North Forge Angel Network

Cara Dveris is Director of Strategic Programs at North Forge, where she leads strategic initiatives related to innovation, commercialization, and economic development across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, including oversight of the federally funded ElevateIP program. She also operates a consulting practice advising entrepreneurs and executive teams across North America on organizational strategy, operations, leadership development, and growth. She previously served as Chief Operating Officer of a startup, where she focused on building teams and developing operational systems and processes.

Board Vice Chair of North Forge and President & CEO of CentrePort Canada Inc.

Board member of North Forge and Founder/CEO of Parallel.

Chris Stillwell serves as Program Coordinator at North Forge, with a background in project leadership, quality systems management, and business operations. Their experience includes coordinating multidisciplinary teams, cross-functional communication, quality system compliance, continuous improvement, and vendor qualification and relationship management. They have worked on the commercialization of medical devices and the completion of clinical programs.

Board Chair of North Forge and CEO of Neovation.

Board Treasurer of North Forge and Vice President at KPMG; CPA, CA, CBV.

Grace Gyolai is a Senior Program Manager at North Forge, where she organizes and implements programming that supports entrepreneurs in Manitoba and across Canada. Her work spans business development stages from ideation through Series A funding.

Board member of North Forge and VP, Stakeholder Relations at Reclay StewardEdge.

Joceline Beltran is the FabLab Administrative Coordinator at North Forge. Her background includes centralized operations analysis in the fintech industry, with experience in financial dispute resolution, process optimization, compliance management, and handling more than 100 customer cases per month. She is pursuing an Advanced Business Management diploma at the University of Winnipeg PACE, with coursework in leadership, project management, and financial systems.

Kristine Derksen is Director of Marketing and Communications at North Forge, where she leads marketing and communications through storytelling, strategic partnerships, content, media, and brand development. She has more than 10 years of experience across the government, nonprofit, and private sectors, specializing in brand strategy, multimedia storytelling, social media, and executive communications.

Board member of North Forge and Partner at MLT Aikins.

Puneet Gill is Program Manager of IP Assist at North Forge. Gill holds a Master of Biomedical Technology from the University of Calgary and has over five years of business development and customer relations experience in the healthcare sector.

Yashan Wu is Head of Creative at Unboxed Customs and the founder of the company, which he developed from a custom sneaker concept. His work over the past six years includes marketing campaigns reaching over 500 million viewers and social media growth across Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook. His partnerships have included the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Grey Cup Festival, Winnipeg Sea Bears, Edmonton Elks, University of Waterloo, University of Manitoba, and Patrón Tequila.