Glenn R. Cowan

Founder & Managing Director

Glenn Cowan is a Canadian venture capitalist, retired special operations officer, accomplished investor, adventurer, father, and skydiving world record holder.

Glenn founded ONE9 in 2013 while serving as an Assaulter Officer in Joint Task Force 2 and has grown ONE9 into one of Canada’s leading defense and security ecosystems with a focus on investing in dual-use technologies that are validated by national security end-users.

Having deployed on multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, sensitive information operations in the Middle East and hostage recovery efforts in Africa, he experienced first-hand how decisive action, technological implementation and high functioning teams are a force multiplier for success.

Glenn sits on the board of Ventus Respiratory Technologies, and holds board observer positions with Tomahawk Robotics, Strider, and Hidden Level.

Glenn is a graduate of McGill University, The Army Operations Course, The Special Operations Assaulters Course, Canadian Securities Course, and Ivey’s Executive Leadership program.

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“Two things are true when you jump from an airplane: You can’t go back, and you’re going to hit the ground. Where you land and how softly is up to you.”

–Glenn Cowan

Speaking & Presentations

Covering topics such as leadership, building high performance teams, risk taking, special operations forces, national security and defence, and venture investing, Glenn is a highly respected speaker who brings experience-backed insights to the podium.

More recently, Glenn has told the story of his achievement as a world-record-breaking skydiver on the 2023 Triple 7 expedition, where a team of retired US and Canadian special operations soldiers successfully skydived onto 7 continents in 7 days, raising funds for the children of service members killed in action. In addition to accomplishing this feat, He worked as an executive producer on the documentary covering the expedition, “Triple 7: They Said It Couldn’t Be Done” (2024).

Cowan has been featured as a keynote speaker at several high-profile venture and business conferences, such as Techstars FounderCon, Atlantic Venture Forum, and Banff Venture Forum, as well as appearing on numerous discussion panels at major defence industry events such as NATO industry conferences. Glenn has contributed to Bloomberg News Network as an authority on the role of private capital in support of national security. Lastly, Glenn regularly hosts “technology showcase” events at ONE9 Capability Labs, in which he aims to bridge the gap between private industry and public sector guests regarding innovative defence technologies.