General Manager of MSN.CA
Microsoft Canada Co.
As General Manager of MSN.CA, Gerri Sinclair is responsible for strategic planning, business development, and marketing for MSN.CA. She leads the team in expanding the leadership position within the Canadian online market and growing its premium online services business. MSN.CA is a leading Canadian Web portal with 8.7 million* unique monthly visitors. Its suite of online services delivers news, information, entertainment, and a variety of communication tools including MSN® network of Internet services, Hotmail® web-based e-mail service and MSN® Search.
Ms. Sinclair is a prominent Canadian innovator and entrepreneur. Prior to joining Microsoft Canada Co. in September 2002, she was President of the B.C. Premier's Technology Council, established to advise Premier Campbell on all matters related to technology in the province. She is also the founder and former CEO of NCompass Labs, the web content management software company recently acquired by Microsoft. NCompass was the developer of CMS, the content management solution within Microsoft's .NET family of enterprise servers.
Ms. Sinclair was also the founding director of the ExCITE lab at Simon Fraser University - the first multimedia research and development center in Canada - and was a former IBM Consulting Scholar and Visiting Research Scientist at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Labs in New York.
She is a Director of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and a member of the BC Progress Board and the Vancouver Canuck's Business Advisory Board. She has served on several blue ribbon advisory boards, including Canada's National Broadband Taskforce, the National Advisory Council on the Information Highway (IHAC), and the Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry, and Education (CANARIE).
A multiple award winner, Ms. Sinclair has been the recipient of the YWCA Woman of Distinction, the Canadian Women in Communications Woman of the Year award, the Canadian Women in New Media Pioneer award and the Influential Woman in Business award.
She holds a Ph.D. as well as a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from the University of British Columbia. Ms. Sinclair has two sons, a university computer science student and an online video game producer. In her spare time Gerri enjoys relaxing and potting plants at home and the family cottage.