Faramarz is a passionate technology strategist and implementer based in Toronto, Canada. His 25 years of progressive and hands-on experience, including 10 years as the CIO, has been gained in retail, manufacturing, energy, telecom, and software industries in Canada and the United States, including leading teams in the UK and India. Faramarz has contributed to growth and innovation through strategic changes. This includes everything from using drones to supporting Apple Pay. He has a strong background on sustainable transformation by building models keeping “Business Value” at the core.
Faramarz strongly subscribes to the McKinsey model of the Three Horizon and uses that as a his foundation to build sustainable transformation strategies. His model is putting about 45 percent of focus on first horizon to fortify the current business model. The second horizon, 35 percent, is focussed around acquiring new businesses and for breakthrough innovation, third horizon which is 20 percent on future growth led by innovation.
At Federated Co-operatives, a $10B business, Faramarz initiated and registered .CRS with ICANN and launched www.fcl.crs. By doing so, FCL joined industry giants, such as Toyota, Amazon, Pepsi and Walmart, by owing its top-level domain (TLD) and becoming a registered delegate of .CRS. He leveraged this privately owned TLD and managed to employ a unified digital naming strategy, solidifying the Co-op brand.
He also led the technology aspects of M&A activities, which led to acquiring and transitioning multiple food stores, gas stations, pharmacies, and ag retails from Sobeys and Viterra, resulting in significant market penetration and growth for Federated Co-op.
Faramarz has an Engineering degree and a Computer Information Systems diploma, along with PMP and ITIL certifications. He has spoken at numerous business and technology events and has been interviewed on the topic of innovation for the cover story of the Canadian CIO magazine.
