Gerri Sinclair

Dr. Gerri Sinclair served as the Innovation Commissioner for the Government of British Columbia from July 2020.^[1] until March 31, 2024. After concluding her term, Dr. Sinclair joined the Vancouver Airport Authority in April 2024, as Interim Vice President: Information Technology and Chief Information Officer.^[2] In September 2024, she was promoted to the position of Chief Prioritization, Planning and Performance-Optimization Officer.

Gerri Sinclair

Dr. Sinclair’s move into the aviation sector underscores the breadth of her career. She has now held top leadership roles in academia, software entrepreneurship, venture finance, government, and critical infrastructure. YVR’s CEO, Tamara Vrooman, noted that Dr. Sinclair’s experience at the intersection of technology and public service is helping guide the airport’s digital transformation and infrastructure renewal efforts in a period of rapid change for the aviation industry. ^[3]

Dr. Sinclair previously served as a managing director at Kensington Capital Partners and was the leader of the firm's Vancouver office, managing the $100 million BC Technology fund^[4] and the $91 million BC Renaissance Fund. She has also served as a director on the boards of numerous public and private companies and organizations.

Dr. Sinclair holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance Drama as well as an honorary Doctor of Science in Computing Science from the University of British Columbia.^[5] Sinclair was the founding Director of the ExCITE lab at Simon Fraser University, where she was an English professor. She was the founder and CEO of NCompass Labs Inc, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2001.^[6] She was general manager for the MSN Canada^[7] subsidiary.

Dr. Sinclair has served on a number of Canadian national and provincial advisory boards, including the National Advisory Council on the Information Highway and the National Broadband Task Force. She was formerly President of the British Columbia Premier's Technology Council.^[8]

Awards

Dr. Sinclair was ranked in both 2016^[9] and 2017^[10] to the “Vancouver Power 50”, an annual list of the most powerful people in the city. She was named one of the top Women of Influence in 2017 by BC Business Magazine and one of the top 150 Women in Canada. In 2018, she received the BC Technology Industry Association’s Bill Thompson Lifetime Achievement Award,^[11] and received a Lifetime Achievement Award as most Influential Woman in Business in Vancouver in 2020.^[12]