/EINPresswire.com/ -- TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - March 17, 2016) - In its second study on Canada's innovation challenges, the Impact Centre at the University of Toronto has determined that Founder CEOs outperform Professional CEOs in both Unicorns (privately held companies with valuations in excess of $1 billion) and venture capital-backed Canadian companies. But in Canada we are 2.6 times more likely to replace a Founder CEO with a Professional CEO. 

Major Findings

• Canadian Founder CEOs are just as experienced as the Founder CEOs of Unicorns in terms of prior experience as serial entrepreneurs.

• Our Professional CEOs are more experienced than Unicorn Professional CEOs in terms of prior experience as founders and as CEOs of venture capital-backed companies.

• Founder CEOs outperform Professional CEOs in Unicorns and Canadian companies.

• While Canadians replace Founder CEOs with Professional CEOs 47% of the time, Founder CEOs are only replaced 18% of the time in Unicorn companies. 

Our conclusion is that Canadian founders have the right backgrounds to grow successful market-leading companies and that our reluctance to scale to that level may be attributed partially to our tendency to replace talented Founder CEOs with Professional CEOs. 

Canada has long been criticized for its inability to scale high-tech companies to world-class size. Although Canada has created an ecosystem that produces many startups, few of these companies grow to become Unicorns.

Certainly, we have had world-leading companies such as Blackberry and Mitel, and more recently Unicorns such as HootSuite and Kik Interactive. But most of our successful startups are sold before they reach world-class size. Overcoming this growth hurdle is crucial to positioning Canadian companies favorably in global markets, and having the right talent at the top is part of the strategy. 

Read the full Report

http://www.impactcentre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/160316-Ousting-the-Founder.pdf

About the Impact Centre at the University of Toronto

The Impact Centre strives to bring science to society.

We believe that science is the foundation for a better quality of life. Research, invention, and innovation are considered among the key contributors to economic development and sustainability of communities in Canada and around the world.

Our vision is to be a place where you can connect with exceptional research, talent, innovative companies, and government to create products and services that benefit society.

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Media Contact:

Charles Plant
Senior Fellow
Impact Centre
Cell: 416-458-4850
cplant@imc.utoronto.ca
@cplant
Impact Centre: www.impactcentre.ca