Roxanne is co-CEO and co-owner of Innovatia Inc., a global knowledge management company providing software and services to Fortune 100 and 500 companies. Headquartered in Saint John, New Brunswick, Innovatia also has offices in Calgary, Alberta, Houston, Texas and Bangalore, India. Roxanne and Dave purchased Innovatia in 2009, under their leadership Innovatia has since grown by 350%.
Roxanne has served on the University of New Brunswick’s Board of Governors since 2003, serving on and Chairing most Board Committees as well as Board Chair for a 2-year term. She was the second female Chair in UNB’s 150-year history. In addition to her years of service to the University of New Brunswick, Roxanne’s interest in education has also forged a partnership between Innovatia and the Elementary Literacy Friends (ELF) program, which focuses on increasing literacy throughout the province by providing volunteer tutors to Grade 2 students. She currently is Chair of ELF. Roxanne is also Chair of Achieve Literacy Greater Saint John, with a special focus on gathering the needed resources and strategies for Kindergarten to Grade 2 students to ensure that 90% of children are reading at grade level. She is a member of the Leadership Board for BCAPI the Saint John Business Anti-Poverty Initiative, and most recent past Co-Chair of the Executive Committee.
As the inaugural Chairperson of both Facilicorp and Opportunities New Brunswick she played key roles in new strategic shifts in both these New Brunswick provincial government services. Facilicorp was created to amalgamate all IT and non-clinical shared services from seven Regional Health Authorities across the province with annualized savings of $20 million in the first 5 years of operations. Opportunities New Brunswick brought 3 Provincial Business Development agencies together to drive economic development and Job creation. Roxanne has also served as a director of Brunswick Pipeline − an Emera company, LearnSphere Canada, and is a founding member of Propel ICT, a group of Saint John business people (led by Gerry Pond) driving the I.T. and communications sector within the city. In 2011, Roxanne took on the role of Chair of Future Growth Greater Saint John, a group of more than 30 Saint John business owners and executives, who banded together to drive economic development in the Saint John community. As an off-shoot Roxanne formally sat as Chair of the Enterprise Saint John Board of Directors for their initial first year in the renewal strategy.
Roxanne is one of the founding members of the Women for 50%, a group of New Brunswick female leaders whose goal is gender parity and equality in the New Brunswick legislature. In 2014 Roxanne was inducted into the New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame and received the Order of New Brunswick. In 2018 Roxanne was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. Roxanne was also named one of the Atlantic region’s 50 most accomplished business executives by Atlantic Business Magazine in 2005, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. She has also been named the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 for the Atlantic Region.
Roxanne, along with her business partner, Dave Grebenc, leads a workforce that has grown to employ over 650 people: a significant percentage of work within the province of New Brunswick.
Roxanne has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto. She has also received an honorary Doctorate of Letters Degree from the University of New Brunswick in May of 2018.
