As part of our ongoing Leadership Connect Series with Teranet’s thought leaders, our latest feature is with Nick Dalton, Executive Director, Business Registries Canada.
1. Tell us a bit about the Business Registries in Canada and your role
The Business Registries Group is a team of client focused project managers, consultants and product owners delivering registry systems and solutions to our clients. The registry solutions we offer are broad and include business registries, personal property securities registries, securities regulation systems and different types of occupational licensing registries. I am very fortunate to be part of this amazing team of talented individuals who have a combination of domain expertise, software delivery experience and are dedicated to meeting the needs of our clients.
2. How did you come about this role? Take us through your career progression.
This is an interesting one! After completing 6 years at an amazing boys boarding school in New Zealand (Lindisfarne College) I decided to continue my education at a University level but in parallel went sheep shearing and followed my passion of becoming a farmer. After completing a double major in Law and Commerce at the best university on the planet (Otago University), I felt it was time to try the suit life and moved to London (UK) to join a consulting company specializing in supporting investment bank merger activities. These consulting assignments were focused on technology from a system integration perspective which provided a true appreciation for databases and mission critical systems.
Then that internet thing arrived! Excited by the potential of the world wide web in the late 1990s, I returned to NZ and completed a diploma in Internet Technology. Then came the challenge (or opportunity) to determine how to combine Law, Business and Internet technology? After lots of research, the answer became clear – government registries! Registry systems deliver to legislative requirements, support businesses and utilize technology to replace historic paper based systems.
I then spent 6 years working for the New Zealand government managing the e-Business Unit for the Ministry of Economic Development which was tasked with moving paper-based registry systems online. Following this amazing experience, I joined Foster Moore who delivered the registry solutions for the NZ government and were embarking on an exciting journey of taking this product knowledge abroad. After 3 years as the General Manager of Foster Moore in NZ, we moved as a family to Toronto to establish an office and team for North America. Since then, we have grown the team from 1 to 102 registry employees. It has been a privilege to be involved with such an amazing group of people.
3. How has Foster Moore becoming a part of Teranet enhanced and expanded the solutions offered by both entities?
Although Teranet is a significantly larger company than Foster Moore, we have a similar culture, work ethic and strategic outlook which has made the integration experience straightforward and natural.
Foster Moore brings its specialist registry products (Catalyst and Verne) to the table, which are based on 20+ years of experience with many successful international client implementations. In parallel Teranet provides corporate governance, financial support and many registry modernization opportunities to the table. When we first met Teranet in 2014, the partnership immediately felt right and that has not changed since.
4. What do you see as the future of Business Registries in Canada?
The opportunities are significant and exciting. The current registry system landscape in Canada is very disparate. Why does every province have different systems that don’t easily talk to each other in this current time? There is a huge opportunity for Canada to have registry-as-a-service (RAAS) offerings across different registry systems to provide a more cost effective, value-added service. This is a key focus on our latest product strategy. Watch this space! And yes, once that is done I can get back to shearing the sheep.
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