Solmaz Shahalizadeh

Solmaz is an AI operating partner with deep experience building and deploying AI systems at scale. At Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP), where she served as Vice President and Head of Data from 2013 to 2022, she led a suite of AI products — including Shopify Capital, an AI-driven lending product that has deployed over $5 billion in cash advances to merchants, and built a portfolio of AI-powered merchant products that put enterprise-grade business intelligence in the hands of millions of independent businesses. Over nine years, she helped Shopify scale from 100,000 to over 2 million merchants, grew the data and AI organization to over 500 data scientists, engineers, and product managers, and served as a member of the senior leadership team during the company’s IPO.

At HGGC, Solmaz partners with the firm and its portfolio companies to identify AI opportunities, accelerate AI adoption, and translate AI capabilities into measurable business outcomes. She serves as a board member at Fullscript, an HGGC portfolio company, bringing her operating experience directly to bear within the portfolio.

Solmaz also serves as an Operating Advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners and is a founding partner of Backbone Angels, a collective focused on funding more diverse and women-founded companies.

She is a recipient of the Globe and Mail Report on Business Best Executive award (2020) and was named to the Forty Under 40 by the Ottawa Business Journal (2021). Solmaz received her M.Sc. in Computer Science from McGill University, an M.Sc. in Bioinformatics from Chalmers University, and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Tehran University.