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M

Marlina Kinnersley

Co-founder & CEO, Fortay

HR techToronto

Marlina Kinnersley is co-founder and CEO of Fortay, the Toronto HR-tech company that assesses whether candidates' values add to a team's culture. MaRS reported in 2017 that she and Bohdan Zabawskyj started Fortay in 2015 and grew it bootstrapped, with zero marketing spend. Fortay's company page, checked September 2026, lists her as CEO.

Marlina hasn’t spoken on a TechTO, TechVancouver or TechWaterloo stage. This profile is here because Marlina co-founded Fortay, which appears in 1 talk in the archive.

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Quick answers

What company did Marlina Kinnersley co-found?

Fortay, a Toronto HR-tech company. MaRS Discovery District's go-to-market interview, published 2017-06-16, names Kinnersley and Bohdan Zabawskyj as Fortay's founders and gives 2015 as the year it was established. Fortay's own company page, checked September 2026, lists Kinnersley as co-founder and CEO.

Why did Marlina Kinnersley start Fortay?

In a Collabs.io interview published 2023-02-14, Kinnersley said her worst toxic workplace culture, at a small marketing services company, was the catalyst for Fortay. When she appeared on the HRchat Podcast, published 2016-08-09, the episode described Fortay as a new data-driven culture-fit screening and insights platform for hiring managers.

How did Fortay grow in its early years?

Kinnersley told MaRS Discovery District (2017-06-16) that Fortay was bootstrapped and had grown organically with zero marketing spend, using customer success stories as its main marketing. At the time it had a team of six and a customer in Malaysia, and she had started Culture Lab X Toronto, a meetup for senior leaders focused on company culture.

What does Fortay focus on now?

Fortay's company page, checked September 2026, says Kinnersley and Zabawskyj first set out to improve how companies hire after experiencing toxic workplaces and 'bro cultures', then concluded the deeper problem was exclusion. In the 2023-02-14 Collabs.io interview she called Fortay 'The Team Success Platform'.

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Maintained by TechTO · facts sourced and dated · last reviewed Sep 19, 2026