Canadian Entrepreneur. Co-Founder of Vantage Analytics. Co-Founder of IdentityNorth. Founding President of Digital ID & Authentication Council of Canada, Mentor @ FounderInstitute. Passionate about Canadian digital economy.
Founding President of the Digital ID & Authentication Council of Canada, a non-profit coalition of public and private sector leaders committed to developing a digital identification and authentication framework. DIACC members, representatives from both the federal and provincial levels of government as well as private sector leaders, are focused on enabling Canada’s full and secure participation the global digital economy.
The DIACC’s objective is to unlock economic opportunities for Canadian consumers and businesses by developing a robust, secure, scalable and privacy enhancing digital identification and authentication ecosystem that will decrease costs for governments, consumers, and business while improving service delivery and driving GDP growth.
Founder, IdentityNorth, Canada's Premier Identity Conference™, a gathering of Canadians interested in rolling out elements crucial to Canada's digital economy.
As one of Canada’s leading digital and mobile economy strategists, with a focus on predictive analytics, Aran has spent the past two decades working with retailers, payment networks, banks, and wireless carriers to shape Canada’s ecommerce and mobile commerce environment.
Served as the chief advisor to a major Canadian Task Force where his work was credited with kick starting a new round of innovation and cooperation in mobile commerce and the digital economy.
Drove marketing and strategic partnerships and supported product development for Zoompass, the world's first cross-carrier mobile money transfer platform
Previously, Regional Vice President, responsible for VeriSign in Canada, where he led new product development in the payments industry and pioneered development of early mobile commerce systems.
President / Co-Founder, Vantage Analytics helps business managers compete on analytics without becoming analysts.
Vantage has recently released a new cloud-based predictive analytics and data platform that is transforming the way businesses make data-driven decisions and act upon them.
Our customers are under a lot of pressure to leverage various sources of information in order to compete successfully. However, they do not have the know-how and they aren’t interested in becoming data analysts. Most do not have the time or money to devote to finding and managing data specialists, or to building an analytical infrastructure.
Our customers need an easy-to-use system that they can access each day to gain “fresh eyes” on their business and bring predictive analytics and fact-based collaboration into their organizations.
These companies want to create impact faster than ever before; and for that, they need Vantage.
Really recommend Aran to talk to in the retail/analytics field: I talked to him about a startup idea serving retailers. By requesting some upfront information and a clearly defined goal he made sure that I get the most our of the conversation by staying focused. He shared very specialized industry knowledge, which will save me a lot of time and effort if I had to find out another way. Will definitely reach out to Aran again if I need more information or guidance. Highly recommended.
From a writer's point of view, Aran was an exceptionally good client. He understood the principles of successful communications, and was able to respond quickly and effectively, even under pressure. When something needed to be done, he did it, and when a decision was required, he made it. He was a pleasure to work with.
Aran was an incredibly diligent consultant - always focused on delivering the most value for the client and on making sure that the recommendations given were the right solutions to their problems.
As an outstanding conference chair, Aran is energetic, thoughtful, and immensely knowledgeable about Mobile Commerce. From planning to execution, Aran took an active role in ensuring a quality event. His astute analysis and attention to questions brought an immersive experience that engaged the audience from start to finish.
Aran surpassed all expectations as our conference Chair. He has a profound depth of industry knowledge and a topical enthusiasm that is contagious. He is an informed, passionate and inspirational speaker, and I hope that I will have the pleasure of working with him again.
Aran has been an trusted professional within the Canadian mobile commerce ecosystem for several years. He is a very sharp professional who can quickly identify the relevant value propositions and partnership models as it relates to technologies, trends and opportunities within the expanding mobile market. Aran's enthusiastic approach to all things allows him to lead and motivate dynamic teams to consistently deliver on their objectives.
Aran was instrumental in holding the summit together with very insightful and relevant questions and recommendations while working the audience effectively.
It was a pleasure to work with Aran at the Mobile Transactions and Commerce Summit and I would definitely recommend him as a facilitator for other similar meetings and summits.
Aran's knowledge & experience as a phenomenally connected mobile payments and mobile commerce leader is un-parallel. It is very clear he is passionate about the industry, and it goes without saying that he is driven and able to deliver impossible projects on unbelievable time-lines. Aran is a great person to work with and look forward for our career paths to cross again.
I worked with Aran for 18 months on a special Task Force created by the federal Minister of Finance for the review of the Canadian Payment System. We were seven members on the Task Force and Aran was hired as a special advisor on the mobile and electronic means of payments. As none of the task force members were as advanced as Aran on this topic, he provided an incredible amount of knowledge to us, in a very short time frame, with very tight deadlines and a host of logistic challenges which he always met.
His communication style and content were excellent, particularly given the difficult nature of the topic. He was bringing most members of the Task Force in the 21st century in the area of mobile technology and helping us understand how the Canadian payment system could be improved tremendously if our institutions were more flexible and ready to adopt these new approaches.
While the learning curve was steep, Aran was always a patient leader and never showed any signs of frustration with our slow grasping of the concepts. Very importantly, it was fun to work with Aran as he has a great sense of humour and a very collegial approach. I would love to work with him again and I hope the opportunity will happen again.
Lili de G.
We are in the phase of getting ready to launch our mobile gift giving application in beta this September and Aran has been an incredible resource for helping us think through our entire mobile payment infrastructure as well as potential business models to consider to drive revenue and growth. He is very open to working with startup companies in the mobile space and we consider him a trusted advisor given his knowledge, experience and connections in this field.
As a longtime Zoompass user, I just wanted to commend Aran for all his previous help in getting me online with the mobile application. He has shown willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty several times to ensure that everything was running smoothly, and I really appreciate his help!
