Our Mentor Spotlight series highlights the incredible contributions of Innovation UBC's mentor network for our venture community. We're privileged to work with a community of more than 250 mentors—entrepreneurs, operators, and industry leaders from across Vancouver and BC's innovation ecosystem—who generously invest their time, expertise, and insights to help early-stage founders navigate uncertainty, build confidence, and move their ventures forward. Through these spotlights, we're proud to share the stories of and celebrate the people behind that guidance.
In this spotlight, we are thrilled to introduce you to Hasnaa Fatehi. Hasnaa has mentored with Innovation UBC since January 2026 and brings deep expertise in medical device regulatory affairs to founders navigating one of the toughest sectors to build in.
Meet Hasnaa Fatehi
What experiences or areas of expertise do you bring to the table?
I am a regulatory affairs expert specializing in medical device regulations and quality assurance, with a background that spans Procter & Gamble in Singapore, biomedical engineering studies in France and Germany, and a PhD in systems biology.
Since moving to Vancouver, I've spent over a decade supporting Canadian medtech companies, roughly 70% of them based in BC, and two and a half years ago I founded an industry group specifically for early-stage medical device founders in Western Canada. My expertise is especially valuable given how tough the medtech space is to navigate, from fundraising to regulatory approval to finding product-market fit.
What's a moment from your time mentoring that has stuck with you?
For me, it's less a single moment and more a recurring realization: how often early-stage founders don't even know there's a regulatory body or requirement they need to deal with in the first place. I'll ask a founder a simple question such as “have you checked whether your product is regulated?” and watch them realize they've never even considered it. Helping someone get clarity on something that basic before it becomes a costly mistake is exactly why I got involved in mentoring in the first place.
How has being a mentor shaped or surprised you?
Mentoring has been just as valuable for me as for the founders I work with. Sitting in the room with more senior mentors and venture capitalists at Innovation UBC has given me insight into market trends, commercialization strategy, and the kinds of questions investors actually ask, things I wouldn't necessarily encounter running my own business day to day. I've also been struck by how genuinely dedicated other mentors are, often speaking more openly and supportively in that setting than they might otherwise.
What's a pattern you keep seeing in early-stage ventures, and what role do you think mentorship plays in helping founders work through it?
The pattern I see most often is founders who simply don't know what they don't know. They have an idea and want to build a business around it but no real sense of what regulatory, market, or commercialization hurdles are even relevant to them.
I see a mentor's role as pointing those gaps out early: flagging the things a founder needs to think about before they become expensive problems. As I put it, mentors can't stop founders from making mistakes altogether but they can help them avoid repeating the same mistakes others have already learned from the hard way.
What's keeping you busy or bringing you joy outside of work and mentorship?
I spend a lot of time outdoors in Vancouver, long walks in nature, hiking and being near water, having grown up by the Atlantic Ocean and later falling in love with the mountains while studying in the French Alps. I also enjoy the arts and chose Vancouver specifically because it offered both the ocean and the mountains I love.
Connect with Hasnaa on LinkedIn.
Interested in mentoring early-stage ventures at Innovation UBC? Learn more.
