Our Mentor Spotlight series highlights the incredible contributions of Innovation UBC's mentor network to 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 Tracy Gordon. Tracy has mentored with Innovation UBC since May 2023 and brings the perspective of someone who has built, run, and sold her own company, now helping founders think about growth and exit from day one.
Meet Tracy Gordon
What experiences or areas of expertise do you bring to the table?
I built and ran a Salesforce consulting business with my husband for 15 years before selling it in 2021, working as a partner that helped companies implement and run on the Salesforce platform. Since then, I've become a certified exit planner, one of only around 100 in Canada, and I run Teqtoniq Advisors, where I help business owners grow their companies in a way that builds value and keeps their options open - whether that means selling, scaling, or passing the business on to family. That combination of having actually built and exited a company, plus formal training in exit planning, gives me a different lens.
What's a moment from your time mentoring that has stuck with you?
What's really stuck with me from my time mentoring is noticing how rarely founders have actually asked themselves why they're doing this and what they want at the end of it. I make a point of asking that question directly, and it almost always catches them off guard because they've been so focused on the product and getting the business running that the exit never crossed their mind. That's what I keep coming back to: how much a single, simple question can shift a founder's entire approach, and how easy it is for mentors who haven't built and exited a company themselves to never think to ask it.
How has being a mentor shaped or surprised you?
I have a naturally operational mindset, so my instinct is to jump straight to solving the problem for someone. Mentoring has pushed me to do the opposite: ask better questions, offer guidance and options, and let founders make their own decisions rather than handing them an answer. That shift, from solving for people to guiding them, is something I've genuinely grown into through my time mentoring.
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?
A lot of founders are trying to do everything themselves and making the business entirely dependent on them as the owner, which becomes a real problem if they ever want to sell, scale, or step back. I'm also seeing a newer version of this: ventures using AI in scattered, unplanned ways without thinking through governance or compliance — what I call "random acts of AI." I see mentorship as a way to help founders step back and see around the corners, flagging the pitfalls and decisions they may not even know they need to think about while still letting them make the call themselves.
What's keeping you busy or bringing you joy outside of work and mentorship?
My husband and I moved from the UK to Vancouver specifically for the outdoor lifestyle, and I fill my time with mountain biking, road biking, hiking, and skiing — anything that gets me outside and pushes me a bit, including tackling some of the tougher trails around Whistler and Squamish. I'm also a big traveler, going as far as backpacking the world for a year and climbing Kilimanjaro, and I genuinely enjoy planning trips down to the last detail, to the point where my husband jokes I should've been a travel agent.
Connect with Tracy on LinkedIn.
Interested in mentoring early-stage ventures at Innovation UBC? Learn more here.
