Alim Somani

Alim Somani started at Infusion Development as a Waterloo co-op student. Today, he’s the president.

Infusion Development is a consulting company specializing in software development for financial institutions. And while its client list is confidential, chances are that if you name a large investment bank, you’ll find Infusion behind it.

“In finance, the companies that do well are the ones that can efficiently trade on the markets,” says Alim. “They need IT to do that and they hire us to write it. Our systems are the guts of what happens on Wall Street.”

Infusion’s people need to be experts on both the technical and financial side. It’s not an off-the-shelf combination; most employees will need to learn one or the other. But Alim has a strategy for finding people who can.

“Our secret sauce is the University of Waterloo,” says Alim. “Waterloo grads have been through co-op and are used to learning on their feet. We hire the smartest ones we can find and then we invest in them. It’s really paid off.”

For Alim personally, that payoff includes a spot on Canada’s list of hot young professionals, the Top 40 under 40.