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| Ellen
Davidson Davidson Communications |
Ellen
Davidson has been involved in communications for most of her career.
She segued out of urban / regional planning program at the University of
Waterloo, into the completely unconnected field of arts promotion and publicity
and, from the mid-70's into the 1980s, she was also Canada's only female
concert promoter. Ellen always made money for the artists, and almost always
made money for herself. What lessons she learned from concert presentation
and from her two office-sharing mentors, a British journalist and a Tory
Senator --negotiating skills, publicity, promotion, and out-and-out guerrilla
marketing -- gave her the thrill of pure entrepreneurship on a razor's edge. Among the dozens of artists Ellen toured and publicized were Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits, The Chieftains, Craig Russell, Stephane Grappelli, Maynard Ferguson and Ry Cooder. In 1981, Ellen took her programming and publicity knowledge to the Royal Ontario Museum, as Manager of Programming. One of her first challenges was the restoration of the ROM Theatre. A mini film festival re-launched the Theatre when Toronto's top movie critics were persuaded to select and introduce their personal movie faves. She also began a lecture series by convincing Toronto publishing houses to bring their touring authors to the ROM. Her other responsibilities included overseeing all external and internal uses of the ROM, all box office procedures and staff, as well as helping stage many of the ROM's fund-raising events, including the RUN for the ROM, a twenty-four-hour relay race for corporate competitors and contributors. From 1984 to 1998, Ellen was with Astral Media's TMN Networks Inc. , as their Vice President of Communications. During her tenure, she created some very successful initiatives to further the networks' goals. Ellen created FUND in 1986 (later renamed The Harold Greenberg Fund / Le Fonds Harold Greenberg), a national arms-length independent organization to foster Canadian scriptwriters. Astral and TMN began supporting FUND with an annual operating budget of $1 million and brought on Phyllis Yaffe (now CEO of Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting) as its first Chair. For many of Canada's best-known movies such as The Sweet Hereafter and Crash, the Fund's investments have been critical. TMN / Astral have also hosted the Festival's Opening Night annually since 1987, when Ellen cinched the prime sponsorship position with the Toronto International Film Festival. Ellen also profiled and marketed TMN pairing the network with Air Canada. Beginning in 1996, TMN packaging a short-form bilingual version of TMN's weekly infotainment show, TMNews (now called @themovies). Immediately, the show had another 250,000 "viewers" each month via Air Canada's domestic / international passengers, while recognition for TMN shot through the roof. Among her other accomplishments was promoting another Astral network, MOVIEPIX, to the media, the production industry and to the government. MOVIEPIX and the National Archives of Canada partnered to preserve and restore Canadian classic movies, such as Don Shebib's Goin' Down The Road, Paul Almond's Act Of The Heart, and Bush Pilot, the very first English-language Canadian full-length movie. Ellen's initiatives helped drive the profiles for both organizations. Ellen's other responsibilities at TMN included issues management; media relations; initiating/ implementing the networks' customer service call centre; negotiating and planning the networks' special events, such as the Film Festival's Open Air Screening at Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall; speech writing; and writing and editing for various in-house publications and government submissions. Ellen is married to Toronto Star journalist, Greg Quill, Senior Arts Columnist and the Star's former television columnist / critic and music critic. |
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| Angela
Vink Davidson Communications |
Angela
Vink's style epitomizes the term, "grace under pressure". With ten years'
experience in public relations and communications, her quick decisiveness
solves many of the problems that can arise in public relations in the blink
of an eye, before they result in a less than perfect outcome. As well, her
creativity and computer literacy contribute greatly to finding, then implementing,
the right strategies for companies looking to grow their businesses. With her strong background in the Canadian music industry, where sources for public funding are greatly limited in comparison to other sectors of arts and entertainment, Angela has learned how to accelerate projects to success on shoestring budgets. Clients place an enormous trust in her: She's a straight shooter who can deliver, and when critical next steps are called for, she takes a no-holds-barred approach. Angela has worked in public relations firms such as Strategic Objectives, and has freelanced on media and publicity for such organizations as the Mariposa Festival, the Toronto Blues Society, and the Women's Blues Review. Angela has also worked with artists Loreena McKennitt, Loudan Wainwright (proud dad of the hot new sensation, Rufus Wainwright), and Ian Tyson, as well as with Stony Plain Records, the Junos, and the Canadian Country Music Awards. Showcasing new artists has always been particularly successful for Angela, especially when her efforts complement the talent so well that a recording contract is the immediate outcome, as it was in the case of The Irish Descendants, a rockin' celtic band from Newfoundland. Just entering her thirties, her contracts range from young up-and-comers to the CEOs of large corporations, and she keeps a sharply-focused analytical eye on what works for both groups, no matter how diverse their interests appear to be on the surface. Angela recognizes that shareholder value, as well as the interests of many other stakeholders in any enterprise, must be maxxed. Regardless of the size of the project, increased success is always the objective. Angela spearheaded media interviews for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival for the past two years, and for U8TV, Canada's only Internet TV channel, from pre-launch through most of its first year. U8TV is a joint venture between Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting and TVForReal. |
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| Kaya
Quill Davidson Communications |
Kaya
Quill is an exuberant new face in public relations and communications,
where her ability to make lifetime friends and business associates is serving
her, and Davidson Communications, well. Attentive to detail and follow-through,
Kaya keeps her cool even when facing the usual predicament of yesterday's
deadline, set today. A regular on the Toronto scene, she keeps Davidson
Communications plugged into the tween and older crowd, particularly those
female teens and twenties whose influence and disposable income make them
today's big market for development. Kaya previously worked with Richard Flohil and Associates, developing their roster of primarily music artists, as well as hosting at various press conferences and festivals. Prior to that position, she worked on various television series including the CBC's Comics, and Rita MacNeil and Friends in addition to Comedy Now, both produced by Sandra Faire's company, SFA. She handled ticket distribution, greeting the shows' live audiences, as well as took responsibility for the guest artists and their well-being. Kaya's indefatigable energy had her working continuous eighteen-hour days with no drop in enthusiasm. Kaya also helped handle promotional duties for TMN-The Movie Network's Opening Night at the Toronto International Film Festival for a number of years. Always up for hearing people's reactions, she engaged many of the gala crowd in animated conversation about her first love, movies, while promoting the commercial-free pay TV network as everyone's best all-year-round "Escape to the Movies". While that last bit of "sell" was not a required part of her job, Kaya probably converted a dozen or so of the first-nighters into subscribers, judging from the reactions. She also has appeared in many movie productions shot in Toronto - Kaya says if you blink, you'll miss her - including 54, starring Mike Myers and Selma Hayek; Blues Brothers 2000, with Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman, and Norman Jewison's The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington. Kaya also worked on U8TV media relations, including giving a number of radio interviews on their behalf, as well as working on various press conferences and launch events for other clients of Davidson Communications. |
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