CEO, FaveQuest
Ottawa, Canada Area
- Current
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- Member of the Board of Directors at The Ottawa Network
- Founder/Organizer at TEDx Ottawa
- Founder at Startup Club
- Founder/Organizer at Founders and Funders Ottawa
- CEO at FaveQuest
- Co-founder at Isfan Solutions Inc.
- Past
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- Entrepreneur In Residence at Skypoint Capital
- Sr Product Marketing Director at Ciena
- principle architect at Catena Networks
- Manager, R&D at Nortel
- Education
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- University of Waterloo
- University of Ottawa / Université d'Ottawa
- Recommended
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9 people have recommended Allan - Connections
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500+
connections
- Industry
- Information Technology and Services
- Websites
Allan Isfan’s Summary
Allan applies passion and perseverance to everything he takes on. He has held increasingly senior positions in the tech world starting out as an Integrated Circuit (IC) designer at Nortel in the early 1990s and ultimately rising to Senior Product Marketing Director at Ciena following the acquisition of Catena, a very successful startup Allan joined and helped build from the ground up.
He eventually left Ciena and joined Skypoint Capital (VC) as an Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR) with a dream to launch a start-up. That dream is now reality and FaveQuest is off and running and starting to generate revenue.
As he continues to bootstrap FaveQuest with his partners, he takes on strategic consulting projects. He has helped companies define new products, developed collateral to attract customers, helped with overall strategy and has even provided pre-sales support to help companies connect with customers.
Allan has now developed expertise in on-line video and social media to complement his Telecom background and is passionate about both spaces ... both areas are about connecting people.
Allan's goal is to grow FaveQuest to profitability while also helping other companies be successful.
In addition, he is working on some new projects to change he world. This includes Zoogeez, a worldwide children's collaborative project set to launch in early 2010.
Allan volunteers extensively through numerous speaking engagements, pro-bono consulting to startups and musicians, launching major events and communities like Startup-club, Founders and Funders Ottawa and TEDxOttawa.
Allan Isfan’s Experience
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Member of the Board of Directors
The Ottawa Network
(Non-Profit; Professional Training & Coaching industry)
November 2009 — Present (2 months)
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Founder/Organizer
TEDx Ottawa
(Non-Profit Organization Management industry)
October 2009 — Present (3 months)
TEDx Ottawa is an independently run TED conference. We are bringing people together from different walks of like and sharing "ideas worth spreading".
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Founder
Startup Club
(Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2009 — Present (1 year )
Startup Club is a volunteer organization aimed at bringing entrepreneurs together so they can help each other directly. Entrepreneurs get together on a regular basis, share experiences and issues they are running into and request help from others.
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Founder/Organizer
Founders and Funders Ottawa
(Information Technology and Services industry)
November 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)
Founders and Funders Ottawa is an event that brings together investors and start-up execs for networking purposes. The Ottawa chapter is modeled after similar events in Montreal, Toronto and other locations.
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CEO
FaveQuest
(Information Services industry)
December 2006 — Present (3 years 1 month)
I am the co-founder and CEO of a start-up operating in the social media personalization space. FaveQuest helps media companies and major brands reach people in social networks through a new proprietary social video platform.
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Co-founder
Isfan Solutions Inc.
(Information Technology and Services industry)
May 2006 — Present (3 years 8 months)
Isfan Solutions Inc. is a boutique consulting firm run by Allan Isfan and Yvonne Craig-Isfan. Allan provides strategic consulting and business development services while Yvonne provides executive level graphic design services.
The two divisions of the company:
Executive Consulting: Led by Allan Isfan
-assist company executives with strategic company direction, product definition, pre-sales, business development
-focus on Telecom and social media
Graphic Design: Led by Yvonne Craig-Isfan
-includes photoshop image creation and photo re-touching
-adobe illustrator photo-realistic image creation
-executive level powerpoint presentations
-web design -
Entrepreneur In Residence
Skypoint Capital
(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
May 2006 — August 2008 (2 years 4 months)
Working with Leo Lax and rest of team to explore new business opportunities. This included sitting in on start-up pitches, identifying new investment opportunities and exploring new start-up ideas.
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Sr Product Marketing Director
Ciena
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; CIEN; Telecommunications industry)
March 2005 — April 2006 (1 year 2 months)
-Interact directly with large customers (Verizon, BellSouth, ATT, Qwest ..) to expand deployment of existing products and help identify new product requirements.
-work as part of core CTO office team to help define company direction in broadband, optical, Ethernet and wireless domains -
principle architect
Catena Networks
(Telecommunications industry)
1999 — 2004 (5 years )
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Manager, R&D
Nortel
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Telecommunications industry)
1997 — 1999 (2 years )
Define architecture and manage team of H/W engineers developing a broadband (DSL) system.
Allan Isfan’s Education
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University of Waterloo
engineering , 1986 — 1989
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University of Ottawa / Université d'Ottawa
Allan Isfan’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
