Alex Peters made sure to leave a lasting impact at Brock when he visited campus this fall to receive one of two inaugural Goodman School of Business Emerging Leader award along with Rohan Mahimker.

Peters and Mahimker are Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Prodigy Education and appeared on CBC’s Dragons’ Den to pitch their company Prodigy, a digital game-based learning platform, that helps students in Grades 1 through 8 learn standards-aligned math and English content by making games that kids want to play.

Goodman Dean Barry Wright said the pair were a natural choice to receive Goodman’s first Emerging Leader title.

Alex Peters (left) and Rohan Mahimker (not pictured), Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Prodigy Education, are the Goodman School of Business 2024 Emerging Leader recipients. Goodman Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs Jennifer Li (right) presented Peters with his award during a visit to campus this fall.

“They have an organization that is focused on learning, but it is also a learning organization where they are constantly developing their own skills,” he said. “I’ve been able to see how Alex has moved from a trained engineer to a distinguished emerging leader where they are focusing on their organization’s mission as their true North Star when making decisions.”

While on campus, Peters shared his expertise during an event that allowed students to pitch their own idea or use supplied props to work on perfecting their pitches. He shared that his pitches and oral presentations have evolved over the years and advised students to keep honing their skills.

“The more you try it, the more you get better at it,” he said at the Perfect Your Pitch event. “If you cannot recruit other people to it, you might be missing something. But your ability to pitch, recruit other people to that idea and then execute it is hopefully going to define whether you are just an ideas person or you’re the type of person that changes things.”

Aspiring entrepreneur McKayla Scott, a fourth-year Business Administration Co-op student, said it was amazing to pitch and develop her business idea.

“Hearing that feedback really helped me understand where I need to start with my idea and the next things I need to look at,” said Scott, whose idea to promote financial information builds on free tax clinics she does currently.

Peters encouraged Scott and her fellow students to keep refining, pitching and executing their ideas as they work towards success as entrepreneurs.

“A lot of people have really great ideas,” Peters said to participants. “The difference between that and a startup or an entrepreneur is somebody who can marry ideas with execution.”