Business

Lee Mainman

With more than 25 years of sales experience, Lee Mainman has been responsible for the direct management of sales teams and client relationships for major accounts across every industry vertical. Lee gained significant management and consulting experience from working at companies like TELUS, Robert Half Technology and VCIO. Today, he is a partner at Bits in Glass, an award-winning technology consulting firm based in Edmonton.

Ryan Gill

Ryan Gill is one of the city’s best-known entrepreneurs. He is CEO and Co-founder of Communo, a vetted network of marketing professionals. He’s also President and Partner of Cult Collective, an agency specializing in marketing and branding.

Taylan Pince

For the past decade, Taylan Pince has been leading the talented product team at Hipo Labs and helping brilliant startups go from “a small team with a good idea” to multi billion-dollar companies. He is both artist, engineer and innovator – a startling collection of talents. Hipo is a brilliant example of a company that has grown through its own self-sustaining investment and discipline.

Hipo, specializes in providing startups with two critical things: flexibility and quality. They build maintainable and scalable product solutions very quickly and efficiently, so founders can focus on growth and sales. Taylan has worked with startups like Robinhood, Moment, Keen and Fieldguide.

Anthony Giuffre

Anthony Giuffre is founder and CEO of Avenue Living Asset Management which has assets of more than $1 billion including more than 8000 residential rental units across Western Canada.

Robert Phelps

Robert Phelps, President of Canadian operations with SilverChef, who has teams established across Canada responsible for supporting Dealer Partners and Industry Bodies to deliver business value with flexible equipment rental and finance lease funding solutions across the hospitality sector. Focused on supporting customers and industry including Restaurants, Cafes, Motels, Hotels, Clubs, Coffee Roasters, Butchers, Bakers and Franchises. To date, Silver Chef has partnered with over 2,500 Canadian hospitality businesses.

Filomena May

Filomena May has her own branch of Raymond James Ltd. in Calgary and her company is named Filo Financial Solutions.

Jeff Lydell

Jeff Lydell is the founder of Gasket Games, a native of Vancouver, and has a 14 year production and biz-dev background at Blackbird Interactive, Bigpoint, and Relic Entertainment. His shipped titles include Company of Heroes, Dawn of War II and expansions, and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.

Rob Hunter

Rob Hunter has been an entrepreneur ever since he was a kid. He had an eBay account by the time he was 12 years old, and sold Japanese professional wrestling VHS tapes and DVD’s (yep!) to pay his way through university at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

He did so well, he was able to establish a mini student real estate empire. After graduation, he sold my properties and got into the ice cream business, opening 7 Marble Slab ice cream stores by the time he was 25. Rob has had lots of tremendous high’s and low’s as a multi-unit franchisee, and learned a lot of lessons along the way.

In 2012, he got offered a great scholarship to do his MBA at the #1 school in the world for entrepreneurship, Babson College. In Boston he met a co-founder, a wife, and immersed himself in the technology startup culture of the city.

Right now he’s back in Toronto and focused on growing HigherMe – a way for retail and hourly employers to find, screen, and hire better employees faster.

Jim Button

Jim Button is co-founder of Village Brewery, a strategist with Evans Hunt and a member of the board of directors of Beer Canada. Jim has been on a sabbatical for a year while he deals with terminal cancer.

Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte

Introducing Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte, brand performance catalyst (a.k.a jet fuel) at LeapZone Strategies. As a brand builder, business performance catalyst, TEDx speaker with more than 2 Million views, and one of the best selling authors of the business and marketing book titled, The Next Big Thing: Top Trends From Today’s Leading Experts to Help You Dominate the New Economy; Isabelle’s sole purpose is to empower change and growth. “Momentum Generator” is her middle name and she has a relentless passion for helping entrepreneurs and small business owners raise the bar and expand their comfort zone to create outstanding brand experiences.

Isabelle’s biggest strength is her no BS approach and ability to tell it like it is. She has the “Simon Cowell” edge and is not afraid to tell people what to do and how to do it. She is an inspirational speaker, a captivating storyteller, and has an unquenchable enthusiasm for life. She is consistently leading-edge in facilitating change, and her undeniable track record and authentic connection with people, has gained her worldwide influence and recognition.