Jody Glidden (BBA'06) has always brought passion and intensity to his work. It's a mindset that has helped him build a remarkable career in the tech startup world.

Jody's interest in technology began early. "My parents gave me a computer and a book on how to build video games when I was nine. I spent a lot of time coding and creating simple projects that won grade school science fairs. I also loved business and made money selling hockey cards and other stuff to classmates. I even took out a loan in high school to start a pool hall. Being entrepreneurial has always been fun for me."

Given his love for technology, computer science at UNB seemed like a good fit Jody. But he found he wasn't being challenged enough, so he left to teach in the software department at a community college. While there, he saw a need and after leaving the college, built software that guided students through their curriculum. The project was so well received that it was acquired by tech company Scholars.com. "I realized how I could marry my passions for technology and business by diving into the tech sector."

Jody quickly rose up the ranks, and Scholars.com was acquired by public company CBT Systems. "It was there that we built the world's largest learning community."

He then jumped into building a new program and co-founded icGlobal, which became the world's first language-independent scalable learning community. The company became profitable within two years and was eventually sold to Smartforce (now Skillsoft).

When the dot-com bubble burst, Jody returned home to New Brunswick and enrolled in UNB's business program. "I decided that it was time to go back to school to take business and learn what I didn't know about that side of things. I was so much more motivated this time around. I loved the economics and marketing classes and learned a lot about financing a business and about customer loyalty. That became very important to me later on, and I always remembered the importance of turning customers into raving fans."

After graduating, Jody joined Chalk Media, Canada's largest e-learning company at the time. "I really wanted to just spend time on the front lines learning how to sell." He spent a few months in sales before the chief executive officer promoted him to vice-president of strategy, and later to chief technology officer and chief operating officer. "Within nine months, we had become partners and decided to make a big shift to software. It required hiring all new people and starting from scratch. Fortunately, we raised capital and built our products, and it just took off.

"The next thing we knew, we were being acquired by Blackberry (then Research in Motion)."

After spending a year heading up a portfolio of Blackberry's strategic content products, Jody had another product idea, this time focused on customer relationship management (CRM) systems. "I started Introhive in 2012 with one goal: to help businesses succeed by making CRMs more appealing to the professionals who rely on them. I had realized over the years that people hated using CRM tools because they weren't easy. I had a cool idea to make them better and got really excited about it. I thought we would build this thing in about six or eight months and then it would take off. In reality, it took three to four years and all my money. It was technically difficult to get it right. But when we finally did, it took off."

Using artificial intelligence, the Introhive platform removes the hassle of manual, time-consuming data entry and management, and delivers easy-to-understand business-relationship data visualizations and insights. This information enables its users to not only keep an eye on their ongoing relationships with their customers but also more quickly make the new connections they need to grow their businesses.

Introhive became the fastest-growing B2B relationship intelligence service and data management platform on the market, and Jody credits that to listening to customers and turning them into loyal fans. The company earned national and international recognition, including placements on Deloitte's Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists, a MarTech Breakthrough Award for Best CRM Innovation, and a spot among the Best Workplaces™ for Women list by Great Place to Work® Canada.

Story updated for the Fall 2025 issue of UNB Alumni News