After a long and occasionally ridiculous career in marketing, communications, technology, and executive leadership, I’m now semi-retired — which mostly means I no longer pretend bad meetings are useful.
Over the years, I’ve worked in senior roles with agencies and companies including BBDO, FCB/Ronalds-Reynolds, Mackerel Interactive, USWeb/CKS, marchFIRST, and Peterson Electronics / AVI, where I served as President & CEO and Board Director of a publicly traded Canadian company.
My work has lived at the intersection of brand, business, technology, and human behaviour — long before “user experience” became a department, a budget line, and a room full of sticky notes.
I’ve advised, trained, facilitated, and spoken for Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, universities, start-ups, not-for-profits, and professional associations. Clients and audiences have included AMEX Global, TD Bank, Bell Canada, Deloitte, Interbrand, Manulife Financial, and many others.
I’m a past President of the Direct Marketing Association of Canada, former owner/operator of the award-winning OneDegree.ca digital marketing blog, and have taught or lectured through Georgian College, the Schulich School of Business at York University, the Canadian Marketing Association, and other executive education programs.
Most recently, I worked with Waterloo Environmental Biotechnology, a University of Waterloo start-up, helping bridge science, funding, business development, and commercialization.
These days, I’m interested in useful conversations: speaking, mentoring, advisory work, brand and communications strategy, and helping smart people make their thinking clearer, sharper, and harder to ignore. Would love to apply my many years of association management expertise again!
I’ve spent a career helping organizations understand what they really mean, what their customers actually hear, and why those two things are often not the same.
Currently retired (Ish, it’s complicated!) See the musical section to see what he is up to currently