TopicDetail

Explore the role that young people play in the sustainable development movement throughout the Caribbean. Examine how youth policies can help accelerate youth-related objectives and explore critical roles that young people can play in the implementation of sustainable development efforts at various levels including: activism, entrepreneurship, entertainment, tourism, agriculture, politics, or law.

In this fast-paced, eye-opening session, discover easy-to-use, scientifically proven tactics that will get your audience to open, read, and respond to your email without even thinking! See lots of examples from many different verticals. And leave ready to write emails that are crazy effective!

Learn pro tips & tricks for building and growing your brand using Pinterest. Learn how to harness the power of this important marketing tool and pinpoint your digital strategy more effectively.

Understanding how to uncover and deliver an engaging story can give travelers the difference between a "good time" and a "powerful, meaningful, and memorable experience". Learn how to discover a location's unified theme, create an enticing story from that theme, and deliver that story in a way that will emotionally engage your current and prospective travelers. The art of storytelling has been an integral part of humanity's communication since we first developed language.

How do you create an authentic yet polished presence that attracts your target audience and helps you stand out and make the RIGHT impression? Key takeaways: - Learn how to create a polished LinkedIn profile that attracts the right audience and converts visitors into leads.

• Discover the tips and tricks to create and share LinkedIn content that attracts the right audience
• Learn how to network like a LinkedIn pro and how to build a community that can help you grow
• Find out how YOU can create and build your own business page on LinkedIn

Explore best practices on understanding and engaging potential customers virtually. Learn techniques to understand needs and pain points to establish long-term customer loyalty.

TBD

Paula Coop McCrory is a curator, expert visual storyteller, and digital strategist. Her visual storytelling has captured the imaginations of over 4M people worldwide on Pinterest. She has been named one of the Top 30 Pinners on Pinterest and has worked with various brands including St. Kitts & Nevis Tourism, Visit Miami, Ontario Tourism, Honda and Turo. She is frequently hired by brands to execute organic and paid digital campaigns across multiple social media channels.

Nancy Harhut is passionate about the impact of behavioral science on marketing. An Online Marketing Institute Top 40 Digital Strategist, Social Top 50 email marketing leader, and the winner of numerous International ECHO awards for marketing effectiveness, she has creative directed integrated campaigns for clients such as IBM, Dell, Nationwide, Sheraton, TripAdvisor, American Express, and more. Harhut is known for her interesting and actionable insights that focus on applying behavioral science to marketing. A sought-after, top-ranked speaker, she is wowed audiences with high-energy, example-jammed sessions in Moscow, Stockholm, Sao Paulo, and all over the US — including attendees at SXSW.

Hailing from Ottawa, Michaela Alexis is currently one of North America's most in-demand speakers on topics related to personal branding on social media, particularly LinkedIn. Her journey started in March 2016 when an article she wrote about landing her dream job went viral on LinkedIn. Since then, she has replicated that success, with dozens of articles receiving millions of reads, featured on the likes of CNBC, New York Times, Fast Company, Inc., and more. Over the past decade, Michaela has managed the online presence of more than 100 high-profile brands and has garnered millions of views and over 160K followers on LinkedIn. Michaela has also co-authored a video marketing book, Think Video, which is available on Amazon, appeared on season one of Amazon Prime series “The Social Movement”, which comes out in 2020, recently starred in a shoe campaign for K-Swiss, and became an official LinkedIn Learning instructor with her course, “Grow your Business with LinkedIn Pages”.

Meghan Gardner is the Founder of Guardian Adventures, which provides consultation and development of innovative and educational online and live events specializing in story-based and emotionally immersive experiences which highly engage participants. Meghan is also a story-based adventure designer and staff trainer for Royal Caribbean and a guest lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Meghan provides consultation on using stories to amplify any user experience for companies and organizations around the world.

Myrna Daramy is a tech-savvy Digital Media Optimization Strategist, and the founder of Myrna & Co, a business coaching firm specializing in digital media optimization, marketing strategy, analytics, and ADA Compliance. Over the last 15 years, she is worked with hundreds of service-oriented businesses and educated thousands of small business owners on how to optimize their marketing strategies, as well as overcome the overwhelm of tech.

Ibrahim Ayub is an impact-driven strategist focused on user experience and human-centered design. He is currently based in France completing his MBA at INSEAD and is also a Teaching Fellow for the Social Innovation Design Program at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He spent the last 6 years in management consulting, advising global Fortune 500 clients across industries on how to design and deliver meaningful customer experiences. Previously, he graduated from Penn with a Master’s in Systems Engineering and a BSE in Computer Science. He also holds certifications in habits coaching, User Experience, and Cultural Ethnography.

Charles Wong

VP Sales and Marketing, Adesso Technology Inc

I have been a Solutions idea developer for over 25 years helping small brands become bigger brands.

Karl Boissonneault

Vice President, Canadian Channel Operations, Xerox Canada

Karl Boissonneault is Vice President, Channel Partner Operations for Xerox Canada, responsible for growth strategies and programs related to Xerox’s network of channel partners – including alliance partners, distributors and value-added resellers (VARs) – and its community of Authorized Xerox Agencies.

With more than 15 years’ experience in sales and marketing in the technology industry and 8 years in senior leadership roles; he brings deep knowledge and experience in partnering to deliver higher value solutions to clients. Karl joined Xerox in 2014 leading the Canadian Eastern and Central Agent Operations. No stranger to the channel, he also led an independent Xerox dealership in Bermuda and founded his own start up telecom company.

Karl holds a degree in Accounting from Université du Québec à Montréal. He is a member of the Canadian Channel Chiefs Council (C4), and executive sponsor for the Canadian Young Professionals Group.

Charles Hulet

Manager of Sales

Charles manages Canadian distribution for Western Digital and has been with the company for 25 years.

Topic: An update on the HDD and SSD market in light of Covid-19.

Corey Copping

National Account Manager Distribution

Corey has had a long career in IT with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, starting in 1999 after 5 years at Merisel Canada ( now SYNNEX ) his responsibilities and roles have changed over time. As a Business Analyst with HP Corey worked on the integration of Compaq & HP in the early 2000’s. Moving onto manage the HP Canbuild facility where HP built business Laptops locally here in Canada running up to 3 shifts per day. Moving from the PSG group Corey then took on the role of Marketing Manager for Procurve, HPs switching business and then eventually into a sales role as a National Account manager for HP Networking. In 2016 Corey after working with HP’s distributors during his whole career, Corey was promoted to the National Account Manager for Distribution managing 2 of HPE’s largest Distributor Partners. Corey lives in North Toronto, is a loving husband and father of 2, hobbies include hockey, golf, and spending time on his boat fishing.

Cindy Beange

Business Development Executive, SMB, Aruba Canada

Cindy has been working in the IT industry since 1997 starting her career with Compuware Corporation in sales support and moving into field sales. Following an additional vendor role supporting both end users and channel partners, Cindy moved into a distribution role for Alternative Technology (Arrow) and Avnet (Tech Data) for a combined total of 16 years supporting mostly Networking and Security products. The last 8 years were supporting the Aruba line and helping the partner community achieve tremendous growth the Canadian market. In January 2019, Cindy moved into her role at Aruba supporting the Canadian partners to learn and grown with Aruba. The last year, Cindy has been responsible for launching the new Aruba Instant On product portfolio to the Canadian SMB market and channel. Cindy lives in Georgetown, ON and is married with a son and identical twin daughters. She can be found on the side of the baseball diamond all summer scorekeeping for the 3 kids and in the arena all winter either cheering loudly for her son or as the trainer for her daughters.

Paul Liakos

Data Platform Specialist, Lenovo Canada

20 years+ in the industry working with OEMs and partners. My current roles aso the Data Management Specialist at Lenovo Canada for the last year. Prior to Lenovo, The Storage and Virtualization Specialist at Tech Data Canada for 8 years where I presented, and trained partners on VMWare, Brocade, EMC and other datacenter storage OEMs. “I’ve learned a long time ago that, as OEMs, we are only part of an end user’s solution. It’s channel partners that that are the glue to putting it all together”

Fred Proia

National Distribution Account Manager
Printing & Personal Systems Group (PPS), HP Canada

Fred Proia is a National Distribution Account Manager for HP Canada, responsible for printing & personal systems, reporting into John Cammalleri.

Fred joined HP in 2007, and has worked his way up through the organization, from field sales, to managing DRC Resellers, to his current role managing distribution accounts.

In additional to his corporate life, Fred is also a professional stand-up comedian, often touring throughout Canada and the US.

Fred has combined his 20+ years of sales experience and industry knowledge, with his comedy performance, creating a dynamic, informative, and very entertaining presentation style.

Has had a long distinguished, multidimensional career focused on education, social transformation and organizational re-engineering. He is currently the Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – a regional integration grouping of eleven Member States.

His career covers national, regional and international experience with the following highlights:

• Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Caribbean Examinations Council
• InterRegional Coordinator of the International Literacy Support Service
• Permanent Secretary for Education and Human Resource Development (St. Lucia) as well as Permanent Secretary for Education & Chief Education Officer (concurrently) in Revolutionary Grenada

His qualifications include BA (Hons) UWI; MSc Curriculum Univ. Wisconsin-Madison; PhD Education Policy University of Wisconsin-Madison and EMBA UWI.

Board appointments include: Caribbean Center for Educational Planning UWI Mona; Knowledge, Innovation & Exchange Program (KIX); Global Partnership for Education (LAC region); Chancellor’s Commission on UWI Governance; Caribbean Climate Accelerator; World Bank Task Force on Caribbean Education Strategy 2020.

Melissa Noel is an award-winning journalist, digital content creator and media entrepreneur. As an international correspondent and producer, she covers race, culture, travel and lifestyle topics for television and digital media.

She is known for her dynamic coverage that consistently highlights underreported stories impacting the African-American Community, Caribbean region and its diaspora.

Melissa’s work has appeared on NBCNews.com , Huffpost.com, Essence.com, CBS News USVI, One Caribbean Television, LonelyPlanet.com, Caribbean Beat Magazine, theGrio.com and ABC News’ “Good Morning America”.

She is an alumna of the International Center for Journalists ‘Bringing Home The World’ reporting fellowship and is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting. She also sits on The Pulitzer Center’s Campus Consortium advisory board.

In 2021, Melissa was recognized with a Caribbean Impact Award for outstanding achievement and contributions to the field of journalism and the Caribbean region by Caribbean Life News.”