Adrienne Down Coulson

Worth knowing

She has taken a cash-back marketplace from zero to market leadership in a new country, then absorbed a billion-dollar acquisition and rebuilt the corporate functions behind it, from HR and legal to finance, IT and governance. She writes and speaks on why enterprise AI transformation stalls in the executive suite rather than in the technology.

Story

Adrienne is a Toronto native who studied English at Queen's and spent the first part of her career on the agency and startup side of the city's digital industry, leading operations at MacLaren MRM and holding President or General Manager roles at Sequentia Environics, Yield Digital and other Toronto technology companies. In 2012 she joined Ebates to build Ebates Canada, and got it to profitability and market leadership within three years. When Rakuten Group acquired Ebates for $1 billion in 2017, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area as Chief Operating Officer of the renamed Rakuten Rewards.

Highlights

• COO, Rakuten International; Group Managing Executive Officer, Rakuten Group
• Launched and led Ebates Canada from 2012; COO of Ebates from June 2017
• Venture Advisor, Framework Venture Partners; Charter Member, The C100
• Board Member, FlipGive (2019-2025) and Canada's National Ballet School (2015-2021)
• HBA in English, Queen's University; Banff Centre, Electronic Publishing, 1995