Our Team – Ascendance Foundry

Our Team

FOUNDER, PRESIDENT

Dr. Ian Burgess

Co-founder of Validere; Board member at Validere, Cquesta, NEXT Canada; VP at Pioneer Fund; Y Combinator Alumni (S16); Harvard PhD (Applied Physics)

An alum of the University of Waterloo’s co-op program, Ian experienced firsthand the impact of apprenticeship-based learning and strong mentors early in his career. As both an academic and a business leader, he has seen very-early-career students achieve extraordinary outcomes when given impactful work, high expectations, and strong mentorship.

SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT

Andrew Zhang

Founding Engineer & Product Owner at Retainly; Queen’s Startup Summit Winner; Queen’s University Computing (Hons)

Andrew is a full-stack developer and Queen’s University alum who builds at the intersection of product, engineering, and business strategy — a “Swiss Army Knife” professional dedicated to owning the product lifecycle from scope to ship.

PROGRAMS & OUTREACH

Ethan Chan

Intergovernmental Affairs at the Government of Nunavut; Office of MP Bardish Chagger; Queen’s University, History (Hons)

Ethan has worked in federal politics and at the Government of Nunavut with a background in government policy, intergovernmental relations, and program management. He is driven by the connections between people, institutions, and communities, and is excited to help AF’s Fellows turn those connections into real impact.

INFRASTRUCTURE & AUTOMATION SPECIALIST

Stephen Chisnall

Infrastructure Transformation at Accenture; Project Management Professional; Queen’s University Applied Science (Hons)

Stephen has spent his career in consulting, helping clients to advance their infrastructure profiles both in the cloud and on-premises. He has worked on all stages of project delivery, from design through to production deployments.

The Expert Network

Our Fellows and clients are supported by a network of experts in AI-native development, data science, and business leadership who teach, mentor, and directly elevate client projects.

Weekly Workshops

A member of the Expert Network teaches valuable insights from their domain of expertise.

Office Hours

Regular office hours support Fellows in their projects, learning, and career growth.

Direct Project Support

Their expertise is applied directly to client projects, significantly enhancing the outcome.

Meet some of our Experts

Pierre Magnan

Seasoned executive and investor. Former President at Parkland International & Sol Petroleum; Partner at Gowling WLG.

Dr. Misha Askerka

Lead data scientist at Alpaca. Built the analytics teams at Validere and ClearCo. Yale PhD, Computational Physical Chemistry.

Mark Le Dain

Senior finance and corporate-development leader. Chief Revenue Officer at Fuelled; Former VP Corp Dev at Neo Financial.