Speakers

Steve Buors is a leading authority on digital marketing for multi-location businesses. He works with national and international brands to develop inventive strategies using existing and emerging technologies to find new customers, increase sales, and combine the best of national brand strength with local relevance. Steve is CEO and co-founder of Reshift Media, a full-service digital agency that specializes in developing and implementing industry-leading social media, search and website/mobile strategies to enable brands to achieve tangible business results. Reshift Media often collaborates with other advertising agencies to develop, implement and manage digital strategies that amplify existing media campaigns. As a senior executive, entrepreneur and thought leader in the digital marketing industry, Steve has spoken at a variety of events, hosted many webinars and actively contributes to a number of blogs.

Patrick Cadieux is currently Marketing Director for M&M Food Market, Canada’s largest frozen food retailer. With over 20 years in Marketing, Patrick’s broad experience has been shaped by his time at leading global organizations such as Kraft, Whirlpool and Weight Watchers. Since 2015, he has lead the re-positioning of the M&M Food Market brand across its commercial go-to-market, media and communication platforms. This re-positioning has been dramatic in how M&M has approached product innovation, flyer, print, POP, mass media, digital platforms and content. To address changing consumer media consumption and its fragmentation, the brand has optimized its Marketing mix and have adopted industry leading digital strategies to increase store traffic, bring net new consumers to the franchise while driving incremental sales.

Chris is a Digital Evangelist at Google with expertise in both brand building and performance marketing. He’s helped drive digital transformation and acceleration at a number of companies particularly in Retail and Consumer Goods verticals. Before joining Google, Chris lead Global Brand Strategy and Innovation at P&G based in Europe, working on several of the company’s billion-dollar brands. Chris’ mission is to help unlock brand and bottom line growth by finding that elusive but magical intersection between brand building and performance marketing.

Riina started her career at the Sun Media Group where she worked for over 20 years in numerous newspaper sales and management roles representing classified, retail, national and corporate clients. In 2000, Riina went client side to Proctor and Gamble managing in-store retail relationships with clients like Walmart, Loblaw's and Shopper’s Drug Mart. In 2003, Riina joined Pattison Outdoor managing national client relationships and sales in all OOH channels. In 2015 Novus Media (formerly owned by Omnicom Media Group) expanded their operations in Canada to include OOH. Riina was appointed to the role of Managing Direct OOH. In 2018, Riina was promoted to the role of Vice President, Client Service overseeing OOH, print, magazine and digital planning and buying. Novus has become the largest agency in Canada for Newspaper/OOH buying and planning. Novus is also a full service retail flyer agency that specializes in building the most targeted and efficient flyer program for their clients. Novus Canada works with some of the largest advertisers like McDonald’s, Honda, Staples, Rogers, Nissan, Mercedes Benz, Petsmart and many others Riina enjoys cycling, boating and spending summers at the cottage on Lake Simcoe with her 3 children and twin grandsons.

Paul Cronin is starting down a new path as the Director of Consumer Promotions and Insights at Home Hardware Stores Limited. Home Hardware is Canada's largest independent home improvement retailer. The company is owned by close to 1,100 independent small business operators from every corner of Canada, who operate under one of four banners: Home Hardware, Home Hardware Building Centre, Home Building Centre and Home Furniture. As a testament to Home Hardware's guiding ethic - that community and the common good is simply good business - the company remains a genuinely 100% Canadian, Dealer-owned and operated major retailer. With over 20 years in Retail Marketing, Customer Experience and Consumer insights Paul’s broad experience and unique expertise has been shaped by his time managing how leading brands such as Sobeys, Canadian Tire, Bell and Air Miles build a differentiated and meaningful relationship with the consumer that is both sustainable and profitable. Throughout his career Paul has continually focused on developing creative and innovative programs, promotions and experiences that add value to a brand and business. His focus on innovation has crossed all facets of the holistic customer experience – from Print and flyer programs, POP, mass media, store design and fixturing, digital connections, consumer loyalty and insights. Paul holds a Bachelor Degree in Communications from York University.

Tobiasz Dankiewicz is the co-founder and director at reebee – A leader in Canada's digital flyer space. Through Tobiasz's direction, reebee has been helping shape the digital flyer ecosystem, long before the release of the first smart phone. While attaining a degree in mechatronic engineering from the University of Waterloo, Tobiasz was unable to find his local flyers digitally and recognized the enormous untapped opportunity for the flyer industry. From there, reebee was born with the mission to empower consumers to access their favourite flyers anywhere, anytime. Today, reebee is at the helm of flyer innovation working daily with Canada's leading retailers to develop and test new age flyer strategies.

Sarah Dennie leads the GM and Apparel go to market strategy as the Director of Customer Marketing at Walmart Canada. With over 15 years of retail experience Sarah has lead teams in operations, store management, store planning, business transformation, private brands and currently within category marketing. Sarah is passionate about the customer at the forefront of all decisions and works every day in service to that philosophy.

James Elenakis was also an early entrant into the digital payments market with his first business Trustmarque Ltd. The company was later acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland, and is now known as Worldpay, a leading global payment processing company. Though technology affords automation and scale, James still believes customer service and personalization is at the core of any good business. He believes in the importance of adding a personal touch to your interactions with customers - especially in a digital environment. He is now applying this level of personalization to his latest venture Raange Inc., a mobile and business intelligence company based out of Montreal, helping retailers CRUSH THEIR SALES TARGETS.

As industry manager of retail for Facebook Canada, Sam Galanis spends the majority of his time proving the offline impact of the Facebook suite of products and services, and consulting businesses on their overall efforts towards digital transformation. Galanis also sits on the Canadian leadership team within Facebook. Since joining Facebook in 2011, Galanis has held a variety of roles working with brand and direct response advertisers alike. Prior to Facebook, he worked in communications planning at several agencies on blue-chip global brands, helping with their traditional and digital marketing strategies.

For over 20 years, Richard has been leading the advertising and marketing of some of Canada’s best-known brands on both the client and agency side running large omni-channel marketing departments. Richard’s intimate understanding of retail marketing began during his experience on the retail floor where he spent eight years with Woolco/ Walmart and helped open Canada’s first and second Walmart stores. As Vice President at Havas/Saffer, Richard led the marketing for Home Hardware Stores Ltd, helping build one of Canada’s most respected brands and increasing sales for Dealers for over 10 years. He created Home Hardware’s social media department, and developed the strategies and tactics taking their social media presence from zero to being named #1 Best Brand on Facebook in 2015 by Canadian Business Magazine, #10 Best Brand on Twitter, and one of Canada’s Top 10 Social Brands by Marketing Magazine in 2014. In addition to building sales and segment leading advertising recall, Richard is proud of helping Home Hardware win some major awards including being named one of Canada’s Most Valued Brands for four straight years (2012 – 2016), and Top 25 Brands in Canada for the years 2014, 2015, and 2016 as rated by Canadian Business. Richard has demonstrated proven marketing and advertising leadership abilities on several brands such as Honda, Acura, Taco Bell, General Motors, Nokia, Rogers, 3M, Canon, Four Seasons, and Ford. Richard is currently the Director of Marketing at Ace Canada. Ace Canada is proud to be part of Lowe’s Canadian businesses, which together operate or service over 600 corporate and independent affiliate dealer stores across Canada in a number of complementary formats under different banners. For more than 90 years, Ace Hardware has been known as the helpful place in thousands of neighbourhoods globally, providing customers with a more personal kind of helpful. With more than 5,000 hardware stores locally owned and operated around the globe, Ace is the largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative in the world.

Michael has 20+ years of brand/retail/marketing leadership experience and is considered by many as a pioneer in the Canadian omni-channel and e-Commerce retail space. As an award-winning insight driven strategic marketer with a passion for holistic retail brand/customer experience, Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career with brands such as Black & Decker, Levi Strauss & Co, Hudson’s Bay, CanWest Media, The Shopping Channel and Herbal Magic. After spending almost three years advocating and lobbying for the Canadian retail industry at Retail Council of Canada (RCC), Michael formed M. E. LeBlanc & Company to leverage this knowledge and experience back onto the front lines and regularly is invited to share his insights on the current and future retail industry in Canada and around the world.

Frederick has joined Golf Town as Vice President of Marketing and eCommerce, to turn the brand around by elevating its digital footprint and creating an interconnected retail landscape that allows eCommerce to successfully coexist with brick and mortar. From designing and implementing a cutting-edge omni-channel plan to enhancing Golf Town’s digital presence, Frederick applies an innovative approach to building emotional connections with customers. Before engaging in the journey to establish Golf Town Ltd.’s brand as Canada’s home of golf, Frederick led the Sport Chek digital marketing and eCommerce transformation as SVP of Marketing. He also brought forward ground-breaking digital change with the launch of Canada’s first digital flyer program and rollout of several eCommerce sites for the FGL and Marks banners (Sport Chek, Sports Experts, Atmosphere, Marks). For over 15 years, Frederick has influenced top organizations in roles such as Vice President for Global Brand Marketing & Digital Strategy at LG Electronics Corp in Seoul, Marketing Director for Microsoft Europe, and Marketing Director at Nokia. Prior to revolutionizing brands as a digital disruptor, Frederick’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to take part in two successful start-ups projects in Europe — one in eCommerce and another in media.

Sean is the VP of Business Development at Flipp, a leading retail technology company that is reinventing the digital shopping experience. In his role, Sean drives the vision and strategy for Flipp partners, creating positive shopper experiences for both retailers and CPG’s while helping them navigate the shift from print to digital. Sean has an MBA from Schulich School of Business and a BA in Economics from Western University. He has extensive experience in business development, strategy and insights as well as leading winning teams in the innovation, retail and CPG industries. Prior to joining Flipp, Sean spearheaded sales strategy and insights at Mars and business development GlaxoSmithKline and P&G.

Celeste Normington loves how data is changing the face of marketing. As a leader in the digital marketing arena for the past 12 years, Celeste has embraced innovation, specializing in digital advertising, mobile marketing and big data strategies at companies like Olive Media and La Presse. As the Head of Business and Product Development for Pelmorex Data Solutions, she has passionately worked to promote the benefits and dispel the myths surrounding location data. A firm believer that sound data drives smarter marketing decisions in both digital and traditional spaces, Celeste has played an integral role in the Pelmorex transformation to a data powerhouse in the Canadian market.

Zeze is a Toronto based Aerospace Engineer, who spent the last 10 years building sophisticated million dollar platforms in robotics, eCommerce, business intelligence, portals, electronics and more. A Torontonian who has experienced the difficulties of starting and running an omni-channel business, he has built a company helping retailers regain relevance online.

Brian Rohaly is the Marketing Manager at Circle K where he’s developing and implementing new and innovative approaches to engage convenience customers through marketing. Brian’s a graduate of the University of Windsor with an Honours degree in Business Administration and Marketing, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Anthropology. He brings over 15 years of Marketing experience in Retail, Digital, Agency, and Business focused environments. Prior to Circle K, Brian was at The Home Depot Canada as the Senior Manager of Marketing Strategy. Some of his key achievements included transforming the Retail strategy to Digital and building the process for strategic marketing planning, including digitizing the Flyer program.

Anthony Stevenson is the International New Business Director at Eagle Eye, a leading SaaS technology company that enables businesses to create real-time connections with their customers through digital and mobile promotion solutions. With over 10 years’ experience within the retail, grocery, convenience and hospitality industries, Anthony is responsible for building the Eagle Eye business across North America. Anthony works closely with brands to create more effective marketing strategies: merging physical and digital programs to connect customer data across channels, personalise communications for deeper loyalty, and create more successful promotions to drive revenue growth. He has a strong background in loyalty marketing, mobile payments and consumer behavioural analytics, as well as a keen understanding of how brands integrate new technology into their business strategy. Prior to joining Eagle Eye Anthony served as a founding member of Appflare, a global leader in mobile proximity engagement and the first cloud-based beacon platform and was part of the Weve product team which built one of the world’s first mobile wallets. Anthony holds a Masters of Science in Cognitive and Decision Making Science from University College London, a Masters in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Creativity from Newcastle University, and completed his undergraduate degree in Computing Science at Newcastle University as well.

Trinh Tham is a seasoned business leader with experience developing top talent, P&L management and growing some of Canada’s favourite brands including Sobeys, Tim Hortons, CTV, HBO, Loblaws and President’s Choice. Trinh is currently the VP, Integrated Marketing at Sobeys with oversight of all banner and private label brand strategy, marketing services, media, digital and social media, creative studio, sponsorships, and PR. Prior to Sobeys, Trinh also held roles as VP of Integrated Marketing at Tim Hortons and Head of Marketing for Entertainment TV Brands at Bell Media. She also spent close to 8 years of her career at Loblaws where she held various roles including Senior Director of Merchandising, Senior Director of Private Label Marketing and Senior Director of Ethnic Marketing. Trinh obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration with a Major in Marketing and a Minor in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.