2009 Recipient: David Gourlay, 38

Director of business development (public sector Canada), Oracle

Oracle is an enterprise business software company with more than 320,000 customers in more than 145 countries.

Education: BSS, Carleton University and the University of New Brunswick (1996).

Biggest Business Achievement: Co-authoring “The Canadian Performance-Driven Government Program” that has been adopted by a provincial government.

Biggest Business Obstacle: I am often confronted with a common misperceptions and unawareness about the transformative potential that IT holds for governments to deliver on commitments.

Biggest Lesson Learned: How the IT sector is responding to rising citizen expectations of their government on service delivery.

Three Words That Describe You: Integrity, passion and focus.

Charitable Involvement: CHEO

Biggest Influence: My father, who served as a diplomat in Iraq, Belgium and England, demonstrated passion and an ability to broker compromise and these values have influenced me in my own career path.

First Job: Lumberyard worker at Sandell Perkins in London, U.K.

Favourite Pasttime: Baseball.

Favourite Travel Destination: Kensington and Chelsea Borough in London, U.K.

Favourite Book: Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.

Favourite Movie: Jerry Maguire.