Experience

Leadership

Book Promoters Association of Canada

Took over the leadership of an ad hoc professional association for a two-year period.

While president:

Reorganized the association and made constitutional reforms to strengthen its position in the industry;

Developed networking forums for national media, industry and association members, increasing membership by 250% and revenue by 300%;

Successfully lobbied for a series of government-funded workshops and forged international alliances throughout Europe and Asia.

Systems Management

Raincoast Books

Improved operational and management processes in disparate business environments.

Highlights include:

Holding a national series of interviews with major and minor media outlets, resulting in the introduction of tailored marketing vehicles that both streamlined publicity costs and dramatically increased media coverage;

Integrating real-time planning and distribution systems to reduce turnaround from months to days, resulting in significant savings;

Tightly linking marketing products to sales goals by introducing a very successful calendar-based sales tool, which promotes packages of new titles combined with stock overruns.

Business Development

The Omikron Group Inc.

Grew a part-time publicity company into an international operation of 25 freelancers in 5 countries. Consulting contracts and services covered a broad range of media, markets and events that were focused primarily on the development of Canadian arts and culture. In 2001, Omikron’s 4 divisions (Interactive, Marketing, Production and Rights) were sold to different parties.

New Profit-Centre Creation

Random House/Bakka Books

Managed a media-starved and overlooked portfolio of genre writers. Raised the profile of the science fiction genre as a whole through a multidisciplinary luncheon series for authors and media. Built interest that led to the development of a widely distributed genre marketing kit. This kit garnered first-in-kind front page coverage for the portfolio and resulted in the publishing of a Canadian retrospective book of collected stories.

Strong Initiative

Bubba Soft

While affiliated with a computer programmers’ network:

Identified an opportunity to provide educational software to the California Board

of Education;

Organized a small software company and facilitated a partnership with

Commodore Computers;

Launched two pilot projects focused on teaching ecological resource management.

Sourcing

K Bez Creations

Assisted and nurtured the development of a consumer product company from conceptualization. Once formed, acted as principal consultant on marketing, sales, distribution and business planning. Sourced manufacturers in Thailand, China and Toronto, and managed the packaging of the product across print and digital media.