Professional Speaking

My (intentional) speaking career began during my university career — where I led the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University’s debate team to the podium for three consecutive years in central Canada’s competitive debate circuit, while also competing internally within Ryerson, being named the University’s top speaker in 2012. Leveraging this momentum, I founded the Ryerson Speech & Debate Association and, within it, the PictureWords presentation training program — which I eventually evolved into a public speaking and professional communications consultancy.

In 2016, I published my guide to public speaking and professional presentation — present/IMPACT: The Speaker’s Guide — and, to date, I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours coaching business professionals, nonprofits, politicians, post-secondary students, and campaign advocates in the art of highly-effective speaking and communication in all contexts, from 1-on-1 conversations to talks to large audiences.

Currently, my focus is on talks with unique impact in the marketing and fundraising sector, covering everything from ethical marketing content involving vulnerable populations to social media & e-philanthropy, to marketing in the mental health space in a way that moves the conversation forward.

You can check out a few of my past talks below! ⬇

speaking on: Ethical marketing & fundraising

This talk took place at the world’s 3rd-largest fundraising conference — AFP Congress — in 2018, and was in collaboration with Ronald McDonald House Charities, Toronto. Since 2018, I’ve gone on to deliver this talk nationally and internationally through 2019, 2020, and 2021, in recent partnership with Médecins Sans Frontière (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders Canada.

interviewing: 3 of the world’s top travel influencers

This independent project, in collaboration with LAPSE Productions, featured three of the world's top travel influencers — Deb and Dave of The Planet D, Nora Dunn of The Professional Hobo, and Christopher Mitchell of travelingmitch — in an interview setting, talking talk travel tips, the evolution of travel blogging, and advice on how new bloggers and aspiring travel influencers can get started.

speaking on: Marketing storytelling in digital

This talk took place at the annual philanthropy conference at AFP South Eastern Ontario in 2019. My focus, here, was on building highly effective digital narratives in order to drive forward fundraising goals — a particularly relevant topic with the (recently even more accelerated) trend in consumers migrating from traditional channels to transact (and donate) more frequently online.