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Cybele Negris, Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer Webnames.ca Inc.

Cybele Negris is co-founder, with three others, of Webnames.ca, a registrar for internet domain names and Canada’s leading website for .CA domains. With an impressive background in management and operations and experience running her own consulting business, Cybele helped transform the UBC spin-off company from a volunteer-run initiative to a profitable corporation employing 20 people and serving 40,000 customers.

Cybele’s challenge was to take the original .CA registry from a paperwork-crammed office at UBC to a fully-operational business. How do you run a business while redefining its delivery system? And build a team from scratch, especially when you know roles will change but aren’t sure how? Hiring the right people can be nerve-wracking. To meet demand while an automated system was under development, Cybele and her colleagues got creative and hired students – 25 people in the first six months, working as sub-contractors, temps, and at remote sites. Then as the business changed, the team changed with it.

Cybele has a wealth of experience to share with other women about managing massive growth using both people and technology. Today, Webnames.ca has revenues of about $3 million per year, and its management team – Cybele, John Demco, Matthew Lane, and Stephen Smith – have been selected as finalists in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2005 Pacific awards, in the Information Technology category.

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