Who are the people behind mesh?

Mark Evans Principal, ME Consulting

Mark is a digital marketing and social media strategist who works with startups and fast-growing companies looking to improve how they are using the Web to meet their business goals. At the core of what Mark does is create compelling stories that tell the world what you do and why they should be interested. These stories are then delivered in places that will resonate and engage – a Web site, social media services, corporate videos, marketing collateral, or pitches to media/bloggers. Before starting his own business, Mark was a technology reporter with the National Post, Globe & Mail and Bloomberg News. He also worked with four startups – Blanketware, b5media, PlanetEye and Sysomos.

Mark writes several blogs, including Mark Evans Tech and Twitterrati, as well as a regular column for the Globe & Mail. When not working, Mark stays busy with family and playing hockey.

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Rob Hyndman business lawyer, Hyndman | Law

Rob is a Toronto technology business lawyer – his clients are technology companies and their customers. Rob’s firm is Hyndman | Law, a boutique law practice that provides legal counsel to technology businesses on a wide variety of business law needs. He’s an unabashed life-long geek who got his start more than 30 years ago as the vice-president of a two-member computer club in high school. Rob is passionate about helping grow the Toronto Web community and evangelizing the opportunities for connection, sharing and inspiration that the Web has given us.

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Mathew Ingram Senior Writer, GigaOm.com

Mathew is a senior writer with GigaOm, one of the leading technology blog networks. Prior to 2010, He was a journalist with The Globe and Mail, where he wrote a column and a blog about technology both for the newspaper and the website. In 2008, Mathew became the Globe’s first online “communities editor,” a job that involved thinking about all the ways in which the paper interacts with readers — blogs, comments, wikis, Facebook, Twitter, etc. — and developing new and better ways of doing that. He’s been working online for the Globe since the site was re-launched as a breaking news site in 2000, and been living and writing online since the early 1990s when a 9600-baud dial-up modem was the hot-rod of the Internet. He has a personal blog at mathewingram.com/work where he writes about Web 2.0 ideas and the intersection of the media and the Internet. Mathew thinks that the kind of interactivity and dialogue that blogs and other Web 2.0 tools provide is already having — and will continue to have — a profound effect on the media industry and many other industries, and that’s why he wanted to be part of this conference.

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Stuart MacDonald Chief Marketing Officer, FreshBooks.com

Stuart is your basic online business and marketing geek. He’s recently joined FreshBooks.com as CMO, where he is responsible for Marketing, Sales, Support and Revenue. It’s pretty great to be working with such an impressive team who are so committed to their users’ success. Previously, Stuart founded Tripharbor.com, the web’s first cruise vacation e-commerce and community site, and prior to that he brought Expedia to Canada as Founder of Expedia.ca. He went on to be Chief Marketing Officer of Expedia.com in Seattle, as well as running the Expedia.com Packages business. Stuart remains an independent business advisor and investor, with a focus on online and web-enabled businesses. His clients and investee companies range from online start-ups through to Canada’s largest media and telecommunications organizations. He;s a Dad, a husband and a proud Canadian who is passionate about what the Internet means for business and society. He is very proud to be part of the creating of mesh.

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Mike McDerment CEO, FreshBooks.com

Mike is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, planet earth’s leading online invoicing and bookkeeping service for small businesses. Back in 2003, Mike built FreshBooks for his design firm and scratched his own itch. Since launching in May 2004 (from his parents’ basement!), FreshBooks has touched over 2,500,000 lives, and now moves billions of dollars on behalf of hard working entrepreneurs in over 100 countries. Mike and his team pride themselves on delivering extraordinary customer experiences for people who love their work, and want to focus on it – instead of focusing on their paperwork.

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Sheri Moore Partner, Creative Director Moore Carlyle Consulting

Sheri is a Partner in Moore Carlyle Consulting, a meeting, events and destination management company in Toronto. Sheri has designed and managed events for corporate clients in the financial, tech and hospitality sectors for over 15 years. Sheri’s background in communication has formed her approach to event design and execution. With mesh, she can employ her not-so-inner-geek, while she offers a fresh approach to the event designs. Sheri meshes because she believes that mesh and its events create platforms for those interested and engaged in digital to share ideas and gain different perspectives.