LeadershipTeam

Peter O'Blenis

Chief Executive Officer

Peter is a pioneer in literature review automation. Having co-founded DistillerSR in 2009, he went on to demonstrate the first practical use of AI for reference screening at the Cochrane Colloquium in 2011.

Prior to DistillerSR, Peter co-founded TrialStat, maker of the first commercially available systematic literature review platform. He holds an MBA from Queen’s and a BSc in Computer Science from Carleton.

Naomi Morisawa De Koven

General Counsel

Naomi Morisawa De Koven is the managing lawyer of MDK Business Law and is DistillerSR’s General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer. Naomi is a past recipient of the Ottawa Business Journal’s Forty under 40, and a volunteer director of several not-for-profit organizations. Prior to moving to Ottawa, she was a Toronto-based partner at a national law firm.

Marc Eaglesham

Executive Vice President, Sales

Marc leads the sales team with over 28 years of experience in IT Distribution, Telecom, Global IT Outsourcing and Human Capital Management. This experience allowed Marc to refine and develop his passion for building high performing sales teams, grounded in a people-first culture. Outside of work Marc spends time with his family, cottaging and most likely enjoying one of his favourite pastimes: breaking bread with family and friends.

Chris Wright

Executive Vice President, Operations

As executive vice president of operations, Chris is responsible for security, IT, operations, compliance, marketing, and corporate communications. He brings more than 20 years of high-tech experience to DistillerSR Inc. His experience and leadership have been focused on developing and delivering results and solutions for Fortune 500 and growing companies. Prior to joining DistillerSR, he was a member of the Atos North America management team as Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications.

Sara Rivard

Chief Financial Officer

Sara brings more than 15 years of financial experience to DistillerSR. Leading the finance function, Sara is responsible for the development and execution of the company’s financial strategies. Prior to DistillerSR, Sara served as the VP of Finance at MindBridge AI. During her tenure, Sara was instrumental in building out the finance business support capabilities and function to meet the needs of the organization scaling MindBridge to 280% growth in just 24 months.

Jean-François Pouliotte

Vice President, Customer Success

Jean-François has over 20 years of experience in the software industry. Prior to joining DistillerSR, Jean-François was the VP of Customer Success for Assent Compliance.

Over the years, he has successfully managed the enterprise rollout of SaaS solutions to hundreds of large corporations.

Jean-François has a BA and MA in Canadian Military History from McGill and the Université du Québec in Montréal.

Mark Priatel

Vice President, Engineering

With over 20 years of experience designing and delivering software, Mark’s expertise in multi-tenant SaaS makes him an invaluable part of our executive team.

Prior to DistillerSR, Mark was the CTO at Klipfolio, his passion for leadership, efficiency, and scalability empowers our engineering team to strive for excellence.

He is also passionate about mentoring developers and creating a culture of positivity, curiosity, and continuous learning on his team.

Alan Charlton

Chief Information Security Officer

Alan is an IT & Security leader with over 25 years of experience. At DistillerSR, Alan ensures that customers can trust their data will remain confidential, integral, and available.  An award-winning leader, he cultivates strong working rapports, builds best-in-class teams, and fosters open communications.

Prior to DSR, Alan worked at Caseware, a fintech software company where he led corporate IT as the company underwent tenfold growth.

Helen Huang

Director of Talent

As lead for the Human Resources function, Helen is responsible for developing and implementing HR strategies and initiatives that support and enable the organization’s overall business plan.

She brings more than 20 years of leadership experience across diverse industries including technology, financial services, healthcare, and post-secondary education.

Prior to joining DistillerSR, Helen was a Director, HRBP at Innovapost.