Finance and ops leader
Dave Lawy
Founder and Managing Partner, QuantumSmart; former CIO, Canada Protection Plan
- Known for
- Technology strategyAI governanceSystems migration
- Works with
- InsuranceFinancial services
About Dave Lawy
Dave Lawy is the founder and managing partner of QuantumSmart, where he helps mid-market leaders see their whole business clearly so they can stop firefighting and start leading. He has led technology for more than 25 years in pharmaceuticals, retail, payments and life insurance, most recently as Chief Information Officer of Canada Protection Plan, which he took through its sale to Foresters Financial.
At Canadian Tire he built the company's first private cloud. By 2014 his team ran 6,000 servers and could stand up 100 production systems in ten minutes from a service catalogue. He holds that every company with a financial plan and a sales forecast should have a technology roadmap, that AI needs the same onboarding and offboarding as an employee, and that quantum-safe encryption is a decision for today.
He is a regular speaker on technology leadership and a firm believer that every company is a technology company.
Your front door bolted, the windows wide open.
Conversations with Dave Lawy
October 7, 2026 · The 100 Leaders Series
Onboard AI the way you onboard people
Dave Lawy, founder of QuantumSmart and former CIO at Canada Protection Plan, argues that AI needs the same onboarding, nurturing and offboarding as an employee, that a demo on a laptop is not production, and that migration is not transformation.
TopicsTechnology Roadmaps · AI Adoption · Security and IP
HighlightsOnboard AI the way you onboard people 0:45As much as possible, own your IP 0:34A demo this afternoon. Reality takes years. 0:45What only the big banks had 0:25
