Every day, throughout the United States, Canadians pass unnoticed. Identical to Americans, with the possible exception of excessive politeness and a fondness for hockey, Canadians can be found everywhere. Including some of North America’s largest technology companies. While our infiltration of Hollywood has been deeper, Canadians have risen to senior and high profile positions with key U.S. technology. Here are five Canucks in IT. Did you know they were Canadian?

1. Did you know they were
Canadian?
Every day, throughout the United
States, Canadians pass unnoticed. Identical to
Americans, with the possible exception of
excessive politeness and a fondness for
hockey, Canadians can be found everywhere.
Including some of North America’s largest
technology companies.
While our infiltration of Hollywood has been
deeper, Canadians have risen to senior and
high profile positions with key U.S. tech firms.
Here are five Canucks in IT. Did you know they
were Canadian?
By Jeff Jedras
Image courtesy of Bill Longshaw at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2. When John Chambers eventually
resigns as CEO of Cisco Systems, a
Canadian will be on the very short list
of his likely successors – Rob Lloyd.
Lloyd, a graduate of the University of
Manitoba, began his career at Cisco
leading its Canadian subsidiary in
1994.
And now he’s president of
development and sales (aka the co-
president), and is just one step away
from the CEO’s office.
Rob Lloyd, Cisco Systems

3. She was the sixth highest paid female
executive in 2010. She was ranked the
second most powerful woman in business
in 2006. And she holds a bachelor of
computer systems engineering from
Carleton University in Ottawa.
Shona Brown joined Google in 2003 and
helped build up its business operaitons
side, and now serves as senior vice-
president of business operations,
although she’s expected to move on soon
to an advisory role and pursue other
interests.
Shona Brown, Google

4. A Canadian veteran of the IT
trenches, Nick Tidd currently has a
slightly less high profile role as senior
vice-president of global sales for
performance optimization software
vendor Condusiv Technologies.
His CV includes a long list of leadership
roles, including leading global channel
sales for 3Com and serving as North
American president of networking
vendor D-Link, where he overhauled
its sales and channel operations.
Nick Tidd, Condusiv
Technologies

5. A B.C. boy, John Swainson holds a
bachelor’s degree in engineering from
the University of British Columbia.
He spent 26 years at IBM, where he
founded the Application Integration
Middleware Division and helped create
WebSphere before serving four years as
CEO of CA.
Today he’s the president in charge of
Dell’s software business, a key role at a
vendor looking to grow beyond its PC
roots.
John Swainson, Dell

6. While Nokia is based in Finland, we can’t
leave Stephen Elop off this list. And this
Anchaster, Ont.-native did take Silicon
Valley by storm before becoming
president and CEO of the
communications giant.
His CV includes CEO of
Macromedia, president of field
operations for Adobe, COO of Juniper
Networks and head of Microsoft’s
business division.
Not bad for a MacMaster University grad
who helped lay down its campus
Ethernet network.
Stephen Elop, Nokia