Andrea Baptiste

Andrea Baptiste is an accomplished Senior Executive and Entrepreneur with more than 25 years of success in enterprise, B2B and B2C software, SaaS and telecommunications networking.

She has been a founding member/CEO at four tech startups, in both Canada and Silicon Valley. As part of these startups, Andrea has led corporate strategy, raised financing rounds, participated in merger and acquisition, product-market fit, and an IPO. She has scaled companies globally, establishing new markets and channels. Her broad areas of expertise include vision and strategy, product management, business development, strategic partnerships, start-ups, cloud computing, and venture capital.

Andrea leads the Female Founders Anonymous program at Ryerson DMZ and speaks often at events including Women in Engineering, Female Founders, Female Funders and Go Eng Girl.

Andrea currently leads the Startup Ecosystem for Canada at Amazon. She was the first hire by Amazon to lead the business in Canada, working with startup companies, venture capital, accelerators and incubators. She is responsible for developing and executing the operational plan and budget for the Startup Ecosystem team. Andrea is also a mentor for the TechStars Accelerator, and has been mentoring companies from Techstars NBC Universal Comcast, Philadelphia, Techstars Chicago, Techstars Farm-to-Fork St. Paul, Minn., Techstars Montreal AI, Techstars Toronto and Toronto Colliers.

Before joining Amazon, Andrea was President and CEO of Benbria, where she drove corporate strategy, raised financing rounds, and provided executive leadership in the development of strategic partnerships. Andrea was co-founder and CEO of Atreus Systems where she successfully led the company’s growth resulting in its acquisition by Sonus Networks in 2008. Andrea’s experience includes management and engineering positions at CrossKeys Systems, TeleSat Mobile Inc., and Newbridge Networks.

During her career, she has been instrumental in achieving 400% growth Year-Over-Year, and recurring revenue growth at 10% Month-Over-Month, expanding companies internationally, launching new product solutions, and increasing company valuations. Andrea was also named in patents in OSS software, SaaS systems and intelligent routing and telecommunications networking. Andrea’s experience in business leadership includes setting vision and strategy, heading up venture capital financing rounds, merger and acquisitions, as well as establishing strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest hardware and software companies.