Richard Cantin

Richard founded Ayuda in 2005 so he could help companies grow their business by developing their strategies, managing their sales and marketing activities and aligning their staff and budget to identified priorities - all to deliver better results for the business.

Richard has been in leadership roles across the three key pillars of the technology industry: Computers (Apple Computer, Microsoft), Telecommunications (Rogers, Qwest) and the Internet (UUNet, Everus). In addition to consistently meeting or exceeding objectives, Richard often led the teams creating new go-to-market initiatives and developing new opportunities for the company.

At UUNET, Richard led the marketing and channel development efforts during a time of 100% annual growth. At Microsoft, he established the Communications sector in Canada, leading a team of sales, vertical marketing, and technical support professionals that were recognized with a North America-wide top performance award.

Richard's work on the Board of a Markham software company helped them dig out of a 3-year flat sales trend and achieve 48% sales growth the next year. As Chair of a not-for-profit organization, Richard embarked on a revitalization program, starting with fund-raising and planning for increased market profile as well as improved Board contribution to the organization

As President/CEO of Everus Communications Inc. in Waterloo, sales tripled as costs were cut by over $100,000 per month.

As Executive Director of the Laurier Executive Development Centre, Richard created the business plan, launched the Centre and guided it to 3 straight years of over 40% growth per year.

As chair of a CEO Peer-to-Peer group, Richard facilitates a wide range of topics to help the CEOs stay current on leadership trends and to share best practices for solving challenges. Many of the blog posts on this site are from the discussions at that group.

Richard has a solid track record of accepting new challenges and creating success stories. He is an experienced sales, marketing and channel development executive that has been involved in a wide range of business scenarios including start-up, turnaround and mature business.

Richard’s undergraduate education is a twin degree from University of Waterloo where he majored in Mathematics and Computer Science and Wilfrid Laurier University where he earned a Business Administration minor. His graduate degree is an MBA from York University / Schulich School of Business where he majored in Marketing.

Richard’s passions include bridge, basketball, golf, horses and woodworking and generally learning about new topics of interest.