Nancy Mathis

Dr. Nancy Mathis is a New Brunswick entrepreneur, scientist, and entrepreneurial-leadership builder. She earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), where she developed patented sensor technology to rapidly and non-destructively measure the thermal effusivity and conductivity of materials. In 1995 she and her husband Chris Mathis co-founded Mathis Instruments to commercialize that research; she served as President and CEO for roughly 12 years, building a customer base across 17 countries that included GE, ExxonMobil, HP, IBM, Intel, Lucent, P&G, Whirlpool, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and Dow. The company later became C-Therm Technologies, which continues to commercialize the UNB-origin instrumentation. In 2003 she received the Manning Principle Award ($100,000) for the top innovation in Canada that year, and she was recognized for her support of women in engineering.

In 2007, Mathis founded and became the first Executive Director of the G. Wallace F. McCain Institute for Business Leadership at UNB, a role she held for about 15 years until 2022. There she designed and ran the Institute's signature peer-group model — convening founders and CEOs in confidential, facilitated retreats to sharpen their business judgment. Over her tenure she built dozens of peer groups (cited as roughly 35 groups and 500+ participants) and positioned WMI as part of an integrated ecosystem dedicated to "catalyzing the entrepreneurial transformation of the Greater Atlantic Area."

After stepping out of the Executive Director seat in 2022 (the Institute subsequently cycled through new leadership), Mathis continues to serve WMI as Moderator of its Alumni Groups. In parallel she runs the consulting practice Pivotal Input, where she works with executives — about 70% of her clients are multi-generational family businesses — on strategic planning, team alignment, culture re-sets, and executive mentoring. She is also a Partner at Q5X (wireless audio, London, Ontario) and sits on corporate boards, including Emera New Brunswick / Brunswick Pipeline (appointed January 2021).

• Works at the earliest stages of a founder's journey, focusing on building the *business judgment* of entrepreneurial leaders rather than deploying capital: "The Wallace McCain Institute's contribution is to build the business judgment of entrepreneurial leaders in Atlantic Canada."
• Believes in ecosystem collaboration over going it alone: "No single organization can answer all the needs of an entrepreneurial business leader."
• Champions the peer-group / cohort model — like-minded business leaders sharing challenges and opportunities in monthly, confidential retreats — as the core mechanism for founder development.
• Sector-agnostic and growth/family-business oriented; her Pivotal Input practice skews heavily (~70%) toward multi-generational family enterprises.
• Strong affinity for science- and technology-driven ventures and for women in engineering/entrepreneurship, reflecting her own path from UNB Ph.D. research to commercialized hardware.