Toronto

Mark Evans

Mark Evans spent 10+ years as a technology reporter with two of Canada’s largest newspapers and has four startups under his belt. Mark brings his unique brand storytelling approach to high growth emerging companies that need to create a leadership position.

Mark provides strategic and tactical guidance to develop effective content marketing and regularly speaks and workshops in various locations. In this podcast Mark talks about marketing that resonates with prospects, customers, partners, and investors – everything from Websites, videos, and infographics to eBooks, blog posts, and pitch decks.

Ron Spreeuwenberg

Since 2013, Ron Spreeuwenberg has been the Co-Founder & CEO of HiMama based in Toronto, where he leads all aspects of a business that facilitates information sharing between child care programs and parents. The HiMama application aims to save child care and early learning programs time and money, while significantly enhancing family engagement through real-time sharing of digital media. Ron has an MBA from Harvard specializing in International Business and Entrepreneurship and a degree in Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Pierre Séguin

Pierre Séguin is a dynamic technology leader, innovator and product manager with almost two decades of experience creating, developing and implementing solutions for customers ranging from the biggest of multinationals to the smallest of children. He currently is working on a number of projects including being Expert in Residence for the Semaphore Research Cluster at University of Toronto. Semaphore is a research cluster at the iSchool, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, dedicated to inclusive design in the area of mobile and pervasive computing.

When I first met Pierre, he was /and still is founder of Brili, an application that relieves families of stress by helping kids succeed in their daily routines. With Brilli, parents set up the activities their kids need to do when getting ready for school, after school or bedtime. These then come to life as a game on a mobile device. Parents can monitor in real-time from their own device while kids stay on task and earn rewards. Brili builds on the proven practice of using visual schedules to give kids structure and consistency, while making them more fun and easier to use.

Mallory McKewen

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

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

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.

Steve Beatty

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

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.