I grew up in Jordan Station, Ontario, a hockey hotbed in the Niagara region. Sports dominated my early life—hockey, basketball, softball, baseball. Both my parents were athletes, and my extended family includes Memorial Cup winners and professional hockey players and rowers. But I never really saw myself as a future pro athlete, because I was also quite focused on academics, particularly science. 

What I love about both sports and academics is the constant growth. There’s no finish line, just the drive to keep improving and competing against yourself.  My experience as a model—at 15, I was scouted by a modelling agency while walking to a Toronto Raptors game—has also given me the self-confidence and poise to achieve what I’ve set out for myself.

Because I had so many interests, I had a non-linear educational path. I initially set my sights on a career in health sciences, but a little lab work was enough to convince me that I don’t like blood. I bounced around a bit—McMaster, Brock—and ended up at the University of New Brunswick, where my brother played hockey. There I found my groove, joining a specialized finance program called the student investment fund, that gave hands-on experience in investment banking and portfolio management. 

We were being groomed to be the next generation of Bay Street titans. But I hit the job market at the absolute worst time—2008—right at the beginning of the global financial crisis. Investment banks weren’t hiring, and I ended up taking a job at the Hamilton airport, doing data and analytics work. Later, I joined John Deere as a marketing associate. 

At the time, my brother ran a hockey school for high-level athletes. As part of his work, he tracked player performance data. He had built quite a robust system for collecting and interpreting data, but realized that he had hit a ceiling in terms of being able to expand his services.

That’s when I saw an opportunity. I recognized the value in the data my brother was gathering, and the demand from teams and players for these kinds of advanced analytics. But my brother’s then-approach to analyzing data was manual and limited in scope because it was so expensive to upgrade equipment. Automation in sports analytics was still in its infancy. 

So in 2010, my co-founders John Chayka (my brother), Neil Lane, and I incorporated Stathletes, with the goal of creating software that could automate the collection and analysis of player performance data for hockey teams and affiliates. Our tools today help decision makers get near-real time feedback on teams and players, giving them a competitive advantage thanks to a deeper understanding of player performance.  

We lost our first big pitch competition at Western’s Ivey Business School, but a few months later, we loaded up a van and drove down to Kentucky for another competition. This time, we nailed it. We won $15,000 and the chance to compete at an even bigger event in Texas. We ended up taking home more prizes there, and suddenly, we had the validation and the resources to really start building our business.

Over the next few years, we continued to refine our offering, and partnered with the University of Waterloo to enhance the computing power behind the technology that tracks player movements, identifies different plays or formations, and so on. We also acquired a company in the Midwest that specialized in AI-powered data collection. We went from tracking a few thousand data points per game to millions, giving us an unprecedented level of granularity and insight.

The type of data we collect—from the precise movements of players to analyzing team strategy on the ice—is valuable across the hockey industry. As we grew, we expanded our customer base beyond hockey teams. We started working with individual players, agents and trainers, sports media companies, and betting operators, all with a focus on hockey. We’ve never had any outside investment—we’re 100 per cent founder-funded. Ten years ago, we made our first million in annual recurring revenue. In 2026, we broke ten million. 

Today, we have around 100 full-time employees, with about 100 more contract workers spread across our offices in St. Catharines, Toronto, and Waterloo. Now, I’m focused on aggressive growth and expansion: I want to leverage some of the technologies used in the security industry and in self-driving cars, and pivot them to our business so we can expand into an even larger market. 

Related: How I Went From Player to the Head of Hockey Operations for the PWHL

It’s easy to talk about big dreams, but turning them into reality—especially as a Canadian company—takes more than ambition. You need capital, the right talent, and the ability to bring all those components together to reach targets like $100 million or even $500 million in revenue. And that’s exactly what I’m aiming for. I’ve always felt that society imposes a linear way of thinking—especially on women. Whenever I sought career advice, it came with a push towards traditionally nurturing or supportive roles—to be a doctor, nurse, or biomedical engineer, or if I was to get into business, to specialize in marketing or HR. These are all great careers, but they reflect a broader idea of what feels “safe” for women. 

Running a sports data company was never among the recommendations. But I chose it because I rejected a linear path, and let my interests guide what I learned and the opportunities I pursued. To me, education is about building adaptable skills. I focused on personal growth, seized the right opportunities for my set of skills, and let the work speak for itself.

—As told to Liza Agrba