work with such a talented team. Creating an environment that I like to call a community has been one of my greatest accomplishments. We’ve created connections in an eco-system that didn’t exist, and I’m really proud of that.
Career challenges
I have a bias towards action. My biggest challenge has been to not be rash in making decisions
Pandemic strategy
We let go of 15 per cent of our team, which turned out to be unnecessary, but we planned for a bad scenario.
The Concordia factor
Concordia offered a flexible environment that allowed for individualism. I was in the process of acquiring a company and I couldn’t have been in a rigid program. I always felt I had the support of the school and professors.
Inspiring professor
Art history professor Catherine MacKenzie encouraged activism and fostered an environment where people wanted to make a change. All her essay topics were fascinating. On the finance side, Reena Atanasiadis (behavioural finance) was incredible. Those two were just fantastic professors, really loved both of them.
Career advice
You can always hire for the things you don’t know.
Giving back
Co-founded Continuum Foundation, a charity to level the impact of technology on society. Angel investor and board member of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and OSMO Foundation, a non-profit that supports entrepreneurs.