Mission + Vision
Our mission is to accelerate sustainable changes in buildings and homes by providing smart technologies that reduce energy costs, carbon footprint, and improve people’s standard of living.
We aim to empower individuals to make informed decisions and become less reliant on fossil fuels for heating and cooling. Together, we can create a sustainable future that benefits both humans and the environment.
About Lightspark Inc.
Our Team
James Riley
James is a software entrepreneur with a passion for energy efficiency. After spending several years providing marketing, CRM and digital strategy for recognized brands like the NFL, Dove, Diageo, Disney, NBC, Microsoft and others, he started his own digital agency in 2010 and began working with BC Hydro, Efficiency Nova Scotia, Efficiency Alberta, SaskPower and the City of Vancouver.
By using digital strategies and platforms to better reach business objectives, he helped his clients create efficiencies and reduce the costs of running complex energy efficiency programs. James created Lightspark in 2017 because he wanted to build a product platform that streamlines energy efficiency benefits for consumers, trades workers, utilities and policy makers and that makes it easier to deliver the economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency.
Luke Evans
Luke is Lightspark’s Fractional CTO. In the past, he has worked as the chief scientist and researcher for Business Objects Academic Research Center (ARC), where he pioneered a sequence of technologies and products that were successfully developed into commercial products from the internal incubator. He has been the CTO of data companies Stytch and Indicee, and was chief scientist and CTO at Dun and Bradstreet.
Luke founded the Business Objects, building relationships and investing in collaborative research projects with academia in North America and Europe. Luke is the inventor of several United States patents related to data access and visual composition.
Sadhu Johnston
Sadhu is a thought leader on cities, and is our senior strategist on city carbon reduction. He was the City Manager of Vancouver, BC from 2016 until 2021 where he was responsible for managing the operations of the City, including oversight of a budget of over $1.6B and over 7,000 staff. As City Manager he spearheaded initiatives to address the growing housing, homelessness and climate change issues in Vancouver and oversaw the Greenest City Action Plan. Previously he was the Chief Environmental Officer of Chicago and Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley where he led the development of the first climate action plan in a major North American city. He is co-author of "The Guide to Greening Cities" and is a co-founder of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) and is on the board of the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI).
Gary Lin
Gary advises Lightspark on investment and business strategy. Gary Lin is the Founder and Managing Director of Purple Orange Ventures and EVIG Group. He was the founder and CEO of mobile ad-tech company Glispa Global Group before that. He is a recipient of the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award which recognizes Glispa as one of the ‘Fastest Growing, Technically Innovative and Entrepreneurial Companies’ in the world. Selected as one of Europe’s hottest startups by WIRED UK, Glispa now has more than 250 employees from 45 nationalities and maintains its headquarters in Berlin with offices in San Francisco, Beijing, Singapore, Tel Aviv, Athens and São Paolo.
Jack Zhou
Jack’s is Lighstpark’s Senior Advisor on high-performance homes. Jack has 20 years of HVAC design and installation, energy modelling, and advisory experience. He is involved in various advisory groups such as the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA), Net Zero Renovations Advisory Group and the City of Toronto’s Climate Advisory Group. Jack teaches energy-efficient housing techniques through both private and public sector organizations, colleges and universities in Ontario, British Columbia, the Republic of China and South Korea. He is one of Canada’s top quality assurance experts using the Energuide system.
Simon Stolz
Simon Stolz is one of Lightspark’s Lead User Experience experts. Simon’s background is in development but has spent more than 10 years working in the field of user experience (UX) and visual design. He has worked extensively in many fields from end-to-end experiences for internal communication campaigns to designing training, and has been doing visual design for internal applications. Aside from this, he is driving initiatives to foster UX mindsets, teaching the language of design and motivating people to care for UX both in their daily lives and work.
Terry Tamminem
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and later Cabinet Secretary, the Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor, where Terry was the architect of many groundbreaking sustainability policies, including California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, the Hydrogen Highway Network, and the Million Solar Roofs initiative.
Nancy Wright
Nancy advises Lightspark on corporate strategy. She has a passion for work that makes for a cleaner, greener planet. As Chief Operating Officer at the GLOBE Series, she has spent 25 years building what has become the most famous brand of sustainable business conferences in the world.
She has worn several hats, and has met literally thousands of global leaders in both the public and the private sector over the course of her career working to make the planet more sustainable. She has a broad knowledge of CSR and corporate environmental challenges, as well as many important issues that inform energy, climate change, and the green economy.
Karri Schuermans
Karri is an entrepreneur and innovator in the sustainability and cleantech sector, she served on the Vancouver Economic Commission Board, was the Project Director for the Greater Vancouver Innovation Capital project, bringing together regional partners to create a regional infrastructure masterplan for the region.
Karri is the Principal of one of Vancouver’s top-rated restaurants, Chambar, co-founded Medina Café and The Dirty Apron Cooking School. Prior to coming to Vancouver she was the Marketing Manager for the City of Sydney, and the International Film Liaison Manager for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, tasked with ensuing the exposure of the games positioned Sydney as the business capital of the Asia Pacific region.
Mark Cunningham
Mark advises Lightspark on business, data and product strategy. He is an entrepreneur and investor with more than 25 years experience in the business intelligence (BI) industry. He has built five successful start ups, four of which were focused on pure business intelligence and analytics, including Indicee and Crystal Decisions.
Mark’s passion for solving data problems with technology began in 1991, when his family business began building the world’s first Windows-based reporting tool, Crystal Reports. Crystal grew to more than 2,000 employees and was eventually acquired by Business Objects for $820 million. Mark later founded the cloud BI company Indicee, which was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet in 2014 and became the Dun & Bradstreet Cloud Innovation Center.
Janice Shu
Janice is an experienced project management, operations and financial director. She led digital agency Kumu as their head of operations and finance for seven years. Prior to that she advised on finance and operations projects for Glispa Media out of Berlin. Janice started her career as an executive assistant for several senior executives at Blast Radius before turning to project management and operations.
Janice has a strong desire to see Lightspark’s product run efficiently and effectively to create great products that change the way we create positive change in the building sector.
Ralph Torrie
Ralph Torrie is Director of Research for Corporate Knights, a research and publishing organization that produces rankings and financial product ratings based on corporate sustainability performance. He is known for combining visionary thinking, intellectual leadership and rigorous analysis, and he has made original and important contributions to the field of sustainable development.
He is the inventor of strategic planning software for local government climate mitigation that was used by hundreds of cities on five continents. He served as Assistant Coordinator of the Energy Research Group of the United Nations University and the International Development Research Centre, as a senior executive of two publicly traded management consulting firms, and as the Managing Director of the Trottier Energy Future. He is a recipient of the Canadian Environment Silver Award for his work on climate change.
Peter Love
Peter is a long-time advisor to Lightspark, and assists with Lightspark’s overall energy efficiency and carbon reduction strategy through a delivery and policy lens. A Senior Advisor and Investor with Lightspark, Peter Love is an experienced and well recognized leader in energy efficiency and is a respected environmental leader.
He is the founding member of the board of Energy Efficiency Alberta, the President of the Royal Canadian Institute for Science and is the Founding Director of Rethink Sustainability Initiatives. In 2005, Peter was appointed Ontario’s first Chief Energy Conservation Officer with the Ontario Power Authority.
Andy Oding
Andy is an expert in building science and energy modelling and is Lightspark’s senior advisor in this practice. He is a management executive who brings a wealth of expertise to building performance, building science and energy modelling. He has been a leader across several boards including the Canadian Home Builders Association, ASHRAE 90.2 Energy Standard, Committee on Energy Efficiency Housing and Building, National Building Code and others.
He has and his team are strategic partners to Lightspark's projects with utilities and cities across Canada and the United States
Sunil Kumar Bandaru
Sunil is Lightspark’s back-end architect, and he has more than 16 years of application development experience as well as a strong background developing custom applications in various industries. He has strong domain knowledge in energy, banking and the Internet of Things, and he has developed GIS applications for a number of clients.
He has also designed and developed data analytic products, custom systems and integration solutions, and has extensive expertise in agile delivery methodologies, enterprise IT architecture, cloud architecture and big-data analytics solutions.
Damin Loi
Damin is a Senior Developer with Lightspark, with a focus on front-end development. He has more than 15 years of website development experience focusing on online marketing and e-commerce based experiences for clients ranging from small startups to large corporations.
He is also skilled in communicating with clients, sales teams and other developers to ensure everyone has their goals met. Damin is also a problem solver. He has experience in helping clients find solutions for their issues, and he’s always looking for the best way to approach problems.
Katy Poon
Katy is Lightspark’s Creative Director. She is a digital marketing entrepreneur, creative strategist, columnist and coach. She taught herself how to program and design when she got her first computer at a very young age, and consults for businesses in branding, e-commerce, user experience and design. After a decade in video games as the UI Lead on FIFA, she decided to go full-time in her creative practice and focus on conscious businesses. She has launched multiple brands online and in brick-and-mortar businesses. Extremely passionate about wellbeing, she is a holistic executive business coach, nutritionist and athlete.
