It’s the Katy Yam FounderFuel era at Montreal’s Notman House.

Yam, a former exec at Loto Quebec, Maple Leaf Foods and Bell Canada, was named as the Montreal accelerator program’s new general manager in a Medium post by Sylvain Carle, himself a former general manager of the program from 2016-2018.

Yam’s most recent role was as customer marketing director at Element.AI. The new GM possesses 18-years in managing product, marketing and business intelligence teams across many industries and business sizes. Yam calls herself the “Indiana Jones of ideas,” and is a head curator at TEDX Montreal. She also served as a Techstars mentor.

Searching for a mindset

Carle said that Real Ventures, the parent VC firm behind FounderFuel, had a shortlist of required skills for the role.

“Beyond know-how, what we were really looking for was a mindset,” wrote Carle. “And through this process, it became clear that we had found someone incredible — someone you might say was made for the role.”

Katy Yam Founderfuel era begins

Here’s what the new general manager Yam had to say:

“After nearly three years of global hypergrowth at Element AI, a recent personal tragedy ground me to a halt, bringing key aspects of my life sharply into focus. As I hit alt-ctrl-delete to reboot my life, I was unsure of what would come next and serendipitously this opportunity found me. I was enchanted not just by what the role of FounderFuel General Manager entails, but with whom I would be collaborating, and especially the calibre of people we would be investing in.”

Yam also revealed that 175 startups applied for a coveted spot in the Montreal-based accelerator program. The program accepted applications until late January for this newest cohort.

Previous general managers of the program included Carle, Isaac Souweine and Ian Jeffrey, who is a cofounder of this website.

Good luck to Yam as she embarks on what should be a fun ride.

Katy Yam Founderfuel