University of Toronto's Creative Destruction Lab Appoints Inaugural Executive Director

TORONTO, Oct. 6, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The first National Executive Director has been chosen to lead one of the world's premier seed-stage programs for massively scalable science-based ventures at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

Sonia Sennik is the inaugural Executive Director of the UofT's Creative Destruction Lab and its national network of programs. She will be responsible for the Lab's strategic operational and programmatic leadership, coordination, and oversight. Sennik, who held senior project and engineering management roles at global engineering consultancy HATCH, is a recent graduate of the Rotman School's Executive MBA program, where she excelled on many dimensions, particularly leadership, and was also the inaugural recipient of the Rotman Social Impact Award. She also holds an engineering degree from McMaster University. She will work closely with Ajay Agrawal, Peter Munk Professor of Entrepreneurship, who is the founder and academic director of the Lab.

"The Creative Destruction Lab is expanding rapidly, both geographically and programmatically. Sonia will provide leadership, vision, and energy to help ensure the success of the Lab and its ventures in the coming years," says Prof. Agrawal.

The Creative Destruction Lab is a seed-stage program for massively scalable, science-based ventures. It employs a unique, objectives-focused coaching process to help founders commercialize advances in science and technology. The Lab also provides experiential learning to MBA students through year-long courses where students work alongside the Lab's Fellows and venture founders, giving them a unique chance to learn how to evaluate, finance, and manage technology businesses.

Graduates of the Lab include Thalmic Labs (Waterloo), Atomwise (San Francisco), Deep Genomics (Toronto), Nymi (Toronto), Automat (Montreal), Kyndi (Palo Alto), and Heuritech (Paris). The Creative Destruction Lab was founded in 2012 at the Rotman School and now has additional programs at the UBC Sauder School of Business , the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, HEC Montreal and Dalhousie University. This year the Lab in Toronto launched a new program focused on the creation of quantum machine learning startups.  More information is available at www.creativedestructionlab.com.

The Rotman School of Management is located in the heart of Canada's commercial and cultural capital and is part of the University of Toronto, one of the world's top 20 research universities. The Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables our graduates to tackle today's global business and societal challenges.  For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

SOURCE Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto