October 21 – 23, 2025

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Speakers

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Vusi Thembekwayo

World renowned business leader
Main Stage | October 21
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Erica Dhawan

Award Winning Author
Main Stage | October 22
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Chris Barton

Founder of Shazam & Tech Investor
Main Stage | October 23
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featured SPEAKERS

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ASHIF MAWJI

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MALCOLM BRUCE

Laura Kilcrease

Industry SPEAKERS

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Ralf Kaiser

At The DEN Summit 2025, our speakers bring more than expertise—they bring experience, perspective, and bold ideas shaped by real-world challenges.

For entrepreneurs, investors, and industry professionals ready to adapt, compete, and make meaningful moves in uncertain times, The DEN offers more than inspiration. You’ll gain the knowledge, connections, and actionable strategies needed to take your next step with confidence.

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The DEN Summit 2025

Speaker Information Form

Submission Deadline: June 16th, 2025 11:59 pm MST

Are You Ready to Lead and Inspire?

Submit your information to speak at The DEN Summit 2025, Canada’s premier entrepreneurship and leadership conference, where forward-thinking innovators, trailblazers, and industry leaders gather to shape the future of business.

Use the form below to submit your application, including your proposed topic, relevance, and examples of past speaking engagements.

For questions or assistance, contact info@thedensummit.com

Terms & Conditions: Submission of an application does not guarantee a speaking spot. Selected applicants will be notified by The DEN Summit Program Team.

Thank you for your submission to The DEN Summit 2025! We look forward to reviewing your information.

Topics of Interest

We are looking for engaging speakers to present on topics that align with our conference themes:

Scaling Your Startup

From financing to operational efficiency, share strategies for scaling to a global enterprise.

Explore how fostering innovation and engagement drives business success.

Highlight innovative approaches to solving social and environmental challenges.

 

Examine how technology is transforming work and how entrepreneurs can thrive.

Provide insights on navigating international markets and cultural differences.

Inspire with lessons on leading effectively in fast-paced environments.

Discuss the critical role of mentorship, funding, and support networks.

Celebrate achievements and tackle challenges to promote gender diversity.

Share compelling stories of perseverance and lessons learned.

Explore trends such as remote work and digital nomadism.

Insights into securing venture capital, crowdfunding, and grants.

Focus on sectors like fintech, health tech, or renewable energy.

Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with dynamic discussions and impactful connections. Share your insights with over 1,250 attendees eager to be inspired by fresh ideas and practical strategies for growth.

This is your chance to engage a captivated audience and expand your executive network. Amplify your impact by contributing to the conversation in meaningful ways at Edmonton’s most prestigious business conference: The DEN Summit!

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Featured Speaker

Vusi Thembekwayo

World renowned business leader, speaker and investor

Youtube

Meet Vusi Thembekwayo; world renowned business leader, speaker and investor who redefines excellence in every endeavor. Founding CEO of award-winning investment firm MyGrowthFund Venture Partners, Co-founder of Club 100 and School of Scale as well as GQ Business Leader in 2020, Vusi’s innovative strategies and profound insights have transformed industries and empowered countless leaders.

Over his 20year career, Vusi has spoken in 6 of the 7 continents. A true global sensation. He is widely trusted by Fortune 500 companies and has been featured on prestigious platforms like CNBC and Bloomberg. He is not just a success story but a force to be reckoned with.

Erica Dhawan

Featured Speaker

Erica Dhawan

Leading Authority on 21st-Century Teamwork, Collaboration, and Innovation

Youtube
Erica Dhawan is an internationally recognized leading authority, speaker and advisor on 21st-century teamwork, collaboration and innovation. Named as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, she is the author of two bestselling books, Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence and Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance.

As we continue to experience an increasingly digital world where work practices are changing blisteringly, Erica shares innovative strategies to unlock the collective power of teams, build a culture of trust across any distance and create authentic engagement to ensure competitiveness.

Rated #1 on the Top Women Keynote Speakers list, Erica frequently appears in the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. Erica speaks on global stages ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos to the US Army and companies such as Coca-Cola, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, and Cisco. She holds degrees from Harvard University, MIT Sloan, and The Wharton School.

Featured Speaker

Chris Barton

Founder and Creator of Shazam, Entrepreneur, Inventor, and Tech Investor

Youtube

Chris Barton wanted a way to identify songs anywhere he heard them. There wasn’t one – so he invented an app called Shazam. Chris’s creation is nothing short of pure magic. Chris seeks to delight people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life. Shazam is just one of them.


It changed the way the world discovers music and laid the groundwork for the consumer AI industry we know today. In addition to creating Shazam, Chris holds twelve patents and played key roles in the early days of Google and Dropbox. Chris’s newest venture, Guard, aims to use AI to detect drowning in swimming pools – a never-before accomplished effort. In his speeches, Chris’s story and storytelling completely captivate audiences. He inspires people to make big things happen in their organizations – to create magic in defiance of the obstacles.


Chris grew up with a French mother and British father – both of whom were university professors. Academics were a struggle for him, and Chris would come to realize he had undiagnosed dyslexia. Chris flipped this challenge on its head and learned to embrace what he now calls his superpower. Chris believes that dyslexia has allowed him to overcome barriers to achieve his many accomplishments. When Chris had the idea to identify music using a mobile phone, no technology existed to achieve his goal. He was told by Professors at MIT and Stanford that the necessary pattern recognition algorithm was impossible. Even after inventing a new technology that didn’t yet exist, he had to build a search engine supercomputer from scratch, create the world’s largest music database, and create a user experience on very basic mobile phones. Did Chris ever think the experts were right? “No way,” he says.


When Chris came up with the idea for Shazam in 2000, it was three years before iTunes and eight years before the App Store. Shazam launched as a phone number that you dialed, and the service struggled, teetering near bankruptcy for six years until the App Store launched in 2008, allowing Shazam to unleash its full potential on the world.
In 2018, Shazam was acquired by Apple for a reported $400 million, making it Apple’s 6th largest acquisition of all-time.


Shazam has been downloaded over 2 billion times and is used each month by over 300 million people, making it one of the world’s most popular apps. It has become an integral part of our everyday lives, with its ability to instantly identify songs and provide a range of music features such as lyrics. Shazam has become a verb, and it has changed the way the world discovers music.

Chris has also played a key role in tech history as a founding member of Google’s Android Partnerships team where he created Android’s mobile operator partnership framework. He also spent four years at Dropbox where he led carrier partnerships and was one of the first 100 people at the company.

Holding 12 patents, including one found within the Google search algorithm, Chris has made significant contributions to the tech industry.
He also invests in a wide range of start
-ups, including artificial intelligence for heart health and inflammatory disease therapeutics.
Today, Chris spends much of his time building his third startup company, Guard, an artificial intelligence system that detects drowning in swimming pools.

When he has time, Chris enjoys speaking at events and sharing lessons learned from his experiences overcoming the impossible.
He inspires people with firsthand stories that highlight key take – aways across technology innovation, persistence, removing friction, and entrepreneurship. Chris gives audiences a new framework for making big things happen. His truly inspirational story motivates them to take action.
Prior to his technology career, Chris was a strategy consultant and earned two master’s degrees from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University.

When he isn’t working or speaking, you can find Chris enjoying the outdoors and spending time with his son, Jude.

Ashif Mawji Portrait

featured Speaker

Ashif Mawji

Serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, venture capitalist, mentor and community builder.
Youtube Linkedin X-twitter Instagram

Ashif Mawji is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, venture capitalist, mentor and community builder. He chairs the Ben Stelter Foundation, Hockey Canada Foundation and TELUS Friendly Future Foundation and serves on numerous private and nonprofit boards, including the Edmonton Police Foundation (past chair), Invest Alberta Corporation, Sarah McLachlan Foundation, and others.

Ashif has directly invested in about 150 companies globally, is invested in over 10 funds, is the managing director of the ScaleGood Fund LP (Social Impact VC Fund). He advises and mentors entrepreneurs globally. Ashif has built (ground up) and exited several companies in the tech space, with one of his companies having a presence in over 150 countries and in virtually every industry.

He received the EY Prairies Entrepreneur of the Year award, named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 and received Canada’s 50 Best Managed companies award three years in a row. Ashif was inducted into the Junior Achievement (NA) Business Hall of Fame in 2019. Ashif is an active member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and won the coveted Laing Award – he has served in the executive including as Chair of the organization (YPO-AB).

Ashif received NAIT’s Alumni of Distinction Award and was named one of the Top 50 Graduates in 50 years and received an Honorary Degree in Bachelor of Business Administration. He was also named in 2021, a Distinguished Friend of the Institute.

Ashif has served as an Honorary Colonel in the Canadian Army and received the Queen’s Golden, Diamond and Platinum Jubilee medals and the Alberta Centennial Medal.

He was named a Henry Crown Fellow (part of the globally renowned Aspen Institute) and one of a handful Canadians to ever be included.

Malcolm Bruce Headshot

featured speaker

Malcolm Bruce

Inaugural Chief Executive Officer of Edmonton Global
Youtube Linkedin

Malcolm Bruce is the first ever Chief Executive Officer of Edmonton Global, a regional economic development corporation that drives growth and investment in the Edmonton region.

Edmonton Global is a joint venture owned equally by 14 municipalities in the Edmonton Region. Before its creation, economic development in the Edmonton region was often done at a municipal rather than regional level. Edmonton Global was created to change this.

In his work, Malcolm brings together regional strengths and networks to seize on the potential of emerging markets. Malcolm has a strong history of leadership in the Edmonton region.

Prior to being CEO of Edmonton Global, Malcolm was the CEO of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board, a regional planning corporation. He oversaw the smooth transition of the Board membership, leadership and mandate. Prior to that role he had a long career in progressively senior leadership positions within the Canadian Military. He is also the former Chair of the Consider Canada City Alliance (CCCA) which represents the 12 largest economies in Canada that account for 84% of all foreign direct investment in the country.

His skills in leadership, strategic planning and organizational change have been sought out to support the strategic planning and operations on many large complex issues, including at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2013 floods in Southern Alberta. He holds a BA degree in History from the University of Manitoba, two MA degrees from the Royal Military College of Canada, and the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Ralf Kaiser

industry Speaker

Ralf Kaiser

Co-Founder & Managing Partner – Ingenia
Linkedin

Ralf has successfully worked in the investment and financial industries for 35 years with a focus on capital raising, investment management, technology start-ups and the capital markets. He has been involved in capital raising for biotech, cannatech, and fintech companies along with successful M&A transactions in the fintech and martech sectors.

Ralf is a Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Ingenia AI Inc. Ingenia AI is an emerging tech venture studio focused on AI data monetization. Ralf was the President of Fuse Technologies, a successful track-and-trace & inventory management technology firm. He brought his wealth of knowledge and experience to the firm in investment, financial services, sales & marketing, M&A, capital raising and operations.

Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer for a leading US-based fintech focused on high-risk banking compliance and payments. He has also managed several of his own companies involved in mergers & acquisitions of small to medium-size businesses, web promotions utilizing complex algorithms and investment consulting to biotech and fintech firms. Ralf is recognized as an industry thought leader within the M&A, investment, SaaS and payments compliance and banking sectors resulting in speaking events for CIBC Wood Gundy, The World CBD Awards, Michigan Bankers Association, Community Bankers Association of Ohio, Payments First, and ePay Executive
Summits.

October 21st - 23rd 2025

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