Jesse Rasch

Jesse Rush is co-founder and serves as chairman and CEO of Hedgewood. He is the co-founder and former chairman and CEO of WebHosting.com and InQuent Technologies. He was a co-founder of CareGuide. InQuent provides private label hosting solutions to telecommunications clients including Bell Canada, KPN, Telecom New Zealand, PCCW, AT&T, Comcast and Cox Communications. WebHosting.Com was one of the world’s largest business hosting companies. In 2000, Rush sold InQuent and WebHosting.Com to AT&T. In 2002, Rush orchestrated the acquisition of InQuent from AT&T by a management team. Rush successfully sold InQuent again in 2003. InQuent was merged with Network Solutions and is now part of publicly traded web.com. Rush is credited with creating the white-label segment of the hosting market, which is a significant component of the $95 billion-a-year hosting market. VerticalScope, of which Rush is a co-founder, develops and acquires online media and communities. VerticalScope’s network of Web sites is visited by more than 85,000,000 people a month. VerticalScope’s automotive publishing division, Modified Automotive Group, was acquired by KKR / Primedia in 2007. In 2015, Torstar acquired a 56% stake in VerticalScope. Rush is a proponent of venture philanthropy and actively encourages entrepreneurs to participate in strategic philanthropy. In 2000, he founded the Jesse and Julie Rush Foundation to invest in causes that reflect Rush’s broad philanthropic interests. In 2001, Rush was awarded Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He has been featured in Time Magazine, The Globe & Mail, Canadian Business, The National Post, Network World, Macleans, as well as on CBC, CTV, Global, City-TV, BNN and many other print, television and radio media. He was a founding member of the Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable, a joint private and public sector advisory group on e-business in Canada.