Avasta's CEO and Founder, Edgar Baum, is deeply passionate about fellow business leaders having the right knowledge and expertise to build businesses that drive growth and prosperity. Edgar focuses on creating solutions for next-generation business strategy development, especially around data integration and stakeholders frequently ignored by traditional approaches. He focuses on building a team in Avasta that has top expertise and provides value to our clients that is much higher than what they pay for our services. Edgar leverages his expertise in mathematics, finance, and business experience across over a dozen industries and four continents to solve today's most complex business challenges.

Before Avasta, Edgar was the founder and executive at several valuation and business measurement firms, including finance and market development roles on Wall Street, at Merrill Lynch and Procter & Gamble. Since 2014 he has been a primary author on two next-generation business measurement standards: how to measure a brand financially from the customer's point of view and how to measure and report on the future value of intellectual capital and intangible assets to the board of directors. Edgar is on the board of advisors for two technology companies based in US & Canada. He has taught the Finance of Brand Management graduate course at the University of Toronto since 2015 and is regularly present on strategy measurement and valuation at conferences and business schools.

‍

Edgar has been with his wife, Mary, for over two decades, a father to two great children, and prides himself in ignoring recipes to cook dinner. Edgar is always cheerful in meetings, ensuring all team members have what they need to succeed, even if that means sending a goofy meme or two.

Sam joined Avasta in 2019. He currently oversees the development and execution of Avasta’s client solutions, focusing on enhancing Avasta’s proprietary measurement and analytics systems to drive client growth and profitability.

‍

Prior to becoming a Senior Director, Sam was Avasta’s Strategy and Measurement Lead. In that role he led numerous client engagements, delivering key insights for customer acquisition, pricing, growth, and M&A strategies. He has a passion for solving client problems and has worked with executives across North America and Europe. Sam’s industries of expertise include research technology, enterprise software, and financial technology.

‍

Sam holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a specialization in Marketing & Finance from the University of Ottawa and is the secretary of the recently published Intellectual Capital in the Boardroom Standard.

‍

He lives in Toronto with his partner and their two cats and enjoys cooking, golf, and supporting the Toronto Raptors.

Anam is a huge fan of data science and mathematics, but she likes fast paced environments and impact. Therefore, finding her sweet spot at Avasta. As a Senior Director, she ensures clients get the best insights to drive their business growth. She is always looking for ways to enhance Avasta’s tools and methodology.

‍

Prior to Avasta, Anam spent her career helping transform Dow Jones, Risk & Compliance through automation and machine learning. She decided to pursue her MBA at University of Toronto with the intention of influencing positive change on a larger scale. She holds a BSc. in Physics.

‍

Anam grew up in Pakistan and lived in Singapore and Spain before moving to Toronto. She loves learning about different cultures and has a passion for helping small businesses grow. She loves travelling and trying new activities like skiing and scuba diving.

Orlando is a seasoned MBA that uses his background in corporate finance, business analytics and venture capital to deliver impactful, strategic insights to companies hunting for exponential business growth.

‍

From working in global start-ups, scale-ups, and co-founding a venture capital fund focused in LATAM technology entrepreneurships, Orlando uses his experience to deliver strategic insights to companies hungry for optimization.

Susan’s desire to understand who people are and why they do the things they do led her to a career in Market Research. Starting in health care research and evolving to brand research, Susan led Landor Associates’ global market research offer for many years. Living in San Francisco, New York and London she designed, managed and executed dozens of qualitative and quantitative research projects for clients as diverse as Visa, Raytheon, Bank of America, Comcast, BP, Kite Hill, Elizabeth Arden salons, P&G, Lowes and Citigroup.

‍

Susan joined Avasta as Senior Research Advisor shortly after its founding and continues to lead qualitative research and has oversight over our quantitative programs.

‍

A native of Marin County, California and University of California Davis graduate, Susan lives with her husband by the water in Sausalito and enjoys staring at her seals, going to the opera and San Francisco Giants baseball games, playing highly competitive Bocce and just sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wasting time.

Nicole Bethell is a seasoned business and marketing strategist with over 20 years of experience helping businesses unlock their full potential through innovation and unconventional thinking. With a deep understanding of both start-ups and global brands, Nicole's entrepreneurial approach enables her to transform organizations through strategic insights.

Nicole works closely with clients at Avasta to understand their unique challenges, market dynamics, and goals, crafting bespoke strategies that deliver measurable outcomes. She has led the reinvention of several iconic brands, enhancing their operations and customer experience, and positioning them for long-term success. Nicole also partners with Private Equity firms to drive growth strategies that consistently deliver results.

As a leader in business transformation, Nicole excels at building high-performing teams and processes that align all elements of a business—communications, sales, marketing, product, and demand generation—to ensure seamless, scalable results. She thrives on creating unified customer experiences, breaking down silos, and delivering repeatable revenue for both B2B and B2C organizations.

In addition to her role as a Sr. Client Advisor at Avasta, Nicole is an executive coach, empowering clients to think big and transform their businesses from the inside out.