With two decades of experience in the business side of technology, Mona brings her expertise in corporate development, acquisitions, integrations, and technology deals (with a specialty in IP licensing deals) to every team she works with. Mona understands that scaling businesses requires a unique combination of strategic pattern matching skills, attentive team building skills, and focused operational skills.
Mona founded Tribal Ventures to provide advice to the under-served early stage tech segment. She helps companies develop and implement their business with a view to maximizing their exit opportunities.Previously, Mona was on the buy side of start-ups, serving as Corporate Vice President of Business Development for Cadence Design Systems. At Cadence, she led all mergers and acquisitions, strategic technology transactions and venture investments, delivering tens of millions of dollars in incremental revenue.
She also led the definition of the company’s acquisition and partnership strategy, enabling Cadence to expand into adjacent growth markets. Mona has also served as General Counsel of Coverity, a venture-backed software company, and as co-founder and President of VIBLIO, a machine learning startup.Mona is actively involved in a number of non-profits focused on improving diversity in the workplace.
She co-founded Leading Women in Technology, which has been working for over a decade to help women in the tech sector accelerate their careers, and she is on the Board of ChIPs Network, an organization dedicated to diversity and operating at the intersection of law, technology and policy. Mona led the strategy and implementation that took The Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest annual convention of women technologist in the world, from 8000 to 15,000 attendees in 2 years.
Mona is also the founder and a member of Hipower, a group of women leaders accelerating one another’s leadership from professional success to wide-ranging significance.Mona holds an engineering degree from the University of Toronto, a J.D. from the University of Western Ontario, and management certificates from Simon Fraser University and UC, Berkeley.
When she’s not diving into new business initiatives or fighting for diversity, Mona enjoys spending her time with her husband, children and a nicely chilled martini