Patrick McCaully

Vanquisher of Vanilla PR

The Best Idea Wins!

This is the personal and professional philosophy of Patrick McCaully, one of North America’s top news creators and founder of Pointman News Creation.

With a unbeatably high hit record of media coverage for his varied clients, Patrick is best known as the strategist behind some of North America’s most successful media-dominating PR pitches, including FlightNetwork.com’s infamous gas giveaways (for 50 cents a litre) and RateSupermarket.ca’s annual ‘Real Cost of Love’ survey that calculated the cash required to properly court a significant other (by the way its $43,800.08)

He wasn’t ‘chicken’ to help a whistleblower hold a standing room only press conference and blow the lid off of one of Canada’s biggest poultry consumer fraud cases. He famously (tried) to save democracy with the internationally news dominating Dump Trump Tie campaign and the Dump Donald Eh! campaign to write Trump a cheque to drop out of the election. He also cleverly created advisor breakup cards for a financial client to help passive Canadians get out of bad business relationships.

Thinking like a journalist is what sets Patrick apart. Having started his career in the television news industry, Patrick held editorial roles at CTV National News, City TV and the Global Television Network for eight years… and took thousands of bad pitches from other PR agencies.

At Global, Patrick held the position of assignment editor for over six years. In this job, Patrick was responsible for creating and approving ideas for news stories, determining story priority and assigning coverage of the news team. Only the best stories made it through.

Patrick began his public relations career at one of Toronto’s largest independent firms, where he worked as a consultant and account manager overseeing numerous clients in technology, real estate, consumer and restaurant sectors. Inclined to march to the beat of his own drum, Patrick quickly moved on to found his own public relations practice, Pointman News Creation.

Having seen his fair share of great and disastrous pitches during all those years at the news desk, Patrick understands from the inside out what makes an editor sit up and take notice.

Now with over 20 years communications experience, Patrick has launched and implemented PR campaigns for organizations ranging from sole proprietorships to Fortune 500 companies and media darlings like Casper Mattress and Samsonite.

Todd Green

PhD Associate Professor, Marketing, Brock University

Dan Lynch

Senior Technology Advisor - Spark Niagara

Dan Lynch was Special Advisor, LINC, Office of the Vice-President, Research at Brock University (2018 - 2020) and formerly founding Manager of BioLinc (2012-2018), Brock’s business and technology incubator. Dan brings a strong and career-long commitment to assisting SMEs and academic researchers, mentoring entrepreneurs, facilitating commercialization, and industry liaison.

Prior to joining Brock he served as the founding Industry Liaison Manager for Innovation York, York University; Dan was also the Vice President Commercialization and Chief Operating Officer of HTX, Ontario's Health Technology Exchange, a leading catalyst for accelerating the growth of Ontario’s medical and assistive technologies industry cluster; and for many years he was an Industrial Technology Advisor in the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program across Southern Ontario including more than five years at the University of Western Ontario.

He has worked to develop many innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystems both on and off campuses and with many innovative Ontario companies to assist in developing new entrepreneurs and technologies that resulted in new businesses and the commercialization of new products, services, processes, and markets.

ARSHI PATHAN

Director, Moonpool Consultants Pte. Ltd.

Arshi Pathan, based out of Singapore is passionate about relationships & technology in businesses. Prior to Moonpool Pte. Ltd. he has served in key Business Development & Enterprise-Sales roles at Cameron (Schlumberger co), and Norwegian offshore Drilling-Tech Startup TTS energy AS & in Asia, India & the Middle-east. Arshi is currently working on Offshore Engg-Design, Project Consulting business with Moonpool and a Startup company IndustrialAR.net. Introducing Remote - Augmented-Reality technology to energy-sector & other industries, leading AR adaptation in industrial space in Asia.

Working for more than a decade in Asia, providing expertise in establishing brand presence, sales, new technology introduction & new regional markets entry with significant business growth in territories like Singapore, India, Vietnam & China. Currently Arshi is the founder-Startup for personality focused recruitment app for Client-facing-jobs & Promotion of Remote - AR tech to oil & gas business in Asia.

Kevin Bourne

CEO and Creative Director

Toronto-native Kevin Bourne, also known as "KB The Boss" or simply "KB", is a Canadian arts and culture journalist, media personality, and branding and marketing strategist. As CEO and Creative Director of the PR, content marketing and branding firm SHIFTER Agency Inc., KB has worked with everyone from New Balance to CBC.

The former political staffer is quickly becoming a staple in Canada's cultural landscape as both a commentator and freelancer, writing and commenting on music, film/television and fashion. He has appeared nationally on CBC News Network and locally on CTV, CBC Radio, CityNews, and 580 CFRA and has been published in ByBlacks, the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Business Journal.

Doubling as editor-in-chief at SHIFTER magazine, Kevin has covered some of Canada's top red carpet events, from the Juno Awards to the Canadian Screen Awards and has interviewed everyone from Kevin Hart and "Fast and the Furious" star Tyrese Gibson to Orange Is The New Black star Dascha Polanco. He is also the former host of CBC Ottawa's digital series "In The Loop", a former music columnist on CBC Radio One, the co-producer of the SHIFTER x CBC mini-doc series "OT Rising" and is one of the hosts of CBC Music's national Polaris Prize radio series "The Ten".​

He is currently a board member at the Ottawa Film Office, part-time TV Broadcasting professor at Algonquin College, and was recently named to Ottawa Life Magazine's Best of Ottawa: Activists & Changemakers list.

ZHANG JIA LIN

Director, Inflo Health Sciences Pte. Ltd.

Ms. Zhang Jia Lin, Director, Inflo Health Sciences Pte Ltd, spent several years leading sales teams to provide direct sales, public and corporate practical workshop in accessing the Whole Brain for Problems Solving, Innovation & Creativity. As the Business Development Director she had handled products such health supplements, skin care products, 4-functions water systems and water related products. She is also Council Member at SMF (Singapore Manufacturing Federation) from many years.

Jia Lin, besides serving in business associations, was also involved as a member of the Marketing Institute of Singapore and Singapore Institute of Management, various Interest Groups, as well as in charitable projects, school alumni & Centre for Aids. As a pioneer member & Vice Chair in the Women Entrepreneur Chapter she witnessed the recognition and escalation of the status of successful women entrepreneurs in the annual Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award.