Executive Leadership

Ghassan Halazon is Founder and CEO of EMERGE Commerce Inc., Canada's leading e-commerce network with over 2 million members across North America. Over the past decade, companies founded by Halazon have sold in excess of $300 million in GMV, hired 350 employees, and raised capital from over 150 investors.

Halazon's entrepreneurial journey started in 2010 at the age of 25 when he launched Canada's first local deals business. Over a 4 year period, the venture emerged as a market leader. Following a massive shakeup in the online deals space and the e-commerce landscape at large, rather than shy away from the challenging climate, Ghassan identified and quickly tackled an opportunity that others missed, namely consolidating e-commerce assets into a profitable network by leveraging shared resources, data, and sourcing. EMERGE (E-Merge) was born.

Formerly, Ghassan was an Investment Banker with Citi (New York) where he advised on $5Bn+ worth of capital raising and M&A transactions.

Ghassan is a member on the Board of Directors of The Be-Abled Society, a not-for-profit organization that supports people living with non-visible disabilities. Ghassan also sits on the Board of the Canadian Arab Institute, a non-partisan organization that focuses on issues facing the Arab Canadian community. Halazon is also a tech mentor and renowned public speaker having given a TEDx Talk, and various keynote addresses including for Techstars and TechTO.

Ghassan holds an MBA from Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.), and his Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University (Montreal).

Prior to joining EMERGE, Jonathan held senior-level positions at a $300M private-equity roll-up within the veterinary industry. He has also served as an advisor and CFO for several companies that successfully went public. Jonathan is a Chartered Public Accountant and Chartered Business Valuator with over 10 years of experience in finance, advisory, and M&A. Jonathan obtained his Master of Accounting from the University of Waterloo.

Fazal is a savvy operator with over 10 years of proven success in operating and scaling high growth e-commerce and SaaS businesses. He was the among the first 5 employees at Buytopia.ca, an EMERGE Commerce Inc. Company, where he helped pioneer a unique marketing strategy, leveraging traditional media and digital assets to obtain the lowest cost of customer acquisition, and in the process, helping Buytopia rank #3 profit HOT 50, 2013.

Fazal co-led the development of SnapSaves (sold to Groupon in 2014), a disruptive mobile couponing platform enabling CPG companies to target consumers directly, bypassing retailers and collecting valuable data. Fazal successfully concluded the sale of Buytopia.ca to EMERGE Commerce Inc and joined the management team to lead operations. Fazal is deeply passionate about building sustainable e-commerce by leveraging innovative technology and achieving critical scale through M&A and cost-effective digital marketing. Fazal holds a BA Hons from University of Toronto (St. George) in Economics.

Maurice joined EMERGE Commerce Inc. in March 2018 and leads the sales team for Local & Travel offers as well as heading up all strategic partnerships. Maurice has extensive experience in the digital savings space having worked as an Account Executive. He gained significant business management experience in his role as Direct Business Manager at Ingram Micro from 2015-2018, and this experience has assisted in streamlining the sales process for EMERGE since joining in 2018.

Maurice has earned both a Bachelor of Commerce, and Bachelor of Laws Degree from The National University of Ireland, Galway. He currently resides in Downtown Toronto.