Mallory McKewen founded and currently serves as President & CEO of BridesMade.ca, an e-commerce business focused on improving the bridesmaid dress shopping experience. BridesMade was born as an idea early in 2016 and has now serviced over 1000 bridesmaids Canada-wide, employing a team of 10. Before diving into entrepreneurship, Mallory completed both a BBA and MBA degree at Laurier and had worked in Sales & Corporate Finance.
Reema Duggal is a strategic IT professional and technology entrepreneur with significant experience in the global IT industry where she helps companies build revenues and profitability via expansion of their digital business channels.
Reema is a seasoned tech leader with a strong blend of revenue generation experience – Strategy, Marketing, Portfolio Management, and Delivery Management experience – Practice Leadership as well as Program and Project Management.
She is the President of the Sitaran Group, helping manufacturers, distributors, and tech companies build digital online sales channels. She is also a co-founder of Silicon Halton which started up nine years ago -and is where I met Reema. Now with over 1500 members Silicon Halton is a real hub of technology entrepreneurs in Halton – which includes Burlington, Oakville and Milton – a population base of 1 million plus and a real entrepreneurial hub in the GTHA economy.
Andrew Novak is an Entrepreneur from Hamilton. Andrew founded his own digital marketing company after a career in the Financial Services industry. Andrew is a passionate innovator, digital marketer, entrepreneur, and expert in search engine optimization. He is President of Thinkr Digital the new digital division of Hamilton Ontario’s largest full-service marketing agency, Thinkr Marketing. Thinkr Digital focuses on high-performing digital marketing campaigns that are fully integrated into the larger marketing plans of medium to large size companies across North America. Prior to this he was Founder of Nova Digital Marketing which specialized in Search Engine Optimization – Search Engine Marketing – Display & Video Marketing – Social Media Marketing – Email Marketing (CASL Compliant) – Mobile App Marketing – Content Creation.
Phil Hemmings is the Sales Manager at Ross Chocolates in Port Coquitlam. His experience stems from starting and running two food related companies as well overseeing sales for other natural food companies. Phil will be in charge of spear heading the product launch in the US and to work closely with his team at Ross Chocolates to ensure all areas of the company are ready for launch in late May. Ross Chocolates have been making Canadians No Sugar Added Chocolates for over 20 years.
Troy Assoignon has been an entrepreneur for 10 years, starting off as an interior contractor in Winnipeg to working in the technology scene in Vancouver. Now he is a full time strategic marketing and business advisor for business owners & corporations alike. Last year him and his girlfriend spent 8 months in Bali, and this year they are living full time in Thailand. Troy’s satisfaction comes from seeing a change and a shift inside people, and that’s what wakes him up every single day.
Steve Beatty is the founder of cultureONE which in In May 2015 merged with Front Row Insurance Brokers and created Canada’s largest insurance brokerage specializing in entertainment & media, arts & culture having offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Los Angeles, Steve has over 25 years of experience in arts and entertainment and insurance – everything from the performance arts to tv and film.
As a theatre manager himself for many years and then an insurance “entrepreneur”, Steve’s heart is in the arts and he is a valued supporter of many cultural initiatives. Steve knows what it takes to bring an artistic vision to completion as well as make sure the risk factors get covered on the way.
Anthony DeCristofaro is currently President and CEO of Qnext Corp. and has over 25 years of computer industry experience. In his entrepreneurial career he has driven three M&A transactions valued at more than $600 Million. Previously he was President and CEO of iseemedia Inc. which merged with Synchronica in 2010. Anthony was also Founder and CEO of MGI Software Corp. He brought Intel in as an investor into this venture which he co-founded in 1996 and was sold to Roxio in 2002. Prior to MGI, Anthony was a founding board member of Delrina, a VP/GM of AST Computer Canada and NEC Canada. I have known Anthony and worked as an advisor to him throughout many of these ventures and I am excited to have this fantastic entrepreneur and leader here today.
Aliya Amershi is the CEO and Founder of AskaTechie.com, a tech talent 2.0 marketplace that intelligently matches companies with a supply of vetted technical contractors specializing in Web 3.0 and advanced technologies, such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and complex App Development. Since they launched in 2017, AskaTechie has bootstrapped their way to six figures in sales, which only the top 10% of female founders have been able to achieve. They were also selected to participate in the Canadian Technology Accelerator in Silicon Valley and was a finalist for NextAI Canada. In addition, Aliya recently served as a Director at the Founder Institute in Vancouver and is currently a contributing member to YEC Next – which is part of the Forbes Business Council.
Aliya is also launching soon a couple of new ventures, first is the Techie Concierge, an online tool that helps tech startups easily create better technical job descriptions. The second is Stiletto Startup, which supports female founders by empowering them with the necessary technology business basics via their customized online tech startup workshops.
Aliya has over 20 years of technology experience and 10 years of international enterprise experience working on award-winning products at Viacom Networks, Codemasters and Electronic Arts as a Software Engineer, IT Manager and Technical Lead.
Alecia Repp is a small town girl from Alberta who moved to the big city of Vancouver at the age of 17 to start a new life for herself. She became a professional makeup artist running her own business. During that time she was also creating side projects like business trainings and online courses. Now she is living full time in Thailand running a full time coaching and consulting business. She also runs a branding agency. Most importantly she started a retreat business called the Self Love Retreat and the first one is coming this August in Greece.
