Shelley is a Creative Director with over 18 years of experience in the design industry. As the Senior Director of Creative, Content and Social for Shoppers Drug Mart, she leads an internal team of art directors, graphic designers, production artists, copywriters, social media specialists and content leads. Shelley is responsible for the Shoppers Drug Mart brand across all customer touch points and engagement platforms. Over the course of Shelley's career, she has worked with many of Canada's leading ad agencies and developed strong connections within the design community.

 

 

 

Donna is an innovative design leader with over 13 years of experience building and transforming ideas into brand experiences. She has a proven knowledge of brand, creative strategy, communication and management with an emphasis on client service excellence. At Deloitte, she works with a talented team of designers based all over Canada and overseas. She has been an in-house designer since she graduated from York University/Sheridan College Program in Design where she received her Bachelor of design with Honours. You will always see her with a smile on her face. When she isn’t designing, she can be found building robots with her son, playing hide and go seek or singing very loudly and out of tune in her car.

Chris Govias is a Canadian designer who has spent the past decade in London, UK. He's worked with startups, charities, and Fortune 500 companies including Expedia, where he was a Design Lead. As Head of Design for the Ministry of Justice UK, he was on the forefront of delivering transformative, user-centred government services. He returned to Canada to become the first Chief of Design with the Canadian Digital Service, a new initiative from the Government of Canada to deliver simple, easy to use services for everyone in Canada. 

 

Grace has two decades of experience working with companies to leverage the power of design, bringing meaningful products and services to market and finding the intersection between what matters to people and how technology can help deliver it. Prior to Carrot, Grace spent 12 years at global innovation consultancy IDEO where she co-led the Food and Beverage practice and served as Executive Director of the Design for Health practice. In these roles, Grace led multi-disciplinary teams and collaborated with startups, non-profit organizations and Fortune 500 companies like Samsung, NASA, AARP, and ConAgra, helping them innovate through rapid prototyping and insight-driven design. She holds multiple patents and was awarded a Fast Company Innovation By Design Award for her work on the patient and employee experience for Planned Parenthood. Grace holds BSc degrees in mechanical engineering and product design from Stanford University.

Gev is an Israeli-born designer who has lived in Germany and China. Educated in design, he began his career in the US. His design philosophy draws from a lifetime of travel and internal exploration and his upbringing in a family of visual artists. Now based in Toronto, Gev loves working with great people to solve tough problems. He believes that technology and design have propelled some of the most significant forces for good in the world, from branding to product he has led large and small teams, and made cool things for some companies and startups you might have heard of, like Drop, Wealthsimple, BrainStation and Konrad Group.

Cris is a Toronto-based creative director who specializes in in-house design development and management. While working for the LCBO, she oversaw a multi-disciplinary team of graphic designers, photographers and production artists. Under her direction, the team created retail promotional campaigns for in-store and online channels, events graphics, packaging design and publications. In 2018, Cris joined the Ontario Cannabis Store as Creative Lead to head up the brand and visual design portfolio. Cris holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Design from the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Vishu leads the in-house Creative Studio at the University of Calgary. This award-winning team has expertise in branding, design, art direction and project management, and is a trusted partner for marketing initiatives on campus. Vishu has evolved the thinking at the university to build brand awareness, enhance creative collaboration and foster a culture of openness and sharing. She is passionate about developing processes, systems and culture that enable meaningful brand experiences and interaction. She has worked in diverse industries including print production, environmental design and editorial design prior to joining the university in 2012.

Jamie has led large-scale design efforts at Adobe for over 13 years, spearheading the company’s development of next-generation design tools through its transformation to a cloud-based software leader. Her experience goes beyond restructuring and redesigning applications, but to redefining Adobe’s business as well. In her role, Jamie aims to inspire the next wave of design leaders, encouraging her teams to push boundaries and develop skills that impact all aspects of business strategy and product creation. Jamie has championed Diversity and Inclusion initiatives at Adobe, and has a particular interest in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Immersive Experiences as they relate to design.

Amanda has close to 20 years of experience in the in-house design industry. She manages IG Wealth Management's in-house design team and production team and works closely with a highly talented, cross-disciplinary marketing team. Amanda serves on the Board of the GDC, Manitoba Chapter (Graphic Designers of Canada), working as their Events Chair. On a personal note, she loves to spend time with her husband Brad and their twin 5-year-old daughters.

Ian has over 20 years of experience in creative design. Starting his career in Toronto working on national and international print campaigns, Ian returned to his northwestern Ontario roots, producing materials for the tourism industry and establishing his own design business, Kuda Media. For the past nine years, Ian has been producing award-winning work at Confederation College, also teaching in the Interactive Media Development program to inspire the designers of tomorrow. Bringing a strategic, design-thinking approach to all of his projects, Ian focuses on achieving exceptional outcomes and influences the creative direction of Confederation’s local, provincial and international campaigns.

A customer and UX influencer, Evan started a sole proprietorship in college, working with international fashion brands like Gucci and Chanel. He then expanded his reach designing eCommerce and research experiences for Motorola and Google. Being an empathetic problem solver (and a true gearhead hobbyist) has made Evan a go-to for cracking complex problems for further brands like Microsoft, American Express, Fidelity and more. As Director of Experience Design, he works with globally distributed teams on the enhancement user and customer experience executions. He co-owns multiple technology patents comprising Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and innovative mobile app thinking. Though a dedicated family man, he still finds time to mentor designers around the world, consults on college design programs and reviews professional portfolios. He believes life is an experience in which you never stop learning.

Jessica Vitale is director of graphic design at FORREC, a global multidisciplinary design firm that specializes in entertainment design. She’s an award-winning designer whose conceptual thinking, creativity and design experience leads FORREC’s graphic design work in branding and brand activation, signage and wayfinding strategies, exhibit design, and other experiential graphics. Her user-centric design approach is foundational to the work Jessica and her team produce for major brands including Nickelodeon, LEGOLAND and Universal. Jessica brings a great depth of experience to projects through her diverse experience at several design firms including her most recent role as National Graphic Design Manager at DIALOG. In this role, she led a team that worked on redefining DIALOG’s brand identity and won an RGD InHouse Design Award in the process. She supported marketing efforts, as well as designed environmental graphics for corporate office environments, mixed use and retail. Prior to DIALOG, Jessica designed for several boutique graphic design studios in Toronto, working with many non-profit organizations. Jessica holds a Bachelor of Design from OCADU.  

Patrick is an experienced Senior Graphic Designer with a demonstrated history of working in the global management consulting industry. For most of his career, he has provided design, consultation, and project management services to client teams using a variety of creative methods. Examples include corporate presentation, publication, and proposal design, and print, web, and user-interface design. Patrick is currently designing for the McKinsey Global Institute, overseeing the implementation of a new visual identity. 

 

Pat’s passion for thoughtful design, arresting imagery and powerful story-telling has taken him from photography, to art direction, to creative direction at lululemon. From a young age, his influences ranged from Dieter Rams, Aaron Draplin and Peter Saville, to Fred Mortagne, Jeff Curtes and Spike Jonze. Working in his varied industry roles, he has affirmed his love for not just the creative product, but the creative process. Leading a team of more than 50 creatives, with oversight of brand and product campaigns, Pat lives and breathes the lululemon people-first philosophy. Originally from Ontario, he’s now firmly Pacific Northwest, and when not in the office you’ll find him cycling, surfing, camping, making music and hanging with wife and son.