Martin Cheski Cpa

Board Member

2024 - Current

Partner & Investment Director

2024

Portfolio strategy, fund management, operations and portfolio interlock with TELUS business units across the breadth of investments in Digital Health, Ag-tech, 5G, IOT, Connected Consumer, B2B SaaS. Scale portfolio companies by building connections, enabling technology roadmaps, driving go-to-market and providing Board leadership.

Board Member

2022

Partner & Investment Director

2022 - 2024

Portfolio strategy, fund management, operations and portfolio interlock with TELUS business units across the breadth of investments in 5G, IOT, Connected Consumer, Ag-tech and digital health. Enable portfolio companies by enhancing their visibility, expanding their business relationships, and driving new business opportunities.

Director Investment & Program Management

2012 - 2022

Responsible for investment prioritization, optimization and commercialization of approx $3B of annual investment. Brought a forward-looking perspective to maximize future investment returns and capital synergies in a converged digital world. Facilitated strategic investment choices among the executive leadership team. Drove incremental value of circa $50M annually from cross-org best practice implementation and risk management programs. Prioritized the 3 year investment plan to deliver on enterprise strategic priorities and financial objectives & return. Bench-marked performance and effectiveness of investment decisions and identified opportunities to improve ROI across TELUS investments. Identified the factors influencing success and implemented improvements. Developed a driver based model for planning key demand-driven investment portfolios. Improved the capital management framework, tools and processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness of capital planning, forecasting, performance and reporting across customer facing and enabling business units. Focused investments to maximize the impact on customer likelihood to recommend scores.

Director Finance

2007 - 2012

Private equity backed retail investment. Pre IPO growth strategies implemented to improve value. Developed a 3yr financial plan to accelerate financial growth. Targeted new business development programs and profitability initiatives including product and pricing strategy (+$2M annual lift) and cost containment and customer programs (+$10M in enterprise value). Program managed franchisee expansion. Launched 20+ franchised sites including initial Walmart locations; Acquisition and divestiture of 25 sites. Built an extended business relationship with corporate banking partners to deliver a lower cost funding model for retail expansion.

Associate Director of Finance

1999 - 2007

Held progressive leadership roles: Associate Director, Western Region (BC&Alberta expansion) Associate Director, Reporting (Bell Retail Stores) Associate Director, Strategic Planning Developed annual business plans with functional leaders for a business unit with revenues in excess of $300M annually. Ensured alignment and integration of functional business plans with the overall Western Canada Expansion Strategy and Bell Mobility’s national vision. Led monthly business review sessions with functional leaders to review performance and support remedial actions. Achieved a perfect track record of exceeding annual targets. Provided ongoing finance and business leadership to local functional leaders from Sales, Marketing, Network Operations and Customer Service to deliver sustained year over year growth of over 50%. Managed the cost efficient growth of functional areas as revenue grew from $200M to over $300M annually.

Business Manager

1995 - 1999

Responsible for managing the financial operations support, reporting & new capital investment programs of a leading Canadian publisher