Dominique Simoneau-Ritchie
Chief Technology Officer
Affinity
Dominique Simoneau-Ritchie is the Chief Technology Officer at Affinity, a relationship intelligence platform that helps dealmakers find, manage, and close more deals by leveraging the power of their network. With 25+ years in tech, she’s led engineering teams at Shopify, Lever, Wealthsimple, IBM, and BlackBerry.
Her passion lies in crafting high-quality, scalable, and resilient software. She’s known for rebuilding platforms and APIs from the ground up, including the launch of BlackBerry 10 on QNX and its adaptation to QNX Car, now serving millions of drivers. Dominique was an early adopter of GraphQL for Shopify, and she boosted Lever’s integrations by over 500% to nearly 300.
Dominique is dedicated to fostering inclusive environments in which diverse teams thrive. At Wealthsimple, she raised the representation of women, non-binary, and gender-diverse individuals in engineering from 20% to 30%. Likewise, at Lever, she built teams where 40% of engineers identify as women or non-binary.
Dominique is an experienced mentor and coach, actively involved with Plato and SheTO. Her articles have been published in Hackernoon, Level Up Coding and Better Programming. She has also spoken at many events, and most recently taught a course on retention with LeadDev.
Schedule
15 mins
Meridian Hall - Lower Lobby
Aspiration to Promotion: 5 Key Strategies for Professional Growth
Navigating career milestones and promotions can seem complex, but Dominique offers strategic insights to achieve your goals. Drawing from her career experience and successes, including a 27% increase in women’s promotions at Wealthsimple, Dominique shares actionable strategies to openly communicate your goals, master key competencies, and advocate for advancement.