Peter Diedrich, President & CEO
Peter Diedrich has over 25 years of operations and leadership experience in technology and telecommunications, management consulting and private equity. He has played key leadership roles at a number of notable firms, including Bell-Northern Research, Nortel Networks, McKinsey & Company, Bell Canada Enterprises, and RBC Royal Bank Financial Group. As a venture and private equity investor with RBC and Skypoint Capital, he was an active board member of numerous private companies. 
Sylvain Carle, Co-Founder, CTO
Sylvain is Needium’s “think it, do it, ship it” guy. He’s been on the bleeding edge of new media and networked applications for fifteen years. Sylvain was VP of Interactive Media solutions at LVL Studio, CTO at Messagia and Product Manager at My Virtual Model. He also worked as a CTO for hire in Silicon Valley in 2000-2001, where he was a senior consultant to several dot-com startups. He’s a frequent speaker at technology events and has been blogging since 2000. 
Sebastien Provencher, Co-Founder, VP Product Management
Sebastien is Vice-President Product Management at Needium. He has more than 12 years experience in local search and online media.From 1999 to 2007, Sebastien played an instrumental role in formulating Yellow Pages Group’s online strategy in Canada. He developed their most successful online advertising product ever (DirectoryPlus), struck a strategic partnership with Google, and created a vision around local search. Sebastien co-founded Needium (formerly Praized) in 2007 to help local media companies tap into the growing potential of online word-of-mouth and social media.
Colin Surprenant, Alpha Hacker and Lead Engineer
Colin is Needium’s platform architecture lead ninja. He is a hands-on software development architect who played key roles in R&D and business management. He is a passionate self-starter who brings creativity, innovation, simplicity and pragmatism to teams and organisations. Colin has been working with Internet technologies since the late 90s. You can spot him in his spare time defying gravity on various cliffs around the country. 
Caroline Desmarais, Sales Director
Caroline Desmarais is a sales expert with plenty of international experience. Previously, she worked in Sydney, Australia as Sales Manager at MaxInteractive, part of the Ybrant Digital Network. Her background is diverse, having studied and worked in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia. Caroline has a B.A. in Philosophy and Foreign Languages (Spanish, Italian) from Skidmore College and a Law Degree (LL.L) from the University of Ottawa. She also completed a specialized course in Digital Media in 2010. She has a passion for online media and a flare for all social platforms.
Laura Politis, Channel Manager
Laura nurtures relationships with our partners around the globe. She graduated from Concordia with a B.A. in Communications, and followed it up with an MBA from McGill University. With over 5 years of experience in the service industry, she also manages tweet quality & productivity to ensure constant customer satisfaction.
Marc-André Gagnon, Rails Developer
Marc-André has 10 years of experience in web development in Montreal and has worked for many agencies before joining Praized Media in 2007. He has been working with Ruby on Rails since version 0.10. As a dedicated marathon runner, he can often be seen on the trails of Mont-Royal in his spare time.
François Lafortune, Front-End Developer
François is Needium’s front-end, UI and widget specialist. He is especially adept at cross-site scripting, API wrapping, 3rd party logins and web-based application user interfaces. When he’s not busy with all of that, he can be seen roaming the streets of Montreal on his longboard.
Sasha Guindi, Media Consultant
Sasha’s entrepreneurial spirit combined with a strong background in sales and online media brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our sales force. As our in-house sales guru, he provides excellent service and support to our clients.
Jessica Grana, Community Manager
Jessica is our resident PR pro and always has a smile on her face. Her community management skills are second to none. When she’s not tweeting away, she enjoys the arts, jazz and fine dining.