Speakers

Adrian Tobey

In an age where accomplishing great tasks should be getting easier, many small business owners are finding it is only getting more difficult as technology surges ahead of them. I’m taking my 10 years of marketing and 5 years of WordPress development experience to create new tools for the small businesses of today so that they can grow their businesses quickly without feeling as if they have to learn a whole new language.

Andrea Zoellner

Andrea is the Chief Content Creator at SiteGround and the lead organizer for WordCamp Montreal. She trained as a broadcast journalist and worked in corporate communications before trading it for a career in tech. Now she spends her days developing brand messaging, copy editing and blogging. When she’s not at home in Montreal, she’s sampling the digital nomad life and documenting her adventures on her travel blog.

Anthony Burchell

Anthony is a WordPress Innovation Developer at WP Engine and a core contributor to the Gutenberg Project. He spends his free time thinking of new and interesting ways to utilize WordPress. He is also a musician and game dev hobbyist aiming to mix the two mediums in a virtual reality music game.

Brian Rotsztein

Since 1997, Brian has worked with clients of all sizes on their websites and Internet presence, including online marketing strategies, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, web design, social media, and conversion tactics. His popular book, Content Marketing Ideas, is one of the top guides to success with content marketing for businesses and bloggers. Brian balances his commitments between speaking at international conferences with time as CEO of Uniseo, President of the Canadian Internet Marketing Association, Founder of WordPress support and maintenance brand WP Phone Support, Head of RedstoneX, Editor-in-chief of Citynet Magazine, and Photographer at Redstone Photography, among other brand ventures. Brian also holds two Master’s degrees and has taught at McGill University and Boston College. Visit www.rotsztein.com and connect with him on Instagram and Twitter: @brianrotsztein.

Christie Witt

Christie recently audited the business processes surrounding the migration of 1,300 websites from HTML to WordPress. She specializes in corporate brand implementation across both print and digital platforms. Christie graduated from the Graphic Design course at Algonquin College, specializing in web/interactive design and motion graphics. Her hobbies are fine arts, traveling, and being a CSS whiz.

Doug Sheppard

Doug is a full stack developer who’s been building web applications for more than twenty years. His work has powered sites ranging from government information portals to domain name services, with a stop along the way to build a custom CMS for a webcomic. Today he is part of the team at BiblioCommons, a Toronto-based company that builds online services for public libraries.

Jacques Surveyer

“For the past 20 years Web Development and Design has been an active business interest. In 2007, I tried 3 CMS systems – Drupal, Gallery and WordPress for my early websites Takethe5th, ThePhotoFinishes, and TheOpenSourcery.

Now all three are WordPress websites and I am trying to determine if WordPress is the Web’s Operating System. It is currently 31% there. The questions are what does it take to be the Web’s Operating System and what level of usage [60% of all websites worldwide??] makes WordPress the Web Operating System. I am interested in exploring these ideas while doing Web Design and Development.”

Jack is one of this WordCamp’s organizers.

Jesse Emmanuel (Jem) Rosario

Jem is a User Experience designer building insightful, creative and usable digital experiences. WordPress has been the backbone of his UX career. He has learned from his UX work the virtue of planning website builds far ahead and that user-centered design facilitates trust in an increasingly crowded market. WordPress clients include the Canadian Jewish News, the Council for Ontario Directors of Education and various non-profit groups and individuals.

Juan Pablo Gomez

NYC based web designer. Built my first table-based site in 2004. Currently designing things for FC Harlem and New York City FC. UX Design Mentor at Bloc.io.

Mike Demo

Former MousePlanet MouseStation Podcast co-host Mike “Demo” Demopoulos is a lover of open source first, specific tools later. Because of this, he speaks at Ignite! conferences, Meetups, WordCamps, Joomla! events and more. Mike volunteers with The Joomla! Project as the treasurer of Open Source Matters (the not for profit organization for Joomla!) as well as serving on the Joomla! board. Mike Demopoulos has spoken on various open source topics including WordPress and Joomla! in addition to marketing related talks which have included A/B testing content.

Before coming to BoldGrid as a community evangelist, Mike spent years building a strong client base in the financial and insurance industries. He believes in sharing his business acumen and marketing insight as it fits within his main goal of building community.

When he’s not spending time with his wife Kayla, you may find Demo at a Disney Theme park, collecting artwork, or hanging out with his dog B’Elanna. Be sure to say hi to Mike Demopoulos on Twitter at @MPMike.

Rebeca Godin

Rebeca has been a WordPress developer for a little over 3 years. In that time, she realized that just creating websites for her clients was not good enough to help them with their business goals. She recently founded Geeky Chick Labs, a digital marketing agency that turns WordPress websites into digital hubs. Then we connect social media and other digital marketing resources to create powerful online presences for their clients. The main goal of these hubs is to get business owners back to doing their thing—running their businesses. When not helping clients grow their businesses, Rebeca loves to cook, read, play games—video and table top—hangout with her family and animals and, most importantly, cheering for her son and his hockey team.

Robin Macrae

Robin works with enterprises, SMBs and entrepreneurs to transform their businesses with websites and SaaS applications on the WordPress and other platforms. He has a broad business and technical background that combines skills and expertise in strategy, content development, information architecture, SEO and frontend development.

Active in the WordPress community and the WPTO for a decade, he has been an organizer in several WordCamps and a speaker in a variety of technical, business, marketing and legal conferences and workshops. His professional credentials include a BA, MBA and JD and he lives in Toronto. Workspacebuilders.com@Robin_Macrae, LinkedIn.

Robin is the Speaker Wrangler in WordCamp parlance and responsible for curating WordCamp Toronto 2018‘s content. That role included the development of the theme and the selection and scheduling of speakers.

Ryan Meghdies

Ryan is a frequent academic and professional speaker and is thrilled when he helps people understand difficult to grasp concepts. He brings entrepreneurial energy and enthusiasm to his presentations, a natural extension to his passion for digital innovation. His educational background is computer engineering—MASc, BEng—and has worked in the digital space for over a decade as a developer and internet marketing expert. He has managed web design and marketing projects for global enterprise brands as well as small business. In 2014, he launched Tastic Marketing, a boutique agency that has built a reputation based on partnering with client businesses and driving exceptional growth with lead generation campaigns and techniques. The agency crafts premium WordPress websites and its web design process ensures it consistently generates results for its clients. Clients love its WordPress websites because it turns business objectives into engaging designs and produces the marketing results they need.

Ryan Moore

Ryan is the co-founder of Uncanny Owl, a Toronto-based WordPress agency. In building eLearning and automation solutions that are used on over 10,000 WordPress sites, Ryan has unique insights into the challenges faced when building complex WordPress sites.

Sandy Feldman

Sandy is a web geek interested in, and experienced with, web accessibility. She has built sites for disability-related organizations. These sites work for the disabled stakeholders and are AODA compliant. Working as part of a team at Inclusive Media and Design , she has conducted accessibility audits and provided coaching to developers and users.

Sandy Feldman | LinkedIn

Thiago Loureiro

Thiago Loureiro is a freelance full stack developer based in Toronto. He’s been hacking and developing for WordPress since 2010. He’s worked on a number of marketing campaigns for high profile clients and made a core commit in version 4.6.

Troy Fawkes

Troy has managed and developed just under a hundred personal and client WordPress websites over 8 years. He runs a 7 person digital marketing agency, Delta Growth, that conducts SEO, paid ads, email marketing and conversion rate optimization campaigns on all types of sites, the majority of which are WordPress. Maple Online Doctors is a good digital marketing case study. Started with 3 founders, it’s now a 20+ person team supported both by positive revenue growth and millions in investments. They’ve helped their clients to grow across all major digital marketing channels. Their recently redeveloped website reflects their growth and their commitment to WordPress.