Vancouver

Ken Keis

Dr. Ken Keis is President and CEO of Consulting Resource Group International, which has served thousands of companies, associations, industry groups, and leaders in over 30 countries. In the past 29 years, Ken has personally conducted more than 3,000 presentations and 10,000 hours of coaching and consulting. He is a highly sought-after author, speaker, trainer, podcast host, TV and media guest. His latest books include: Why Aren’t You More Like Me?, Deliberate Leadership, and The Quest For Purpose.

Paul Bain

Paul Bain is the Tea Captain at JusTea, the first farmer-direct tea partnership between Kenya and Canada. Born and raised in Vancouver, Paul is passionate to connect tea drinkers with the small-scale farmer who made their cup possible. JusTea’s healthy new Purple Tea won the top food and beverage award in BC in 2018: Gold Medal for “Product of the Year”.

Mark C. Smith

Mark C. Smith is the President and CEO of Query Technologies Corp., Query CX, a boutique customer experience consultancy and Query Capital Corp. He serves as a customer advocate, partnering with leaders across organizations to re-imagine the customer experience and ensure their people, process and technologies align to achieve those objectives. The technology company delivers solutions that support business efficiencies and that have a proven return on investment. Query Capital, with a focus on building Canadian companies, partners with exceptional founders and management teams to create and fund companies to get them from start-up to scale. Mark is an active leader in the Customer Experience Professional’s Association (CXPA) and is connected with seasoned CX professionals around the globe. He also serves on several Boards including the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance (VIEA), where he is currently the Board Chair.

Merissa Myles

Merissa Myles is the Co-Founder of Tree Island Gourmet Yogurt. Based in the Comox Valley, she is sending waves from Vancouver Island and shaking up the yogurt aisle at grocery stores with her grass-fed, gourmet products. She studied Communication & Community Economic Development at SFU. Her lifework is focused on building healthy communities through business. At Tree Island Yogurt she works with stakeholders throughout the food system from farmers to production staff, customers and chefs. Merissa is a Top 40 Foodie Under 40 and recipient of the BC Food Processors Product of the Year award.

Peter Richmond

Peter Richmond is President of the 49th Parallel Grocery Group which includes 4 community-minded grocery stores, a flower shop, 2 dollar stores and a print shop. Peter, along with his sister, their children and other relatives, represent the second and third generations in the family business his parents founded in 1977. The 49th is passionate about serving our community and we continue to focus on our customers, our employees and the needs of our community. In an industry that is extremely competitive, we have managed to succeed through listening to our customer and adjusting our instore experience accordingly. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world and we take that into account in all of our daily decisions At the 49th, we will always play a big part in our communities.

Peter graduated from UBC with a Bachelor of Commerce in 1986 and obtained his CA designation while working for Ernst & Young, Chartered Accountants in Vancouver. After four years in the Internal Audit department of Canadian Forest Products Ltd., he returned to the island in 1996 to help the family business expand from one store to two, a doubling of service area and employees.

Lance Montgomery

Lance Montgomery is CEO of HeyBryan, which is backed by the HGTV’s star Bryan Baeumler, one of Canada’s most trusted home renovation experts. HeyBryan is revolutionizing the home-maintenance industry with an app that enables people to effortlessly book small tasks around the home by matching homeowners with top-quality, local, vetted and approved home maintenance Experts.

Adam Kreek

Adam Kreek is one of North America’s top Management Consultants and Executive Coaches with degrees and certifications from Stanford University, UBC Sauder School of Business, and Queens Smith School of Business. He is a guest lecturer at the University of Victoria and teaches strategies and skills of self-leadership, leadership, high performance and perseverance to corporate and government teams globally through keynotes, workshops and online seminars.

Adam has coached, trained and taught hundreds of thousands of people, including teams at Microsoft, General Electric, Mercedes-Benz, L’Oreal, Shell, YPO, EO, TEDx, and most importantly, Adam walks the talk. As an Entrepreneur, Adam runs two small corporations – KreekSpeak Business Solutions and Ergo Eco Solutions, a low carbon initiative that connects small businesses with small governments.

A two-time Olympian, Adam holds 60 international medals, including Olympic Gold, and multiple hall of fame inductions. In 2013, Adam made the first ever attempt to row unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to America.

Bill Collins

Bill Collins is President of Cascadia Seaweed. He has lived in four countries and been on most continents. He has been involved in scientific expeditions in oceans around the world and sold products into more than 40 countries, including 17 navies. Bill has authored more than 60 publications and given presentations on topics ranging from Grand Banks sediments to dredging in the Elbe River, Germany to Big Data. As part of a trio of owners in a high-tech manufacturing firm, he has products in 18 of the major passenger rail authorities in North America, taking an award-winning business from $3M net worth to over $30M.

Tara Clark

Tara Clark is the founder, owner, and CEO of Vancouver-based social media agency, Social T. For the past nine years she has offered executive consulting, training and management to small and medium-sized businesses around the world. As a social media architect, entrepreneur, and speaker, Tara is focused on helping businesses think differently and use social media effectively in order to achieve their goals. She helps brands engage with existing customers and tap into new audiences using their social media networks. Passionate about empowering those around her, Tara believes in building lasting connections with business owners who share her entrepreneurial spirit.

Rakesh Soni

As CEO and Co-Founder of LoginRadiusRakesh Soni has raised over $20 million for the company and built it into a leader in Digital Identity, securing over 1 billion user identities worldwide.