Dr. Sherry Shannon-Vanstone

Biography:

Dr. Sherry Shannon-Vanstone is a serial technology entrepreneur, corporate director, angel investor and champion for women in STEM, entrepreneurship and investing. Throughout her career, she has combined a passion for creating opportunities for women with a demonstrated ability to build companies, raise capital, assemble high-performing teams and turn ambitious ideas into action.

Sherry began her career as a cryptologic mathematician with the U.S. Government after earning an MSc in mathematics. She went on to become a pioneering woman in information security, holding senior leadership positions with MasterCard International, Cylink and Certicom and founding TrustPoint Innovation and Profound Impact. Her entrepreneurial career has spanned cryptography, cybersecurity, ecommerce, artificial intelligence and data analytics.

Working in both Silicon Valley and Canada’s Toronto-Waterloo technology corridor, Sherry has helped build and scale technology companies through two IPOs and four acquisitions. In 2024, she and her late husband, renowned cryptographer and entrepreneur Dr. Scott A. Vanstone, were inducted into the Kitchener-Waterloo Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Today, much of Sherry’s work is focused on ensuring that women have the opportunity not simply to participate in the future economy, but to help shape it. Her commitment spans the continuum from encouraging women and girls to pursue STEM education, to supporting women entrepreneurs, to engaging more women as investors with the knowledge, networks and capital to fund the next generation of companies and innovators.

In 2023, Sherry co-founded Women Funding Women (WFW) with Dr. Deborah Rosati and Lara Zink. WFW’s mission is to help bridge the funding gap for women-founded and women-led companies by engaging more women as investors. Through education, thought leadership, networks and opportunities for investor engagement, WFW is working to increase women’s participation and influence in Canada’s innovation and investment ecosystem.

Sherry brings the perspective of having operated on both sides of the capital equation. In addition to raising capital as an entrepreneur, she is an angel investor and Limited Partner in Phoenix Fire and The51. She believes that who has access to capital – and who decides where that capital goes – will profoundly influence the companies, technologies and economies we build.

Governance and institution-building are also important parts of Sherry’s leadership. She serves as Chair of the Board of CANARIE, Canada’s National Research and Education Network, holds board and advisory roles with Protexxa, and is a member of the President’s Advisory Group at Brock University. Her longstanding commitment to women in STEM has included leadership of Perimeter Institute’s Emmy Noether Council, which works to increase the participation of girls and women in physics and mathematics.

Sherry’s contributions to entrepreneurship, technology innovation and the advancement of women have been recognized with numerous honours, including the 2026 Rock Star Rising ICON Award, Women in AI’s 2025 AI Entrepreneur of the Year – AI in Startups Award, the APMA Donald S. Wood Leadership Award in Technology Innovation and Advocacy, and the Rogers KW Oktoberfest Woman of the Year in STEAM. In 2019, she received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Western University.

At the heart of Sherry’s work is a simple conviction: great things happen when great people come together around an ambitious idea and then get to work. Her focus today is bringing together people, ideas and capital to create opportunities for women and help shape Canada’s – and the world’s – future economy.