Leonard Brody

Leonard Brody is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He has helped raise millions of dollars for start-up companies, been through one of the largest internet IPOs in history and has been involved in the building, financing and sale of five companies to date.

Much critical acclaim has followed Leonard in his endeavours. At Onvia (where he was part of the initial executive) the company was voted Canada's number one startup in 2000 and subsequently closed a $240 Million IPO on NASDAQ.

In 2004, Leonard co-founded NowPublic.com which is a pioneer in the field of user generated news. The company was named by Time Magazine as one of the top 50 websites in the world, was inducted into the Newseum in Washington and was recently acquired by the Anschutz Corporation. Currently Leonard sits as the President of the Clarity Digital Group responsible for overseeing one of the largest online news conglomerates in the world including Examiner.com and NowPublic, which between them, share over 20 million unique visitors a month and over 200,000 contributors.

He was a player agent for 3 years working with many UK clubs and clubs throughout Europe. He was a Senior Advisor to Derby County and is now an advisor to Coventry City. His task with them is to assist in using social media and technology to derive new revenue sources and points of fan engagement.

Leonard is a Venture Partner at Growthworks Capital, one of Canada's largest national technology funds, and acts as an advisor to venture capital funds in the US, Europe and Asia. He is also an advisor to several companies including, the Associated Press, Red Herring and Sonic Foundry. He is currently a Senior Advisor to the Canadian Minister of International Trade and a Director of Canada's largest technology association, CATA.

A highly sought-after public speaker, Leonard has lectured at universities such as Stanford, the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai and the Gordon Business School in Johannesburg. He has spoken at conferences throughout the world such as NASSCOM, the World Newspaper Congress, CEBIT and the Monaco Media Forum.

His work has been featured in such publications as USA Today, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, El Mundo and Der Spiegel.