“When I think back to everything I’ve done,” says Alan Stratton, Atuka’s Chief Financial Officer, “in each case the companies were in a period of rapid change, and needed help getting from point A to point B.”
Alan is explaining what a quick glance at his CV might not—the thread tying together all the places he’s worked over the course of his varied, three-decade career. From the formative time he spent with a Silicon Valley startup during the initial dot.com boom of the ’90s, to his stints with Bell Canada, a bank, a life sciences tech-transfer agency, and a winery, whether the organizations were big or small, public or private, what’s motivated him is helping to shepherd organizations through periods of intense transformation.
“Being a cog in a wheel and just punching the clock isn’t an ideal environment for me,” Alan says, adding that it was one of the main reasons he decided to join Atuka. “I love challenges, I love complexity, and I love working with smart people and coming together as a team with a common sense of purpose. I have a strong alignment with Atuka’s mission to cure Parkinson’s. When you’re able to share ideas and perspectives through collaboration, it leads to better outcomes. I’m happy to see they embrace that approach here.”
In addition to being a competitive swimmer in his spare time, Alan is the president of the Georgian Bay Association, a non-profit umbrella organization representing over 3,000 families in advancing environmental stewardship of the coastal Georgian Bay region.
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What did you take away from your experience working in Silicon Valley?
I like building a business, and all the interconnected aspects of running a business—operations, strategy, marketing, you name it. My training in accounting was more focused on technical accounting, so I kind of knew I’d end up in industry at some point, it was just a matter of when. When I went down to Silicon Valley all these startup companies were flourishing; it really was a dynamic environment and a cool place to be. Sure enough, when I made my leap into a startup there, it informed the direction my career would ultimately take.
It was a great experience given the early stage of my career—jumping into the startup world where I had to set the company up to go public. Do all the work implementing the Tier 1 enterprise system, build the accounting function. Talk about drinking through the fire hose, which was how we used to refer to it. We all worked hard, but it was rewarding being part of a team where we were all paddling together in the same direction.
Given that startup experience in the U.S., what’s your view on the challenges faced by Canadian companies in sectors like tech and health sciences hoping to innovate?
This is something we identified many years ago and we still struggle with it, it’s called “the Valley of Death.” In Canada, we don’t necessarily lack smart people, or great ideas, or great entrepreneurs, but we lack the capital to fund and scale our companies. We can usually get early-stage funding, and there’s good grants and programs, so you can bootstrap companies and get started. But when you get past that early stage, there’s this valley where you really struggle to attract the capital needed to fund companies, to get them to that next level.
That’s where a lot of our companies end up going south. Not only do we lose the talent, we lose the IP, which I think for Canada is a big challenge—because that’s when tech tends to create more jobs down the road as those companies grow.
You’ve worked in the MaRS environment before, for another company. How do you see MaRS supporting Canadian companies?
You see the energy, it’s a nexus for people from all over, especially in the health sciences. There’s no doubt that it has tremendous value and contributed to the ecosystem, but there’s still more work to do. But I think one of the fun things is figuring out the solutions and implementing them. As Canadians, we tend to be modest. But we’re smart and we have the wherewithal to achieve great things. We just need to put our minds to it and make it happen.
How did you end up being a competitive swimmer?
I first got into swimming in the mid aughts when I was doing triathlons, thinking I’d join the swim club so I can learn the proper swimming technique to be faster in triathlons. But then I found I really enjoyed the competitive swimming and the team aspect of being part of the club. Now I’ve de-emphasized triathlons and just focus on swimming, trying to be the best swimmer or best athlete I can, which is interesting at this stage in my life. Obviously, I’m past what theoretically would have been my athletic peak, my twenties, but with swimming I’m still able to achieve new heights for me.