Having worked at a startup, a support organization and a student investment group in Atlantic Canada, Dana Parsons has joined Toronto-based Highline BETA, one of Canada’s most innovative companies in the venture capital sphere.

Parsons, formerly the CEO of St. John’s-based loyalty program startup Brownie Points, started at Highline BETA earlier this month as new venture director. In this new position, she is working closely with Founding Partner Marcus Daniels in the portion of the business that works with established corporations to form external accelerators.

Highline BETA is not a customary VC firm, as shown by its tagline, “Transforming industries from the inside out.” Founded by Daniels and startup specialist Ben Yoskovitz (who spent time in Halifax with the team that launched GoInstant), Highline Beta aims to work with established corporations to develop innovation that solves their problems.

“Highline and Marcus come from a VC background but it’s not my focus,” said Parsons in an interview this week. “Right now, I’m really focusing on our accelerator programs. I’m really working on building those up.”

Parsons says she ended up at Highline BETA after “doing the full circle” in Atlantic Canada. In 2014, she joined Brownie Points, first as CEO, then as COO when she moved on to other opportunities. She worked as the Venture Lead at the St. John’s startup incubator Genesis Centre, and in management with Venture Grade, a student-led VC fund operating out of St. Mary’s University.

Talking to people about opportunities, she was steered toward Highline BETA by two people: BDC Capital director Nicole LeBlanc; and Jeanette Stock, a Highline associate who Parsons met when they both attended the G20 Youth Summit in Berlin last summer. Soon, Parsons met Daniels and was hired.

“They kind of had to create the position once we started talking,” Parsons said. “It certainly has the feel of a startup here in that we’re learning as we grow. I started March 1 and they’ve added three or four people since then.”

In her new role, Parsons is learning what pain corporations feel in their operations and trying to find and work with startups that could solve those problems. She hopes these will include startups she knows on the East Coast.

“From a startup point of view I see a lot of opportunities, so that I’ve already shortlisted some startups for different corporations,” she said. “There is right now a company located in St. John’s that we’re potentially going to work with.”

Parsons believes that some startups don’t fully understand the scope of innovation taking place at corporations of all size. She hopes Highline BETA can act as a bridge to these younger companies.

“My mind is going 100 miles an hour thinking about (this) because in Toronto there are all these introductions I can make.”