CALGARY — New Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named a former venture capitalist as the province’s minister of technology and innovation Friday, as the province tries to keep its tech sector strong amid a broader downturn.

Nate Glubish spent more than a decade in venture capital and M&A, first at St. Albert-based Foundation Equity and later at Vancouver-based Yaletown Partners, where he funneled investments into Alberta-based companies out of the firm’s Edmonton office. He served as minister for Service Alberta under former premier Jason Kenney’s UCP government.

The incoming minister, who will be sworn in Monday, spoke with The Logic Friday about his time in VC and what Alberta needs to maintain its momentum in attracting investment. 

On what he learned in the private sector:

Glubish said his time in venture capital (he participated in around $40 million worth of tech investments at Foundation, and at Yaletown was an investment manager for Accelerate Fund II, which focused on early-stage angel co-investments) gave him perspective on the broader importance of tech in the economy. 

“Number one, it taught me the power of technology to transform, to modernize, to improve, to make things better,” he said. “It taught me about the ability to grow the economy and to diversify our economy.” 

Among his most meaningful investments, he said, was Foundation’s seed funding for Circular Cardiovascular Imaging, a Calgary-based medical software company that sold to U.S. private equity giant Thoma Bravo earlier this year for $213 million. (Glubish later served on the company’s board).

On the tech market rout:

Glubish said he is confident Alberta can maintain the inbound investment momentum that’s seen the province attract growing volumes of private equity and venture capital. He acknowledged that a tech selloff in the markets could cause turbulence, but said he thinks Alberta’s tech ecosystem could buck the broader downturn. 

“I believe we will outperform the global trends,” he said. “And one of the reasons why I believe that’s the case is that we have seen a very exciting maturation in our tech industry in the last three or four years.” 

On the fight over the word “engineer”:

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) is claiming that tech companies should not be allowed to use the word “software engineer” when hiring new workers and has sued one Alberta tech company as part of that assertion. The industry has shot back with a full-throated rebuke of APEGA’s position, saying it threatens to restrict its ability to hire workers at a critical juncture for the province. 

“I’m working with the Minister of Labour to explore this and to do some homework,” Glubish said. “And I understand that this is a point of frustration for the local tech industry.” 

The fight is bigger than semantics. The CEO of Jobber, one of Alberta’s signature tech success stories, told The Logic last week it could drive the company out of the province. The Council of Canadian Innovators disputes APEGA’s recent claims that a failure to officially accredit software engineers could cause safety issues in, say, autonomous car development. 

“Nobody is arguing that Professional Engineers should not be regulated and held to a rigorous standard,” CCI said in a letter to the new labour minister on Friday. “But it would be absurd to require network systems architects to be regulated by the Alberta Association of Architects, nor would it make sense for audio engineers who help musicians record their albums to be regulated by APEGA.” 

On why he backed Smith:

Glubish had initially supported Jason Kenney’s former finance minister Travis Toews to lead the United Conservative Party, but shifted to Smith partway through the party’s recent leadership campaign. 

He told The Logic he made the decision to switch after meeting with Smith and finding she shared his views on the “opportunities to modernize governments and deliver better, faster, smarter services.”

“I quickly learned that she really understood this more than any of the other candidates,” he said. 

Glubish suggested the Alberta government could begin to form more partnerships with local tech companies to both digitize government services and give startups a critical customer base early in their development. 

“I think back to my VC days—one of the biggest questions that I asked of a prospective investment was to say, ‘Do you have any customers?’”