08.27
There’s no question that Canada has contributed in many ways to the development of digital media around the world. From the Mountainview offices of Google to the Tokyo offices of Yahoo you can find Canadians embedded in Digital Media roles around the planet.
We should take pride in the people that have been incubated in the worlds most wired major nation and create an opportunity to showcase for ourselves and the world the incredible digital talent pool we have amongst our proportional minor population.
The Canadian Digital Power 20 is a list of the most influential Canadian digital leaders who, over the last decade or more have built and shaped this industry and continue to contribute as it hits the main stream.
The basic (but not limiting) criteria for this list are:
- They have been involved in Digital Marketing for at least a decade
- They have had or currently hold a significant digital marketing leadership role (Director or better)
- They have or continue to contribute to the industry beyond their professional obligations (Speaker, educator, mentor, ect)
Below are the current nominations. We will close the 2009 list on November 15. At that point a small and biased selected group of know it all will gather, evaluate and try to filter the list down to 20.
Cheers.
Possible suggestions:
Mitch Joel – Obviously
Jonathan Lister – Google Canada
Louise Clements – Facebook Canada
Owen Sagness – Microsoft Canada
Graham Moysey – CanWest Digital
Patrick Lauzon – Canoe.ca/Quebecore Digital
Peter Vas – M2 Universal
Dawna Henderson – Henderson Bas
Tomer Strolight – Torstar Digital
Simon Jennings – Olive Media
Jason McCann – Taxi
Garry Anderson – Sympatico
Gary Fearnell – Ciniplex
Paula Gignac – IAB
Andrew Goodman – SES/PageZero
Gord Hotchkiss – Enquiro
John Albright – JLA Ventures
Robert Yu – Sony.ca
…send me more
A different angle:
Austin Hill – Akoha
David Crow – Microsoft
others I’m not thinking of right now.
Awesome…keep em coming, I’ll build a list and update it once a week up until November.
Six more suggestions came in for the list today:
- David Ford – Perfectio
- Prof. Michael Geist – UofO CIPPIC
- Amber MacArthur – Net@Night Podcast
- Don Tapscott – nGenera – Duhhh! Sorry I missed that one
- Rahaf Harfoush – Digital Strategist/ Author – Part of the Obama digital team
- Will Pate – Digital strategist, venture capitalist and co-host of commandN.
I’ll forget a bunch of people but here are some suggestions from Quebec:
Sylvain Carle, Praized Media
Claude Malaison, EmergenceWeb
Benoit Descary, http://descary.com/
Michelle Blanc, Consultant
Nicolas Gaudreau, Yellow Pages Group
Evan Prodromou, Identi.ca
Martin Aubut, Palm
Martin Lessard, consultant
Bruno Boutot, consultant
Michel Dumais, journalist
Bruno Guglielminetti, Radio-Canada
Carl-Frédéric De Celles, ix Media
Mario Asselin, Opossum
Sebastien Provencher, Praized Media
Julien Smith, Writer, Podcaster
Philippe Martin, La Fabrique de Blog
Felipe Coimbra, TwtApps
John Stokes, VC
Benjamin Yoskovitz, Standoutjobs
Dominique-Sébastien Forest, Canoe
Guillaume Bouchard, NVI
Hugh McGuire, Librivox, BookOven
Patrick Tanguay, Station C
Philippe Le Roux, Pheromone
Adele McAlear, McAlear Marketing
This was Twittered today – more adds for your list (including me – but hey, that’s how I found out about it!)
@thornley
@davefleet
@maggiefox
@saulcolt
@seanmoffitt
@dannybrown
@wilhelmus
@acoupleofchicks
Tweeted? Did I conjugate that verb right?
It may not be in the Oxford, but by all lingusitic standards it seems to work so you should go with it.
My vote goes to digital strategy educators A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing.
Fascinating process, actually, and a pretty strong initial list!
You might even just turn it into a sort of TechCrunch-ish directory.
The name that looks missing to me is Jordan Banks, who as far as I can tell is the only living VC investor in the digital space in Canada.
Rick Segal also comes to mind – not sure what he’s doing post-JLA (hopefully I’ll find out when I see him later this week).
Probably also should include Butch Langlois, who’s been at the head of more than a couple of funded enterprises, now Zoocasa at Rogers.
And Stuart MacDonald, who does TripHarbor (and MESH).
And for straight cash you’re probably neglecting Geoff Rotstein, who runs CX, and thru the Incentaclick acquisition became probably THE most profitable online advertising player in Canada.
Lord, there are a lot, aren’t there?
Jamie MacDonald is probably the lowest-profile genius missing from the list, but I’m not sure if you’re going for “cool factor” (not Jamie) or raw intelligence (definitely Jamie).
And the Glimmer Twins, Salim Teja and Jonathan Erlich, are missing.
Hell, a dozen more names and you can just open up shop as the leading headhunter in the space.
Speaking of which, you’re missing Bruce Powell and Ari Aronson.
Oh, and Roger Chabra at GrowthWorks – somehow managing to still invest and believe in the space thru all this.
Brilliant and comprehensive Mr. Bartus. I am thinking, based on some advice late last week , of splitting the list into a Power 20 and Innovator 20. It’s been difficult to come up with a single criteria that captures the big names and gives credit to some of the great minds that are new to the game. So I might cave this week and create two lists that are easier for people to wrap their heads around.
My one-liner:
Web entrepreneur and internationally renowned online local media expert.
Martin Aubut’s one liner: Digital strategist and Innovator, PALM+HAVAS Agency