Photo of CEO Karen Lockhart

Meet the Team

We're passionate about seeing you succeed.

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It's no secret, People are what make Propel so Great

Kathryn Lockhart

CEO

Elaine McKinnon

CFO

Angela Hodgson

Director of Operations & Programming

Leanne Fraser-Hendricken

Accelerator Operations Coordinator

... and Our Amazing Start-Up Coaches

Charlotte Murray

Chief Coaching Officer

As one of Canada’s leading startup coaches, Charlotte believes that a good company is built with a laser focus on solving a real problem for a specific customer, and a coachable founder.

Charlotte is Chief Coaching Officer of Propel, Atlantic Canada’s leading virtual accelerator. In this role she draws on her experience as co-founder and CEO of the Smart Contract startup PACTA, where she sold to enterprise customers, pitched at global competitions and to investors, raised VC capital and grew a team. In her role, Charlotte oversees recruitment, programming and professional development for founders and the Coaching team. Having worked with more than 500 entrepreneurs, she coaches the founders first, and meets them where they are, working with them to solve company specific challenges, connecting them with the right networks and helping navigate their path to operationalizing, financing and scaling their business.

Charlotte is also a highly active mentor, advisor, trainer and coach of startups at Volta, StartupFest and Techstars, and serves as Board Member of Ignite Atlantic. She has participated in a number of accelerators including Launch36 as well as Founderfuel in Montreal and Google in Mountainview, California.

She began her career as Procurement and then Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble in Switzerland and New York, where she led $200M contract negotiations, and then marketing strategy for brands including Gillette and Premium Skin Care DDF. She was also an internal Coach for Managers, led various training and recruitment efforts while at P&G, and was an active volunteer on the Board for charity related activities. Following this she returned to Canada and launched a scuba dive expedition to mobilize local communities to clean up the underwater environment, a purpose-driven project she led across Canada from coast to coast.

Charlotte is a King’s College and Dalhousie University alumnus, has an MBA from Lund University in Sweden, and Executive Coaching Certification from Columbia University in New York. She is certified in Innovation Board Governance and fluent in four languages. She was recognized for innovation within P&G, and as a Founder from the Branham Group, Microsoft for Startups and Google.

Derek Latham

Startup Coach

Derek began his career in Toronto working for Nestlé Canada on the PowerBar energy bar portfolio before moving to Ottawa to lead the development of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic program for the Royal Canadian Mint. Derek held various senior sales with Starbucks Coffee Company roles in Ottawa and Atlantic Canada before diving into entrepreneurship in 2015.

Derek is a Propel graduate having gone through the Accelerator in 2016 and understands the ups and downs that accompany startup life, shuttering his business in 2017. Derek’s extensive experience in data and insight-driven marketing drives him to encourage founders to embrace customer discovery as the key to understanding how to create value for their customers.

Richard Jones

Startup Coach

Richard has thirty-five years of experience in the energy, engineering, and information technology fields. He has worked in a wide variety of leadership and technical roles, from CEO of early-stage technology start-ups to leading divisions within multi-billion dollar organizations. He is a passionate advocate for helping social sector organizations operate more effectively and he serves on Boards and in executive positions in those organizations. Since 2017 Richard has worked with Propel as a Startup Coach.  He loves working with founders to apply lean startup frameworks that help them understand their customers and accelerate the start-up go-to-market strategies.

Julien Robichaud

Startup Coach

As a proud member of the Propel team, Julien is a Startup Coach supporting founders. Originally from Moncton, New-Brunswick, Julien has worked a number of years in the business and francophone community with a number of organizations and collaborators. Artist at heart, Julien has also created a number of creative initiatives including lead director and screenwriter for a successful world-wide documentary and support in the launch of a French Foodie magazine across Canada. Julien is looking forward to working with founders and supporting them in their creative and validation process.

Kyle Hickey

Startup Coach

Kyle has lived the successes and failures of entrepreneurship and knows the realities of start-up life first-hand. Since selling his own business in 2019, he’s been relentlessly focused on helping other entrepreneurs turn their own visions into successful businesses. A graduate of Memorial University’s MBA program, Kyle is an active academic who enjoys applying current research to complex problems. He’s passionate about innovation and loves working closely with Propel founders on all parts of their start-up journeys.

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