Media Releases

U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab Appoints Inaugural Executive Director

October 6, 2017

Toron­to, ON – 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.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416–946-3818
E‑mail: mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca