Meet Karla Congson, RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards Ones to Watch Recipient

Karla Congson, CEO and CTO of Agentiiv, is a 2025 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards finalist and a seasoned business leader with over 20 years of experience in brand development, strategy, marketing, and digital technologies. Throughout her career, she has led AI consulting and training for top Canadian and U.S. organizations, built brand frameworks for companies such as Canada Post, CIBC, WPP, and Invesco, and directed large, complex teams.

At the heart of her leadership is a belief in the power of culture, uncommon collaboration, and transformational technologies to drive meaningful business results. Today, through Agentiiv, she is pioneering innovative approaches to the future of work and demonstrating how AI can become a true competitive advantage.

Meet Karla and discover how she is shaping the next chapter of leadership in the age of transformation.

I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur when…

I reached my breaking point with the corporate pace after 25 years in large organizations. I’d spent decades watching great ideas get stuck in committee loops or die from bureaucratic inertia. When I finally made the leap nine years ago, everything clicked—the control to make decisions quickly, the constant learning curve that keeps you sharp, and the ability to architect each day on your own terms, while tackling problems that actually matter. Once you experience that freedom and impact, there’s no going back.

Entrepreneurship is made for me because…

I thrive on solving complex puzzles that others say can’t be solved. There’s something deeply satisfying about making something as intimidating as enterprise-grade AI accessible to a marketing manager in Winnipeg or a nonprofit director in Halifax. Plus, I get to combine my love of strategy with hands-on technical work—I’m literally coding our AI agents while setting company vision.

The impact I hope to make through my work is…

To democratize AI in a way that amplifies human potential, rather than replacing it. Currently, AI is creating two worlds: the haves and the have-nots. My goal is to ensure that brilliant mid-market companies and the incredible people who work there aren’t left behind, simply because they don’t have enterprise-level budgets. When we succeed, we’re not just growing a business: we’re strengthening the backbone of the Canadian economy and proving that innovation can be both inclusive and profitable.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned on my entrepreneurial journey is…

Technology alone never wins: people do. I used to think that if we built something technically superior, that would be enough. However, I learned that AI adoption is deeply rooted in human nature. People need to trust it, understand it, and see how it enhances, rather than threatens, their work.

My proudest accomplishment is…

Building a women-led AI company that’s actually changing how mid-market businesses compete. What really makes me proud is that we’re doing it while maintaining 100% women-led sales and support teams in an industry where women represent only 22% of AI professionals. We’re proving you can excel technically while transforming who gets to be part of the AI revolution.

The biggest risk I took that paid off was…

Choosing to bootstrap Agentiiv instead of raising venture capital right away. The popular wisdom is to increase to scale up, but we’re nearing our first million in revenue with zero outside funding. This forced us to focus on real customer value from day one, and now we’re in a position to grow on our terms while maintaining the human-centric culture that defines us.

My biggest setback has been…

Underestimating the time investment required to truly understand the full technical landscape well enough to make surgical decisions for our platform. I quickly realized that to build something genuinely differentiated, I needed to go deep myself—understanding model capabilities, prompt engineering nuances, security architectures, the whole ecosystem. The learning curve was steep, and it meant months of intensive study while trying to run two businesses. But that deep dive was essential—you can’t make the right technical choices from the surface level, especially in a field moving as fast as AI.

I overcame it by…

Embracing the fact that I needed to become genuinely technical myself, not just technically literate. Instead of trying to shortcut the learning process, I committed to going deep: spending months mastering prompt engineering, understanding model architectures, and getting hands-on with building our Digital Twin agents. I realized that my business background was actually an advantage in the technical space, because I could see practical applications that pure technologists might miss. I’m the type of CEO who gets excited about debugging agent workflows and optimizing model selection algorithms. That deep technical understanding has become our secret weapon—I can guide our platform development with both business insight and practical technical knowledge.

The best advice I’ve received as an entrepreneur was…

“True success comes from helping others succeed”. This advice from my immigrant parents has shaped my philosophy in business. It’s become our competitive advantage. When we genuinely focus on making our clients successful, rather than just selling them technology, everything else falls into place. Our 100% client retention rate to date and referral-based growth expansion prove that when you prioritize client success, business success naturally follows.

I surprise people when I tell them…

I actually love getting into the technical weeds of prompt engineering and AI architecture. People expect a CEO to delegate the technical stuff. Still, I find collaborating with experts to capture their knowledge and translate it into AI agents to be the most intellectually stimulating part of my job.

If I had an extra hour in the day, I would use it to…

Spend more time mentoring other women and underrepresented founders who are trying to break into AI. The emails I receive from people who attended my speaking sessions at AI Basecamp or Women in AI conferences remind me of the significant impact we can have simply by sharing knowledge and opening doors. That hour would go toward creating more pathways for the next generation.

If you Googled me, you still wouldn’t know…

That I’m secretly terrified of being seen as “not technical enough” in a field dominated by computer science PhDs, even though I’ve proven I can build and scale AI systems that work in the real world. Imposter syndrome hits differently when you’re a woman in AI, but I’ve learned that practical experience and business understanding are just as valuable as academic credentials.

The future excites me because…

We’re at this incredible inflection point where AI can either widen inequality or become the great equalizer. I’m excited because Agentiiv is proof that we can choose the latter. When I see mid-market companies using our platform to compete with enterprises that have hundred-person AI teams, I know we’re building the future I want to live in—one where your budget doesn’t determine your access to transformational technology.

Connect with Karla Congson on LinkedIn.