Speakers List

Speaker Biographies


Jacob Blackstock

Jacob Blackstock, CEO, Creative Director and Lead Designer, Bitstrips

Jacob Blackstock has been producing comics, animation and interactive entertainment since he could hold a pencil. He is the founder of Core Matrix, a multimedia studio/creative thinktank where amazing projects are born – such as Bitstrips.com, a hugely popular online tool for creating original comics and cartoon characters. Bitstrips has applications for both entertainment and education – the teacher-tailored subscription service ‘Bitstrips for Schools’ has been licensed for over 2,000,000 students in its first year. Jacob currently serves as Bitstrips Inc’s CEO, Creative Director and Lead Designer.


Richard Bernstein

Richard Bernstein, SVP Managing Director, Arc Worldwide, a Leo Burnett Company

Richard has a unique background in the industry. His roots were in Art Direction, leading overtime to the role of Creative Director. Richard then moved on to manage one of Canada’s leading independent marketing services agencies. Having established his strengths in client service and strategic leadership, Richard took on more senior roles within agencies culminating in his current position at the helm of Are Worldwide Canada, the Interactive, Direct/CRM, Promotions and Retail arm of Leo Burnett.

His broad base of client experience spans North America and includes Sobeys, RIM, Bell Canada, Moosehead Breweries, Visa, Kellogg, P&G, Bank of Montreal, Compaq, IBM, Zellers (Hbc), Schering Plough and Volvo.

Richard’s background combining extensive creative, strategic and management experience with a focus on marketing services disciplines brings a unique and fresh perspective to our agency and clients.


Adrian Carter

Adrian Carter, Director, Producer and Creative Director, Shark Teeth Films

Adrian Carter is a director and producer from the future with a deep insight into production in a digital environment. He is the Creative Director and owner of Shark Teeth Films, a production company that creates animated and live-action films, as a service and as original content. Shark Teeth is developing series with several networks, and works in the advertising market with agencies like Dashboard Communications and Ogilvy & Mather. Adrian apologizes for not having returned your email yet.


Lisa Charters

Lisa Charters, SVP Director Digital, Random House of Canada Limited

As SVP Director Digital for Random House of Canada Limited, Lisa Charters is responsible for the development of new ebusiness initiatives and digital strategies, as well as overseeing online sales & promotional efforts to continually enhance value and expand the company’s relationship with readers. Random House of Canada Limited is a division of Bertelsmann AG’s Random House, the world’s largest publisher of fiction and nonfiction for all ages, in a full range of formats-including hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, audio, electronic, and digital. Random House of Canada interacts with readers online at www.randomhouse.ca, www.booklounge.ca, www.bookclubs.ca and www.mysterybooks.ca. You can follow @LisaCharters on Twitter.


Colleen DeCourcy

Colleen DeCourcy, Former Chief Digital Officer, TBWA Worldwide

Colleen DeCourcy was responsible for developing and implementing a global digital strategy throughout the TBWA network. She has worked at the forefront of digital technology and entertainment for most of her career and her areas of expertise range from digital postproduction and motion-graphics design to creative campaign development across digital platforms. Colleen is a champion of innovative methods of persona development and implementation to provide experience touch points for online social networks, consumer-activated branded entertainment, and word-of-mouth marketing.Key to TBWA being named Adweek’s Global Agency of the Year and Advertising Age’s Network of the Year for 2008 is Colleen’s leadership in partnering with fellow Omnicom Group agencies 180 and Critical Mass to create Riot, Adidas’ lead shop for global digital duties. Prior to joining TBWA, DeCourcy served as Chief Experience Officer at JWT where she strengthened and grew the integrated, multiplatform storytellingcapabilities of the network while partnering with the agency’s executive creative directors on client business including Unilever’s Sunsilk, Kimberly-Clark, Cadbury Adams, the Diamond Trading Commission and Ford. She was also Executive Creative Director (North America) on HSBC.

DeCourcy was previously the Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Organic, where she led the agency’s Experience Design group. She was responsible for leading nontraditional creative for Organic client DaimlerChrysler. At the beginning of her executive career, Colleen was Director of Creative Strategy at ICE Integrated Communications & Entertainment in Toronto. She has also worked in London for Spafax WPP, an international marketing communications firm, where she was Chief Creative Officer. Clients included British Airways, Reynard Racing, Virgin Atlantic, Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, The Tate Gallery and The British Council. Colleen was the Cyber Lions Jury President at the 55th edition of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival last year. She served in 2007 as a Titanium and Integrated Jury Member at this prestigious festival in France, and in 2006 sat on the Cannes Cyber Lions Jury. That same year, Advertising Age and the Advertising Women of New York association announced “25 Women to Watch” honoring the most savvy, empowered, accomplished and innovative women in the world of advertising, marketing and media; DeCourcy was named a member.


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Douglas Edwards, CEO, ES3

Douglas Edwards is the CEO and Founder of ES3TM, a privately held corporation based in Toronto, Canada. With a career focus on Internet Protocol television and convergence in the consumer application market, combined with over sixteen years of experience, Doug has advanced ES3 into a global leader position for IPTV applications on Microsoft Mediaroom.

About ES3: ES3 is an award winning company with an exclusive focus for the Microsoft(R) MediaroomTM platform. We are a recognized leader in the IPTV developer ecosystem with the largest dedicated iTV product catalogue available to the market today. These applications include coverage of popular iTV verticals, such as Games, Health & Fitness, Children’s Edutainment, Social, Messaging and Core TV enhancement products like “TV Dashboard” and “QuickView”.


Sabrina Geremia

Sabrina Geremia, Head of Agency Relations, Google Canada

Sabrina is an international marketer, sales leader, and integrated communications specialist. She began her career in marketing in 1995 in brand management at Procter & Gamble Italy, working on laundry and cosmetic brands. In 2001, Sabrina entered the Interactive world as Marketing Manager at the search engine ask.co.uk. She then combined her Internet & CPG Marketing skills as Global Internet and Integrated Communications Director at Reckitt Benckiser, a leading global consumer goods and healthcare company based in London.

Sabrina joined Google EMEA in 2006 to set up the UK Consumer Products and Healthcare sales team. She returned to Canada in 2007 to work with a wider range of customers spanning from CPG to Finance to Media and Entertainment. In 2009 Sabrina built the Canadian Agency Relations strategy and team. This team works with large media and creative agencies to help them make the most out of their relationship with Google.

Sabrina is Italian-Canadian-British and went to school at Wilfred Laurier University, Canada and the University of Pavia, Italy. Outside of work, Sabrina is actively involved in the non profit arena and sites on the G(irls)-20 committee (www.girlsandwomen.com). She has published on various topics from profile pieces to Canada and Globalization. Follow Sabrina on Twitter


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Gavin McGarry, President, Jumpwire Media

Before founding Jumpwire Media in 2009 Gavin worked for online video start up Joost and was the Head of Cross Platform Business Development at global television production company Endemol.

Gavin has a been working in media space for over 15 years. His past experience includes positions at major television networks as well as owning and operating a television production company and a boutique advertising agency. His company created some of the first cross media TV content and worked with major networks including NBC, Discovery, CTV, and Global Television. The full service ad agency serviced two national clients and explored integrating brands into television and online properties. In 2004 he moved from his native Canada to the UK to better understand the rapidly emerging mobile phone space. Through his position at Endemol he worked closely with the UK’s largest mobile operator O2 and helped develop leading edge content for multiple platform release. In 2007 he moved into the web video arena with Joost. He has spent time in Japan, Africa, Europe and China exploring and understanding the global digital media content market place. He is invited to speak at industry conferences on a regular basis including Banff World Television Festival, MIPCOM, LATVfest.


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Siobhan O’Flynn, PhD, Transmedia Consultant, Narrative Now

Siobhan O’Flynn advises on the design of digital narratives: transmedia, crossmedia, physical installations, interactive films & recently an interactive graphic novel. She has taught Digital Storytelling at the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab since 2001, and has mentored in the Digital Development Lab (CBC/BC Film/ New Media BC) multiple times and in the Melting Silos Program for the Development of Transmedia Content (NFB/SFU Praxis). In 2006/07 she was the interactive narrative design consultant on Late Fragment, a feature film/dvd that premiered at Cannes. She has advised on over interactive 65 digital works, many of which have gone on to win awards in Canada & abroad and is current advisor on a number of interactive & transmedia projects. Siobhan covers all things digital narrative on her blog, 1001tales.posterous.com and on twitter @Sioflynn.


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Steve Pratt, Director CBC Radio 3, CBC Radio 3

Steve Pratt is the Director of Digital Music & CBC Radio 3, a multi-platform unit of Canada’s public broadcaster that focuses on emerging Canadian music. Radio 3 creates a variety of audio and video podcasts, a Webby-nominated online radio station, a website filled with on-demand content, and Sirius satellite channel 86, all of which are powered by user-generated content uploaded by independent Canadian musicians. cbcradio3.com provides musicians with the tools they need to promote themselves and gives users the tools they need to discover and share the best in new Canadian music around the world. The result has been a public broadcasting success story built on a unique partnership between CBC Radio 3, artists and audiences. Prior to CBC, Steve has worked with MuchMusic, Citytv, CTV, YTV, and AOL Canada.


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Chris Van Noy, Chief Strategist, Akamai

Chris Van Noy is a media executive whose expertise in strategy and operations spans online, mobile, emerging technologies and traditional media. In his 12 year career he has worked for media and technology companies such as NBC Universal, Hulu, ESPN, ABCNews, Microsoft, 24/7 Real Media and Disney. Previously he was a Vice President of Distribution at NBC Universal and a member of the Hulu launch team. He is currently Akamai’s Chief Strategist for Digital Media.


Michael Schmalz

Michael Schmalz, President, Digital Extremes Ltd.

Michael Schmalz is the president of Digital Extremes Ltd., a London, Ontario based company software developer for Xbox360, Playstation3 and PC. Digital Extremes is a pioneer in the videogame industry having worked on some of industries most popular first person action franchises including BioShock and Unreal. Michael has been responsible for various business development activities including working with government and other game industry leaders to develop programs to help promote the video game industry and helping the company manage its growth and internal transformation to a “next-gen” company. In 2010, Digital Extremes was named as one of the top 10 companies to work for in Canada by the National Post and one of Canada’s top employers for young people by Maclean’s Magazine.

Michael is also one of the founders of DIGLondon, an annual videogame conference in London, Ontario focused on connecting post-secondary school students interested game develop careers with videogame professionals. He is also a co-founder of the Achimota Centre for Children with Autism, a charitable organization that provides specialized treatment for autistic children. Michael has a MA in media studies and a MESc in engineering science from the University of Western Ontario and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University. He is a Certified Management Accountant, a Chartered Director and a Licensed Professional Engineer. He is a member of the Game Developers Association of Ontario, the Independent Game Developers Association and is a Director for Interactive Ontario and Emerging Leaders.


Pete Watson

Pete Watson, Senior Business Development Manager : Consumer Partners, Research In Motion Limited (RIM) / BlackBerry

Pete spent his formative years throughout the music business: as a touring/recording musician, producer, designer, and even retail music store manger; Pete made a career move and joined Universal Music full-time in the mid 1990s and had an opportunity to take a pioneering role in their new media and technology development.

In early 2007, with RIM expanding its BlackBerry line of industry leading smartphones to appeal to consumers as well as business and enterprise users, Pete was brought into the BlackBerry Global Alliances team as team lead for consumer partner business development. He has since successfully established strong partnerships and launched applications with content and consumer leaders such as: Pandora, Slacker, Shazam, Clear Channel, The New York Times, CNN/Turner, NBC Universal, FOX, MTV, BBC, ESPN, MLB, TiVo, SlingBox and many more; Pete has transitioned his humble musician beginnings into an active role that is helping to shape the way consumers will interact with their mobile devices from one of the leading brands in the world.

Pete is also an avid outdoor enthusiast enjoying cycling, kayaking, hiking, photography and time with his family. He also holds a BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Western Ontario.

For more information or to contact Pete directly please email him at: pwatson@rim.com