Seema Lakhani, Chief Product Officer at Wattpad and General Manager of Wattpad Labs, receives Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award for 2021
Wattpad, the global multi-platform entertainment company for original stories and leading social storytelling platform, is pleased to congratulate Seema Lakhani, Chief Product Officer at Wattpad & General Manager of Wattpad Labs, who has been honoured as a recipient of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40® for 2021.
In her role as Chief Product Officer, Seema leads Wattpad’s overall product strategy and product management team, building a practice of strong product thinking to focus on solving the right user and business problems. As General Manager of Wattpad Labs, Seema is also responsible for driving storytelling innovation through programs that support high growth new products within Wattpad.
In addition to her industry-recognized leadership in Product, Seema is also a champion for diversity and equity in technology. She founded and chairs Wattpad’s Diversity & Inclusion committee, introducing important equity initiatives across the company.
Prior to her roles at Wattpad, Seema previously led the corporate development team at Torstar Digital, assessing and investing in new disruptive businesses in the consumer internet space, as well as supporting the Toronto innovation ecosystem and startups at MaRS Discovery District.
Canada’s Top 40 Under 40® is an annual leadership award that recognizes exceptional achievement by 40 outstanding Canadians who are under the age of 40. The program is supported by several prominent organizations, all enthusiastically committed to Top 40’s success.
Founded in 1995 by Caldwell, Top 40 has recognized almost 1,000 outstanding Canadians and is the country’s most coveted award for young business and community leaders. Recipients have a remarkable track record of continuing achievement; Top 40 alumni now include hundreds of nationally and internationally prominent CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs in the private, public, and social economy sectors.
Seema and her peers were selected from hundreds of nominees by a respected and independent Advisory Board, comprising 30 diverse leaders from across Canada. Four key criteria were assessed to select the recipients: Vision & Innovation, Leadership, Impact & Influence, and Social Responsibility.
The 2021 Top 40 Recipients were announced today in National Post. Recipients will be honoured at a series of events to take place in the coming months.
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ABOUT WATTPAD
Wattpad’s vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories. A leading social storytelling platform and home to a community of more than 94 million people who spend over 23 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories, Wattpad has democratized storytelling for a new generation of diverse Gen Z writers and their fans. Alongside Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, the company’s TV, film, and publishing counterparts, Wattpad combines art and science to unearth incredible stories and cultivate the fandoms driving the future of entertainment. The company is proudly based in Toronto, Canada.