LeadershipTeam
Peter O'Blenis
Chief Executive Officer
Peter is a pioneer in literature review automation. Having co-founded DistillerSR in 2009, he went on to demonstrate the first practical use of AI for reference screening at the Cochrane Colloquium in 2011.
Prior to DistillerSR, Peter co-founded TrialStat, maker of the first commercially available systematic literature review platform. He holds an MBA from Queen’s and a BSc in Computer Science from Carleton.
Naomi Morisawa De Koven
General Counsel
Naomi Morisawa De Koven is the managing lawyer of MDK Business Law and is DistillerSR’s General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer. Naomi is a past recipient of the Ottawa Business Journal’s Forty under 40, and a volunteer director of several not-for-profit organizations. Prior to moving to Ottawa, she was a Toronto-based partner at a national law firm.
Marc Eaglesham
Executive Vice President, Sales
Marc leads the sales team with over 28 years of experience in IT Distribution, Telecom, Global IT Outsourcing and Human Capital Management. This experience allowed Marc to refine and develop his passion for building high performing sales teams, grounded in a people-first culture. Outside of work Marc spends time with his family, cottaging and most likely enjoying one of his favourite pastimes: breaking bread with family and friends.
Chris Wright
Executive Vice President, Operations
As executive vice president of operations, Chris is responsible for security, IT, operations, compliance, marketing, and corporate communications. He brings more than 20 years of high-tech experience to DistillerSR Inc. His experience and leadership have been focused on developing and delivering results and solutions for Fortune 500 and growing companies. Prior to joining DistillerSR, he was a member of the Atos North America management team as Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications.
Sara Rivard
Chief Financial Officer
Sara brings more than 15 years of financial experience to DistillerSR. Leading the finance function, Sara is responsible for the development and execution of the company’s financial strategies. Prior to DistillerSR, Sara served as the VP of Finance at MindBridge AI. During her tenure, Sara was instrumental in building out the finance business support capabilities and function to meet the needs of the organization scaling MindBridge to 280% growth in just 24 months.
Jean-François Pouliotte
Vice President, Customer Success
Jean-François has over 20 years of experience in the software industry. Prior to joining DistillerSR, Jean-François was the VP of Customer Success for Assent Compliance.
Over the years, he has successfully managed the enterprise rollout of SaaS solutions to hundreds of large corporations.
Jean-François has a BA and MA in Canadian Military History from McGill and the Université du Québec in Montréal.
Mark Priatel
Vice President, Engineering
With over 20 years of experience designing and delivering software, Mark’s expertise in multi-tenant SaaS makes him an invaluable part of our executive team.
Prior to DistillerSR, Mark was the CTO at Klipfolio, his passion for leadership, efficiency, and scalability empowers our engineering team to strive for excellence.
He is also passionate about mentoring developers and creating a culture of positivity, curiosity, and continuous learning on his team.
Alan Charlton
Chief Information Security Officer
Alan is an IT & Security leader with over 25 years of experience. At DistillerSR, Alan ensures that customers can trust their data will remain confidential, integral, and available. An award-winning leader, he cultivates strong working rapports, builds best-in-class teams, and fosters open communications.
Prior to DSR, Alan worked at Caseware, a fintech software company where he led corporate IT as the company underwent tenfold growth.
Helen Huang
Director of Talent
As lead for the Human Resources function, Helen is responsible for developing and implementing HR strategies and initiatives that support and enable the organization’s overall business plan.
She brings more than 20 years of leadership experience across diverse industries including technology, financial services, healthcare, and post-secondary education.
Prior to joining DistillerSR, Helen was a Director, HRBP at Innovapost.
Board of Directors
Dr. Khaled El Emam
Senior Scientist, CHEO Research Institute.
Dr. Khaled El Emam has founded or co-founded five companies involved with data management and data analytics in the health research domain. In January of 2022, Khaled’s most recent company, Replica Analytics, was purchased by Aetion, the global leader in real-world evidence (RWE) technology and analytics. He is the Canada Research Chair in Medical AI and a senior scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute.
Maria Pacella
Managing Partner, Pender Ventures
Maria Pacella is a Managing Partner at Pender Ventures. Maria invests in exceptional entrepreneurs that excel at identifying business opportunities, develop world-class products and are dedicated to building great companies. Prior to Pender, she spent 11 years with one of Canada’s largest venture capital firms where she invested in multiple early-stage ventures. She holds a BBA from Simon Fraser University, is a CFA charterholder and a past President of CFA Society Vancouver.
Andrew Pinkerton
Partner at Thomvest Ventures
Andrew is a Partner at Thomvest Asset Management in Toronto and is focused on private technology investments in Canada. Prior to his investing career, Andrew worked at software vendor Workbrain Corporation and in the technology investment banking groups of Credit Suisse First Boston and Alex. Brown & Sons Technology Group in San Francisco and Boston, respectively. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College and an MBA from the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto.
Jason Flick
CEO, Serial Entrepreneur, Investor, and Advisor
Jason Flick is a CEO, serial entrepreneur, investor, and advisor with successful exits such as YOU.i TV (sold to HBO/AT&T), and N-able (sold to SolarWinds). His most recent company, You.i TV doubled in size each year and had some of the biggest media and technology companies in the world as customers. Jason brings 25 years of technical and business leadership to the DistillerSR board. He also serves on a number private sector company boards and entrepreneur focused entities.
Peter O'Blenis
Chief Executive Officer
Peter is a pioneer in literature review automation. Having co-founded DistillerSR in 2009, he went on to demonstrate the first practical use of AI for reference screening at the Cochrane Colloquium in 2011.
Prior to DistillerSR, Peter co-founded TrialStat, maker of the first commercially available systematic literature review platform. He holds an MBA from Queen’s and a BSc in Computer Science from Carleton.