Board of Directors - 2020/2021

Eileen Bistrisky CSEP, CMC - President

Eileen helps event business teams with their systems and strategy. Her award-winning firm, Effective Leadership Consulting, measurably improves organizations using Eileen’s Beyond the Plateau methodology and Six Ingredients for Profitability & Growth. Her history with ILEA is a long one, having been Chapter President in 2000/01, Western Regional RVP 2002/03, ILEA Canada Chair 2010/11, and on the International Board of Governors 2014-17. Eileen has an Executive MBA through Royal Roads University and is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC). Outside of business, she has a passion for mountains and remote, adventurous expeditions. She enjoys hiking, biking, camping, climbing, snowshoeing, paddling, and backpacking around the globe, and sharing her stories to inspire others.

More about Eileen: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn

Gillian Wallis, President Elect

Gillian’s passion for events stems from her early high school days where she helped plan several proms and homecoming dances (yes, she grew up in the USA). Fast forward a few years and a college degree later, Gillian found her calling helping organize private events and weddings while living the snowboarding life in Whistler. When that stopped being fun, Gillian moved to the beautiful city of Vancouver and she found herself working at a non-profit doing fundraising and stewardship events. After a brief hiatus from the event world, Gillian is back doing what she does best—producing award winning galas.

More about Gillian: Website | LinkedIn

Nora Wendt, VP of Membership

While still studying drama and events management, Nora already spent her summers working at music festivals and other live events, mainly to afford the tickets to yet more festivals, theatre and cultural events. After managing a theatre festival in Hamburg for two years, she moved to Berlin and organized galas, corporate events, street markets and supervised dance theatre productions and international concert tours. Her path led her to the Berlin Festival of Lights, where she gained experience in working with light art and large-scale projection mapping. For the Festival of Lights, she organized projection mappings and light festivals in Germany, Romania and Luxembourg. On the side, she started translating and content writing for VRtual X, a company specialized on VR, AR and virtual events and she is still doing this today. When she moved to Vancouver in 2017, Nora spent a fun summer working for the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival before joining Go2 Productions to work with projection mapping once again. When Covid-19 hit the event industry, she moved on to work in communications, marketing and virtual events for a local hybrid distribution agency.

More about Nora: Website | LinkedIn

Mike Metcalfe, Director - Membership

Mike is VP of Business Development and Sales at SOS Charging Solutions. He's a family man who believes community is the key to success. Whether it's his neighbourhood, his soccer and softball communities or our community of event professionals, Mike works hard to be an active, contributing member in absurd and wonderfully creative ways. He tends to leverage the fifteen plus years he's spent in events and his career in professional sales, but mostly, it's his contagious energy and genuine excitement for your challenges that creates the long-term relationships he builds with the people around him. He's excited to help with Membership this year and encourages you to reach out, if you haven't already met one another.

More about Mike: Website | LinkedIn

Kellie Gould, Director - Membership

With 23 years of experience in the tenting business, Kellie is well versed in the event industry. As a co-owner of Elite Tents and Events, she has a love for tenting, ensuring her clients receive the highest level of customer service. Detail oriented, and not afraid of multi tasking, she has worked with clients ranging from the smallest backyard weddings, to large corporate clients. Kellie is looking forward to bringing her dedication and experience to the ILEA Vancouver board.

A passionate equestrian, any free time Kellie has will be spent riding in beautiful Campbell Valley Park in Langley, with her horse Roo.

More about Kellie: Website

Karyn Rose, CSEP - VP of Sponsorship

Karyn has recently undertaken the position of Director of Partnerships, Sales and Marketing at Edge Catering, following over 20 years in Vancouver’s live event industry with Culinary Capers Catering. As an experienced Red Seal Chef, her first position was as a member of the award-winning kitchen team. Her friendly relaxed manner coupled with her culinary skill led to her becoming an outstanding member of the event planning team.

She accepted the challenge of a two-year stint on the events team for the City of Surrey in 2016. With her contract complete, Karyn was persuaded by ownership to rejoin Culinary Capers and assume her present role as the Director of Sales and Marketing. Her CSEP certification complemented by a chef background are an ideal combination to guide an outstanding team in the execution of memorable events throughout the lower mainland and destinations around BC.

More about Karyn: Website | LinkedIn

Gemma Scott, Immediate Past President

Gemma is the Operations Director of Go2 Productions, a leading edge Vancouver-based creative company, specializing in producing immersive experiences, projection mapping and moving art. She believes strongly in change and innovation and with this vision, the team at Go2 pushes the limits of digital art and technology to transform physical spaces into magical events that thrill and inspire.

Gemma’s love of creating inspiring events also lead her to be a licensee and producer of TEDxEastVan, an event dedicated to discovering, sharing and celebrating great ideas and extraordinary people.

More about Gemma: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Claire Duncan, VP of Communications

Claire An exciting 20 year career has been focussed on elaborate and complex, technical special events, video production and brand management. Starting out with 8 years at a UK Production company producing innovative, large scale conferences and content, she worked with high profile speakers, dignitaries and celebrities and has many a backstage tale. Canada bound in 2008, the next six years were spent with PRIME, spearheading all technical production for conferences, trade shows and galas for outbound programs namely on the Johnson & Johnson account, across the US and Central America. The past six years as VP, Creative Strategy & Events, she has led the multi award winning production team at Cantrav, producing an array of transformational experiences for global brands and driven the creative direction of the company.

Claire brings her breadth of creative communication skills, humour and positivity to the ILEA community, especially during a very challenging 2020.

More about Claire: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

Zaheeda Merchant, Director - Communications

Executive Producer behind Merchant EventZ Inc., Zaheeda is a highly experienced event and marketing professional that brings a wealth of experience to each project. She has produced events and campaigns across the country for large corporations such as Flight Centre Canada and award winning destination management company, Rare Indigo. Developing events and campaigns with creativity and passion.

Focused on the experience, Zaheeda integrates art, technology, online, and physical elements to create unique experiences and activations designed to maximize engagement while using artistic vision, solid analytics, and trend monitoring to stay ahead of the curve. She produces events on all scales from small intimate gatherings to large conferences, tradeshows, and expo events. Events have garnered an audience accordingly from 60 to upwards of 11,000+ guests with positive returns and expectations for growth.

More about Zaheeda: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

Riddhima Asri, VP of Programs

An experienced Sales and Catering Manager, with 14 years in the Events industry working on an array of events including social affairs, concerts, large Association and Corporate events. Starting her career at the Westin Bayshore, to being the Theatre Sales Manager at the River Rock Casino Resort, to just recently being at the Vancouver Aquarium, she has had the opportunity to work for a diverse group of clients on intimate 25 people events, to large 2000 people events. Her passion for the industry can be credited to her father as he has welcomed and produced Indian Concerts within Vancouver for the last 30 years, through his company KVP Entertainers. This exposure and mentorship has led to a love for events and a desire for continued learning and connection within the industry. This year she is working towards receiving CSEP certification. Confident the industry has to bounce back she wants to serve on the board to keep the passion alive.

More about Riddhima: LinkedIn

Kelly Clarke, Director - Sponsorship

As an experienced Event Manager at BC Children's Hospital Foundation, Kelly produces the incredibly successful Crystal Ball. A fourteen year career has encompassed the development and revitalization of signature events including unforgettable experiences at Cantrav and the Vancouver Aquarium. Kelly thrives on challenge and excels in a fast paced, high pressure environment while maintaining the epitome of calm. Skilled in creative, logistical problem solving, with keen production & design sense and an infectiously enthusiastic attitude. A commitment to ILEA is her way of keeping her finger on the pulse of what’s new and exciting in the industry and the contacts made have been a wealth of information, and a constant source of support.

More about Kelly: Website | LinkedIn

Christopher Lyne, Director - Membership

Hailing from Vancouver, "Goodspin" is an established DJ with a reputation for being a party rocker through out the nightlife, events & entertainment scene. Known for his track selections and mixing ability he produces high energy DJ sets that have rocked dance floors consistently. Giving people what they want is knowing who the audience is. Chris describes his style as creative and fresh, "Live in the moment music".

More about Chris: Website

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