John Stokes moved from running tech businesses across Asia Pacific, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Japan into venture capital because he wanted to give founders a better experience than he had as an operator, and he has since helped build Montréal's startup community by co-founding the OSMO Foundation, turning Notman House into a startup campus, and helping launch the FounderFuel accelerator. He brings an unusually broad view to investing, writing about VCs' responsibility to the wider ecosystem and not just shareholders, focusing on conscious leadership with founders, supporting the Rep Matters platform for Black voices in Canadian tech, and holding a corporate governance designation, all alongside a background as a semi-professional soccer player with citizenship in the UK, New Zealand, and Canada.