Our Team

Mr. Goldstein has over 31 years of experience working in all facets of capital markets including investment banking, and institutional sales and trading. Prior to founding First Republic Capital 13 years ago, he was a founding partner at Fraser Mackenzie before serving as the Executive Vice-President and Head of investment banking at Standard Securities. Richard is a Concordia University International Business Graduate and holds an MBA from McMaster University.

Richard in the media:
https://business.financialpost.com/investing/podcast-first-republic-capital-corp-president-richard-goldstein-on-why-investing-in-people-is-smart

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Previously he was President of Capital Ideas Investor Relations from January to December 2013. Before that he was CFO of Snipp Interactive Inc. from January 2011 to January 2013. He was instrumental in the financing and public listing of the mobile marketing company with operations in Canada, the USA, Mexico and India. From 2006 to 2009, he served as COO and CFO of MKU Canada Inc. and engaged in mergers and acquisitions around the globe, and from 2002 to 2006 served as CFO of Astris Energi Inc., a dually listed public company in the US and Canada which was acquired by an international conglomerate. He began his career at TD Securities on the capital markets trading floor. Mr. Durkacz holds an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration from Brock University with a major in both Accounting and Finance.

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Jesse Kaplan has been a partner with Plazacorp Ventures since March 2010. His career has focused on advising and investing in early stage growth companies. This has included extensive work helping companies through the process of going public in both Canada and the United States. Jesse was previously a senior analyst at Harborview Advisors LLC, a New York based investment firm and Palladium Capital Advisors, LLC, a NASD member investment bank. He has sat on the boards of a number of public and private companies in Canada. Jesse holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto.