Joseph Lake is a big picture thinker with deep food innovation, research and collaboration experience across the global food industry. Joe’s career in diverse and progressive positions with the global powerhouse McCain Foods sparked his entrepreneurial spirit, confirmed his passion for transformative innovation, and honed his analytic and collaborative negotiating skills. While at McCain, he successfully created and launched a global food innovation platform, as well as gained knowledge of innovation network models, incubators, and accelerators in other countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Europe. As CEO of the Canadian Food Innovation Network, Joe played a key role in building the organization from its conception, attracting talent from across the country, and launching CFIN’s online connector platform, YODL. Under his leadership CFIN awarded more than $8 million to 32 Canadian food tech projects. Since, Joe has returned to McCain Foods, leading a global team driving food technology innovation. Joe studied at Dalhousie University where his meticulous and thorough work in food science and technology to completing his PhD.