Harry Jerome Award for blockchain technologist & consultant Emma Todd
June 1, 2023
Persistence does pay off.
After completing her undergraduate degree in Public Administration at Carleton University, Emma Todd zeroed in on securing employment at U.S Bank in Ottawa.
“I sent my resume every three days by fax and they called and said we know you really want a job here and we are trying hard to accommodate you, so please stop and we will get back you,” she recounted. “I let them know I didn’t care what the job is. I just wanted to get in the door.”
Three months later, Todd was hired.
“That was a huge lesson for me,” she said. “I learnt that you have to be resilient and just keep trying until you get what you want.”
After 15 years in the banking industry, including senior roles running the Balance Transfers department at JPMorgan Chase Co. for three years and two years as Head of Credit Card Engagement & Retention Management Marketing at CIBC, Todd changed careers.
Bored with banking, she accepted a friend’s invitation nearly seven years ago to attend a blockchain conference.
“I was enthralled by what I heard and figured this could potentially change the world,” noted Todd who was honoured with a Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence on April 29. “I remember hearing someone say it cost them $2.50 to transfer $500,000 to an individual in another location. I was like ‘what’ because just a few days ago, it cost me $80 to send $6,000 to someone in Jamaica. I thought this is the way of the future for people to keep money in their pockets and I dove right in. Banks make a lot of money off the backs of hardworking people. I had seen the light and could not return to banking.”
An advanced database mechanism, blockchain technology allows transparent information sharing within a business network.
Last year, global remittances totaled nearly $794 million.
With monetary remittances directly impacting the Caribbean region socioeconomic and employment structure, Todd views blockchain as the way of the future for individuals sending remittances to family and friends.
“If you want to send money, you will upload it from a bank to a cryptocurrency exchange regulated company like Coinsquare who, in turn, will change the money to Bitcoin,” she explained. “You will then get a wallet address to send the funds to.”
Todd acknowledges the process can be confusing for first-time users.
“It is not as easy as doing an Interac e-Transfer which posed challenges for me the first time I did it,” she said. “The more you do it, the easier it is. It is the same thing with blockchain technology.”
Sensing the people promoting the technology needed marketing assistance, Todd started My Marketing House (MMH) Technology Group.
“My first client asked me to help him with a conference in Las Vegas,” she said. “While there, I was listening to some smart young furs talking about these amazing products they had built using blockchain. When I inquired what was their marketing plan and strategy to attract clients, they asked me what I meant, adding ‘we built it and they will come’. I told them it doesn’t work that way and they asked if I could help them.”
MMH specializes in creating enterprise-level blockchain solutions that help organizations improve their operations and enhance their customer experiences.
“There are a lot of earlier companies that are bigger right now and I and my team helped them get out of the gate,” she said. “What is super cool is that some of these companies came back to me last year, saying they have lost their way and they needed help. I went back and built them a new strategy plan, saying here is what you have, here is what you need to accomplish and you need to use employees. They ask me to find the employees which I do.”
Though Todd accomplishments are stellar, the high achiever has been flying under the radar.
This is the first time she has been celebrated on a major stage.
“When the award was announced, I started getting a slew of text messages and it was only then that it occurred to me that this is a big deal,” noted Todd who is a member of the recently formed Crypto Sustainability Coalition that will investigate how web3 and blockchain tools can be leveraged to achieve positive climate action. “Some of them came from people I admired and that made me feel good. To receive this award from an organization made up of people that look like me is a big deal. I had a great time and I will be back next year.”
Sharing the Harry Jerome Awards spotlight with Colleen Ward, who is of Jamaican descent, was one of the highlights of the evening for Todd who spoke at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland last January and recently collaborated with Climate Collective and 50 organizations to publish a WEF whitepaper, ‘Blockchain for Scaling Climate Action’.
They met 10 years ago when she joined JPMorgan Chase & Co. where Ward was Chief Technology Officer.
“Colleen was my boss and one of those unsung heroes,” said Todd who has addressed the United Nations General Assembly. “My department was doing a lot of work that involved technology and that was painful back then. She took her time to explain everything to me. She was the first Black Canadian I saw working at her level. She does so many things for so many people without seeking recognition. She is just a humble and amazing person and I celebrate her daily.”
Emma Todd was recognized for Professional Excellence at this year’s Harry Jerome Awards (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Spending her first 16 years in Jamaica, Todd resided in Ottawa for nearly 15 years before relocating to the Greater Toronto Area.
In high school with about 600 students in Canada’s capital, she was just one of two Black graduates in her final year.
“At the time, I didn’t think much about it,” said Todd who is a Tokens.com board director and Canadian Marketing Awards judge. “In fact, many students are still my friends.”
Thinking about how her birth country influences the person she has become was not something she thought of until during the pandemic.
“While talking about our experiences during a Zoom call, someone told me I am different because I grew up in Jamaica where there are national heroes and people in powerful positions that look like me,” said Todd who has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Liverpool. “The person reminded me that in Canada, they didn’t have anyone that looks like them to aspire to.”
There was many family members with professional careers for her to look up to.
Todd’s grandfather was an engineer, her dad and an uncle are in the same profession, an aunt is a medical doctor and another uncle is an accountant.
“With all these accomplished people around me, I grew up self-assured that I would be successful no matter what I did,” she said. “No one ever told me there is nothing I cannot do.”
Last year, she met flambouyant British entrepreneur Richard Branson at a blockchain summit hosted on his private island, Necker, in the British Virgin Islands.
Todd, one of two women of colour that sat on at least two publicly traded boards in Canada in 2022, was one of the keynote speakers.
“I grew up watching Richard on Biography and never in my wildest dreams I thought I would be sitting talking to him about Jamaica, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh,” the Blockchain for Impact past Chair and Executive Board member said. “I remember when he bought it. It was great talking with this man who is very knowledgeable.”
