Paul Cataford, president, University Technologies International, University of Calgary, Canada

When the venture-capital market dried up a few years ago, Toronto-based investment banker Paul Cataford considered returning to university. “I was actually thinking about going back to school and doing some PhD research on technology transfer,” he says. Instead, Cataford last month found himself at the helm of University Technologies International (UTI), the University of Calgary's technology-transfer office.

Researching the position was a valuable lesson in itself, Cataford says. When he got the initial job offer, he examined the activities of several technology-transfer offices at Canadian universities. He found that few had launched successful spin-off companies — especially compared with the United States or Britain (see CV).

After more digging, Cataford decided that most Canadian universities had technology-transfer offices that were held closely by the university. UTI, on the other hand, was a wholly owned subsidiary but was kept “at arms length” by Calgary.

As a result, Cataford decided that UTI spin-offs would be more malleable to the influence of a technology-transfer office, just as start-ups can be shaped more by early-stage venture-capital firms than by later entries.

The switch from private to public wasn't the first drastic career change that Cataford has undergone. After first completing an engineering degree, he went into sales and marketing of computer equipment. But his penchant for business led him to an MBA and, from there, to a finance career starting in investment banking, moving into private equity and ending up in venture capital.

Cataford realizes that the UTI job will be different from his earlier venture positions. He will have a much broader list of 'constituents' than simply investors and funded companies, including the university's faculty, its economic development board, other UTI employees and potential US partners.

And Cataford knows he faces a challenge in trying to develop a technology cluster when the region is small compared with, say, the US Bay Area. But Cataford is confident that by specializing in engineering, medical devices and global positioning technologies — all areas of expertise for Calgary — and by finding partners in the United States, UTI's arms-length relationship with its parent university will enable him to succeed.