The Key Elements in a Successful Business

Date: June 23rd, 2009

We discussed:

1. Increasing your sales and customers
2. Superior customer service
3. The value of teamwork
4. The necessity of Branding
5. Quality Assurance & operations management
6. Performing internal and external audits 

Our panellists were:

Sheila Chutskoff:

Sheila grew up in the West Kootenays where she received a diploma in Management & Marketing from Selkirk College.She then ventured to Victoria where she received her Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Entrepreneurial Management.

After graduating from University, she started her career with Lulu lemon Athletica and took on a management & marketing role where she helped expand the company from 5 stores to over 70 stores. She has lived in Australia, Portland, Vancouver, California and Kelowna while working with Lululemon; and after 5 years as the Regional Marketing Manager for Western Canada she left them to venture out on her own.

In October 2007, she opened her own highly successful dance/fitness/yoga studio in downtown Kelowna called Oranj Dance Fitness where she has 40 staff members who are an amazing part of her team.

Brenda Crompton:

Brenda is the President & Co-Founder of Infinitus Enterprise Services, an award-winning consulting company established in 1998 to deliver services that support businesses as they grow and meet challenges. Infinitus ... with her in the lead, won the Premier's Award for Corporate Online in 2004 – taking the BC Corporate Registry online and affecting every corporation in our province.

She has successfully facilitated collaboration, transitions, and issue resolutions for organizations during difficult times.She has a degree in Economics from University of Waterloo and was nominated for Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Waterloo in 2008.

She is currently the Committee Chair for Kids Help Phone, the Speaker Chair for Kelowna Women in Business and President of Kelowna Toastmasters. She has the unique ability to see beyond the current reality... to envision future possibilities, then to articulate feasible plans and create that new reality.

Edison Reis:

Edison is a Mechanical Engineer with over twenty years experience in operations management, formal quality systems and customer loyalty strategies.

As Partner and Director of Operations for his company "Quality Assurance Management", he focuses on enhancing competitive advantages through formal quality systems, operational improvements and corporate social responsibility strategic planning.

His other partnered company is "Quest Quality Solutions" which is a successful Search Engine Marketing company that provides internet marketing solutions designed to foster his client's online success. Both companies are proudly based here in Kelowna.

He has business success stories from across North and South America, such as starting up two manufacturing companies in Brazil and the United States and most recently was relocated from the lower mainland to support a company start up in Kelowna that fabricates composite panels and panel systems for a wide variety of industries.

He has been active in our business community and has served on the OSTEC Board of Directors for two consecutive terms. He has been a nominated candidate for the Board of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce and currently serves as a Director the Board of the Okanagan Valley Entrepreneur Society and acts as Vice Chair of Membership. Please welcome Edison Reis!!

Martin Yuill:

Martin was born and raised in South Africa. He is a graduate of the University of South Africa and has an MBA degree with specializations in advanced strategic management, services marketing and change management.

He joined ORIC as the Director of its Kelowna Innovation Centre in December 2008 fresh from his success as a member of the team that launched "The Innovation Hub" in Pretoria, South Africa, which is a unique 60-hectare high-tech services precinct, technology cluster and the first internationally-accredited Science Park in Africa.

As a key member of the Hub management team, he created an entrepreneurial "Value-Added Services" division as a critical market differentiator for this $200+ million precinct; managed the strategic marketing, sales and business development functions and re-launched what is currently South Africa's most successful high-tech business incubator; and created the country's largest virtual technology community.

Having ensured the commercial viability of The Innovation Hub by exceeding all sales objectives three years ahead of schedule, Martin left The Innovation Hub with a multi-million dollar sales pipeline in place when he was invited to join a private international investment holding company. Here, as General Manager of the Group's hardwood flooring, decking and timber trading division, he managed a full divisional turnaround; and later, managed the Group's veterinary pharmaceutical and natural human health division, with full multi-million dollar Profit & Loss responsibility.

 

Moderator: Rae Stonehouse OVES Society - Vice Chair of Education

Rae is a Registered Nurse/Entrepreneur who has worked in the healthcare field for over thirty years. Very active within the Toastmasters organization Rae has taken on increasingly challenging leadership roles and is currently involved in developing entrepreneurial educational and mentoring programs. His passion is helping others to succeed. His business, Live For Excellence Productions, provides meeting, seminar, workshop & event planning for the Okanagan Valley. Rae Stonehouse Speaker Services provides emcee services and speech coaching in the Okanagan Valley.

 

 

 

 June Townhall photo: RaeStonehouse Moderator (left) Brenda Crompton Panellist (centre) & Edison Reis Panellist (right)

 

 

Providing meeting, seminar, workshop, conference & event planning for the Okanagan Valley

To Contact Us:

                            Phone: 250-451-6564

                            E-mail:  \n // --> info@liveforexcellence.com