Our Team
8Twelve Financial Technologies wouldn’t be successful without a dynamic and engaged team.
Gary Fooks
CEO & Co-Founder
Gary is an experienced business builder who has owned, managed, and operated over 250 global contact centres. He has developed strategic relationships with international partners for all facets of business including sales, service, fulfillment, quality control and billing. In addition to his career experience, Gary has also achieved recognition as a top 20 independent mortgage sales agent in 2016, and a top 10 independent mortgage sales agent in 2017 and 2018.
Jason Baibokas, MBA, CFA
Chief Financial Officer
Jason has over 20 years of investment, finance, and capital markets experience. He has successfully raised capital for and advised several high-growth companies. He was also a member of the Steering Committee of a boutique dealer with an exit to Stifel Financial (NYSE: SF).
Akber Abbas
President & Co-Founder
Akber was employee number six at Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN, $10B cap), a leading provider of cloud contact center software. He also held the position of Strategic Advisor to CEO and CRO at Spoken, which was sold to Avaya for over $150MM. In addition, he is an internationally respected Business Process Outsourcing expert and has been engaged by 25+ organizations globally. Akber is also a member of the 14-person Stakeholder Advisory Committee at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). The Advisory Committee advises FSRA on their priorities and budgets as they relate to the Mortgage Brokering sector.
David Young
Chief Technology Officer
David's technology story begins at Stanford University and Silicon Valley in the late 90s. Working as an early employee in several software startups, David architected enterprise-level solutions for 3 of the largest CRM platforms in the world. Prior to 8Twelve, David built an AI/ML engine for Natural Language Processing and Sentiment Analysis of Call Center calls. David is a world traveler who has provided technical consulting and training in several pacific island countries.
Advisors
Martha Durdin
Martha is the former President and CEO of the Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA), having served in that role for the last eight years. She also represented CCUA on the board of The World Council of Credit Unions. She has extensive executive experience, having served as a Managing Principal of a leading national strategic public affairs company, led Public Affairs for one of the large Canadian Banks and worked on Parliament Hill.
Ray Sharma
Ray is the Founder & CEO of Extreme Venture Partners, a leading VC fund in Canada with exits to Apple, Google, Electronic Arts. Previously, Ray has spent over 11 years in technology investment banking research, and is a former top-ranked analyst on Bay/Wall St. Ray is also considered a leading authority in the current evolution of the mobile application layer.
David Sharma
David is a recognized global telecommunications leader with over 20 years of senior executive and board experience. He has overseen and supported billions in P&L through his former leadership at TELUS and was a founding board member of TELUS International. In addition to serving on multiple for-profit boards, David is passionate about giving back to our community through his service on several non-profit boards such as the Ontario Brian Institute and the Ontario Science Centre.