Canada’s Entrepreneur

Jenelle Sobey is motivated to build a sustainable, competitive and resilient world and believes the tech sector enables and scales those solution to achieve that.

Jenelle is a co-founder and CEO at RIDDL, a tool that tracks, manages and measures ESGs, impact investments and quantifies returns.

Partner and former Managing Partner of Code + Mortar (norex.ca), an interactive web and invention firm, globally recognized by the Webby’s (the Oscars of the web). Code + Mortar was acquired by Revolve Marketing in 2020.

In 2017, Jenelle was recognized as the National Emerging Leader in ICT, and was awarded St Francis Xavier University’s Young Alumna of the Year (2017). Jenelle received Digital Nova Scotia’s Power IT Up Next generation Award (2016), was recognized as one of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce’s Change Agents of the Year (2015). She has been recognized as one of 21 emerging leaders in New Brunswick by 21inc (2013) and one of 20 in Atlantic Canada by 4Front (2014).

Jenelle holds a Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation, University of Waterloo (2014), Masters of Arts in Political Science, University of New Brunswick (2011), Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, St Francis Xavier University (2008).

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Two decades ago, MarbleMedia forged into the scripted television space, when there was a plethora of Canadian content being produced and acquired, with grants accessible to help further produce and sell Canadian content.

"What we learned early on, and it's a simple business practice, but is really to surround ourselves with people that are smarter than us in certain areas." Mark Bishop.

"There's such a rich a personal fulfillment and richness and being able to do what you want to do for a living." Matt Hornburg.

Mark Bishop and Matt Hornburg, Co-CEO's of MarbleMedia started up twenty years ago. Now, with Canadian TV deals being a fraction of what they used to be. Marblemedia has had to pivot and had been onboarding international partners in order to get their content made. In this shift, they have also expanded their repertoire of productions and have quickly become masters of unscripted television content, with global smash hits like Netflix’s glass blowing competition Blown Away, and restaurant makeover TV series, Restaurants on the Edge.

Matt Hornburg is Co-CEO/ Partner and Executive Producer at MarbleMedia. In addition to the strategic direction across the company, Matt leads creative development and production for the company’s original TV and Interactive divisions, including its most recent push into primetime with the launch of new scripted and unscripted division,

Mark Bishop is Co-CEO and Partner at MarbleMedia. An accomplished entrepreneur, brand-builder and trusted media industry advocate, Mark, alongside co-founder Matt Hornburg, has grown MarbleMedia into one of Canada’s leading independent production, distribution and digital media companies.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Zarina Chopra is a Tao Soul Healer and Transformational Coach for rising female leaders who are ready to clear their karma, connect to the power of their Soul, and manifest like a Queen. As a certified Tao practitioner with the Tao Academy, and certified Theta Healer, Reiki Practitioner & Kambo Practitioner. Zarina combines her intuitive spiritual mentoring with her years of energy work and esoteric studies to provide a full spectrum of healing, transformation and manifesting mastery to her clients. Zarina is the founder and curator of the 6-month immersion program "Quantum Queen Rising". She spends her time mostly enjoying nature, playing games with her family and beloved partner, and is the lover of all things sparkly!

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Nabeil Alazzam, is CEO and founder of Forma.ai, a Toronto-based company striving to solve the massively under-appreciated pain point of sales-based compensation. Currently the systems for calculating and awarding sales-based compensation are clunky, unwieldy and often manual, creating a lot of work for operations teams and sales professionals. Nabeil identified that automation could solve this problem, and built a system (aka Forma.ai) that is able to take the many unique compensation problems that sales organizations face and create unified solutions that save time, money, and mental health for their customers.

Nabeil can speak to the above and more on the podcast Building a solution that works: How Forma.ai has experienced over 2000% revenue growth since 2016. The overlooked market of sales compensation and how Forma.ai is streamlining the process for over $1.5 billion commissions per year.

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Shone Anstey brings 20 years of experience in building complex technologies and software within search, analytics, and data centre operations. Engaged with cryptocurrency since 2012, Shone has acted as technology lead for an industrial Bitcoin mine and Bitcoin mining pool, and is a Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator. Shone is the CEO and Co-founder of LQwD, the first publicly traded, pure play, purpose-built bitcoin company that’s focused on solutions that power the growth of the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

In this podcast, we highlight three key ideas:

1. Why Bitcoin is like the ‘reserve currency’ of cryptocurrencies

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Melanie Chin is the Brand & Community Manager for CIBC SQUARE, Toronto’s new international standard of community, providing an elevated environment for all to thrive through work, wellness and sustainability. Chin leads the marketing, communications, branding and programming direction for the development. Prior to joining Hines and the CIBC SQUARE team, Chin worked at Midway in Houston, TX, a real estate investment, development and management firm, as a Senior Marketing Coordinator managing the marketing programs for multiple developments. Throughout the years, Chin has worked with a number of global brands such as Kia, Nike, the NFL, and the Houston Rockets to create unique experiences. Melanie holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Serese Selanders’ journey as a tech entrepreneur has been anything but typical. Serese spent 20 years in the financial services industry, the majority of those years as a senior executive. However, life threw her a curveball when her parents went through major health challenges. Despite having no technical background, she invented ORA, an innovative, wearable personal safety alert device. Two years ago, Serese launched her second company, SolusGuard. SolusGuard helps employers protect employees who work alone or in dangerous situations with a suite of hardware and software safety solutions. Listen in to find out how SolusGuard helps organizations keep their employees safe and the unconventional path Serese took to get here.

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David Alston is a repeat tech and marketing startup entrepreneur, founder and coach at Marketswell Solutions’ CMO Accelerator program, a former volunteer Entrepreneur in Residence for the New Brunswick Government, cofounder of Brilliant Labs, an advisor to many startups in the Atlantic region, Radian6's former CMO and Salesforce.com's former Marketing Cloud Chief Adoption Officer.

David received KIRA Award's Industry Champion for 2015, a Forbes top 50 CMO in social media, co-winner of a 2014 EY Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Atlantic Canada, 2015 winner of Entrepreneur of the Year and co-winner of Enterprise Promotion for the Atlantic Region from Startup Canada and the winner of the Greater Saint John Community Foundation’s 2018 Community Service Award.

David is the past co-chair of LivingSJ, a movement to support and create a path for all those living in poverty in his home city, a member of BCAPI and a former board member with his regional United Way.

David currently sits as an independent director on the board of Envision Saint John: The Regional Development Agency, as a commissioner on the board of Saint John Energy, and as an advisor on Venture for Canada's national advisory board.

David has been involved with two social impact documentaries, Code Kids, which followed the journey to get coding back in the classroom, and The Millennial Dream, a documentary questioning whether the values of "The American Dream" have now been replaced by those more aligned with the passions of the Millennial generation.

David has been a mentor at NomadicMentors.com where he has keynoted and advised close to 50 startups in countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece.

David, his wife, Mary-Gwen, and team also own and run a treetop aerial adventure park in Dominion Park called TimberTop Adventures, one of the largest of its kind in Canada and which is currently the number one ranked aerial adventure park in Canada on TripAdvisor. Their latest adventure is the creation of Climb 1884, soon to be NB’s newest and largest indoor rock climbing gym built inside an historic church erected in 1884 with heights up to 42 feet.

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Faye Pang is the Canada Country Manager for Xero, the global small business platform with more than 2.7 million subscribers worldwide that's dedicated to making business beautiful. Faye brings nearly 15 years of experience building businesses from the ground up. Prior to joining Xero, Faye helped launch Uber Freight into the Canadian market. She also helped launch the Uber Eats app in Toronto in December 2015, scaling the business from 80 restaurants on launch day to 20,000 partners by the end of her tenure.

As a leader, Faye prioritizes growth above all else, and practices authenticity, transparency, and empathy in the way she manages her team. She strongly believes that we all have a set of values that we have to live by at all times (rather than keeping our work and personal lives separate), and keeps this consideration top-of-mind when championing her team’s growth, both personally and professionally. She is passionate about creating systems that lift women up, while tackling the hierarchical barriers that have disproportionately affected women in the workplace.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Greg Hemmings is an entrepreneur/filmmaker out of Saint John New Brunswick. His film companies, Hemmings House and Hemmings Films are certified B Corps and have focused their attention on making positive social and environmental change through film storytelling. Their latest TV series is called Race Against The Tide and is currently airing on CBC Thursday nights at 8pm.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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