We believe that our team is not much different from your team. In order to thrive in our environment we need to be able to count on and trust each other. We rely on the dedication of the group to drive our business forward based on our vision and company direction. Our team comes to Big Fish from many different backgrounds and industries, from some of the largest companies to leading community organizations, from the IT and engineering professions, to HR and adult education. Together we continue to learn, teach and share our insights with each other and with the people we serve.

This adds up to a team that delivers strong, measurable results to our clients.

Read the individual team bios to learn more about the people that make up Big Fish.

Andrew Reid, Biggest Fish
Erika Bailey
Linda Ferguson
Kira Callahan
Dana Theriault
Edye St. Hill
Frances Dubois
Bradd Morgan
Gavin Maxwell
Lida Preyma
Linda Morgan
Ada Tang
Shilpa Panchmatia
Andrew T Reid, Biggest Fish, Management Consultant.
(
andrew@bigfishinteractive.com)

Company founder Andrew Reid is the prototypical big fish in search of deeper, wider seas to explore. He began Big Fish so that he could invite others to share his passion for exploration, business relationship and innovation. He attracts strong swimmers who know when to move with the currents, when the tides are turning, and when to swim upstream. Andrew has worked as a senior management consultant with clients such as Teranet and Effem-Mars Inc. for over 7 years. He has also specialized consulting with rapid growth technology clients since 1991.

Andrew ReidAndrew’s focus on alternative training practices began with his degree in Sociology in the 1980s with a focus on corporate human structures and management systems. Andrew’s focus on alternative training practices began with his degree in Corporate Sociology in the 1980s. It fishtailed into marketing solutions with international players, an experience that whetted his appetite for training professional teams. He cut his teeth with the world’s largest outdoor adventure company. Then he spawned Big Fish Interactive Inc. (1995-96), now one of North America’s freshest, fastest training companies.

Today, Andrew’s desire to make the workplace an optimized experience is the current that drives every training program Big Fish delivers. He makes it inspiring, relevant, and fun to Think Outside the Bowl™. Most recently, the fish has jumped from the water into the halls of historic Guthrie Castle in Scotland. Five hundred years ago, Andrew’s ancestors built the castle. Now it hosts fast-paced training programs for world-class business leaders.

Andrew learned how teams move fast as a member of Canada’s International Dragon Boat Team in Sweden in August 2000 where that crew surprised the Euro locals with a 500m win. Today, Big Fish Interactive sponsors its own dragon boat team that is on its way to becoming the fastest in the country. They rely on tenacity, teamwork and a focus on winning. Andrew brings his fierce, competitive racing edge to clients in helping them find their own new competitive edge through their people.

These same qualities characterize the leadership, management, sales and technical training Andrew has produced for leading clients since 1989.

Erika BailyErika Bailey, HR Specialist, Curriculum and Resource Designer, Management Consultant, Facilitator.
(
erika@bigfishinteractive.com)

Erika Bailey is a skilled and creative educator who strives to make every learning experience enjoyable, interactive and memorable. With over twelve years of experience as an educator, Erika has specialized skills in teaching to all learning/business styles and delivering every lesson to impact participants in a meaningful and relevant way.

Erika is also one of our senior HR consultants helping augment our client's HR teams by filling business gaps and strengthening the core of our client's operations. Erika has extensive experience working with our rapid growth clients in manufacturing, engineering, and telecom where she designs people systems for new growth. If there is a better way she'll find it. If there is a bigger result, she'll inspire it!

Linda R. Ferguson, Management Consultant, Leadership and Coaching

Linda Ferguson is a Senior Management Consultant under contract to Big Fish Interactive Inc. In this role she provides coaching to client's senior management as well as designing leadership strategies for clients such as Dollar General, York Region, and many of our client's sales teams.

Linda FergusonLinda blends her time at Big Fish with NLP Canada Training Inc. She joined this firm as a management consultant in the summer of 2002 and has been a Senior Partner and Management Consultant since 2003. As a Senior Partner she is responsible for consulting with corporate and individual clients to improve productivity, motivation and satisfaction. She designs group training and individual programs to facilitate development in business communication, sales and influence, and management. Clients have included individuals and groups from these organizations: the CIBC, the Calgary Police Service, the Michener Institute, Proctor and Gamble, Toronto Dominion Securities, ADT Security, Investors Group, and many entrepreneurial and mid-size enterprises.

Linda designs new courses including all relevant resources, leads all course offerings and corporate trainings, and trains new consultants.

Kira CallahanKira Callahan, Management Consultant/Communications Skills

Kira is a skilled, confident and energetic Communications Consultant/Trainer with 5 years hands-on experience in 1:1, small group and train-the-trainer programs.

She has 10 years of media experience in both production management and performance consulting. Kira is a motivated, results-oriented, creative and lively team player Track record of consistently satisfied US and Canada based clients from front-line to executive levels.

Some of her professional experiences include; Communications Coach/Roleplayer, starting in 2002. Here she coached Wealth Management Investment Advisors and Business Bankers on improving communication and sales skills. Clients included Northern Trust, Wells Fargo and TD CanadaTrust.

Kira also coached VPs and Branch Managers on improving their coaching skills. Clients included GE, Royal Bank, Bank of America and HSBC.

Coaching the Coach courses designed to help VPs & BMs leverage their employees’ skills and increase sales. Content focused on adapting to employees’ personalities and needs and building trust using empathy, listening, motivational feedback and setting specific action plans.

Dana TheriaultDana Theriault, Management Consultant, Coaching, Human Relations, and Business Solutions

Dana is and experienced Management Consultant for Big Fish and other consulting firms. She has proven abilities in the areas of training and development, human resources, full cycle recruitment. She has a proven ability to articulate value to decision makers including senior level executives

Dana is proficient at assessing circumstances, evaluating a need and tailoring a solution Superior account management skills with ability to nurture new and existing client relationships

Resourceful by nature with advanced negotiation skills: adept at reading and influencing people, overcoming strained relations, and turning situations around. Edye St. Hill, Management Consultant & Facilitator, Business Development; Leadership Retreats.
(
edye@bigfishinteractive.com)

Edye St. Hill is a dynamic business builder. With approximately 20 years of experience in leadership, sales performance, and change management training, Edye brings a conviction for client results. With specialized expertise in the financial sector, Edye recently excelled in leadership training in the rapid change environment of a client merger. This resulted in year-one, top 10 overall ranking of a balanced score card of Profit, Volume, Customer Satisfaction and Employee Satisfaction. Implementation of disciplined sales and service management practices was key to successful results as well as fostering strong collaborative internal partner relationships.

Part of Edye’s focus at Big Fish is to meet the unique needs of leadership retreats and the incentive travel market.

France Dubois, Senior Facilitator, Management Consultant, French and English.

A fluently bilingual professional, France Dubois spent many years in direct sales, winning recognition for outstanding performance developing business as a sales professional and as national sales manager. Among her achievements, she has pioneered the start-up of sales divisions for both multinational and entrepreneurial organizations.

Today, as a Big Fish performance consultant, France devotes her energy to the design and delivery of training programs and workshops in such areas as sales, customer service,
leadership, performance management,
communications and change management. Linking individual and organizational issues, she sets coaching in context of environmental goals and obstacles focused on translating insights into action toward profitable results. These include: Frances Dubois

  • Research and feasibility studies
  • Focus group discussions and audits
  • Operational and strategic planning workshops
  • Development of custom training programs, instructional materials and tools
  • Curriculum development, orientation programs and new employee integration programs
  • Whether as learning facilitator or speaker, her sessions and workshops are dynamic, interactive and address creative, discovery and experiential learning techniques. She values active involvement as a critical part of learning, growing and performing, and is driven by results, practical application and making a difference.

    Bradd Morgan, Management Consultant, Facilitator, Coach

    A sample of Bradd's achievements since 1999:

    Senior Consultant and Founder of Mindworks Inc. under contract with Big Fish Interactive Inc. helping business owners, entrepreneurs, managers and ceo’s increase their personal performance within the business arena to strengthen and improve management abilities towards the realization of business and company objectives and vision. Experience working both one-on-one and group work.

    Bradd MorganFurther responsibilities and successes with Big Fish Interactive include the consulting and co-development of the much touted, results-oriented simulation game Sink ‘r Swim, a highly charged, interactive game which tests the limits of the management skills and entrepreneurial savvy of individuals and teams working within real-life circumstances.

    Bradd also worked as a consultant for Edge Associated from 1999-2002 where he facilitated fast-paced, interactive programs and consulting services including a 4 day intensive and 8 week “practicum” focused on developing personal, business and management effectiveness through the use of:
    - communication models, - conflict resolution processes, - understanding and working with personality types.

    Gavin Maxwell, High Performance Coach & Team Development, Management Consultant.
    info@bigfishinteractive.com

    Gavin MaxwellGavin Maxwell is a high performance coach in the truest sense. Having raced C1 canoe in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics for Canada, he knows a thing or two about pushing limits. Gavin balances an intense focus on results with engaging humour when facilitating Big Fish teambuilding events.

    You'll see Gavin running our Dragon Boat team building events as well as inspiring positive growth during corporate training. He is a powerful speaker, motivator and high performance coach with a long history of achievement and inspiring the best of people. To his credit, Gavin has been the driving force within the Big Fish sponsored Dragon Boat Crew. In 4 seasons he's coached the Big Fish team from being a "good competitive team" to now being one of the fastest in the country…a force to be reckoned with.

    Lida Preyma, Business Development and Facilitation, Management Consultant.
    info@bigfishinteractive.com

    Lida Preyma is one of our very resourceful facilitators. She brings a wealth of global life experience to her consultation with clients. Her bold and direct approach grabs attention and inspires results. She is also an accomplished athlete, author, and keynote speaker.

    Lida PreymaLida's diverse experience includes being the Director of Trade Policy Research for the G8 Research Group, based at the University of Toronto since 1987. She has been an analyst with the group since 2003, and attended the 2003 Evian, 2005 Gleneagles, and 2006 Moscow G8 Summits.

    She ran as a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada in Etobicoke Centre in the 2004 federal election and is the former Managing Director of Corporate Citizenship at Magna International Inc. Previously, Lida worked at Guardian Capital Inc. as an Associate on special projects and, from 1995 to 2000, she worked at BMO Nesbitt Burns in various roles until assuming the position of Retail Mortgage-Backed Securities trader in the Securitization and Structured Finance Department.

    Linda Morgan, Instructional Design, Facilitation, Organizational Systems, Management Consultant.
    linda@bigfishinteractive.com

    Linda Morgan is a high energy and enthusiastic educator who creates a “fun” and results focused learning environment. She is known for having excellent analytical, leadership and communication skills and for understanding the needs of the client. She defines clear objectives and delivers meaningful training sessions with sustainable results.

    Linda spent ten years working in Senior Management at a progressive educational environment which saw a 40% increases in staff retention, a 25% annual customer base increase and was instrumental in attaining 80% of new business from referrals.

    Linda MorganLinda heads up the Big Fish Consulting in HR and Organizational Systems where her expertise is applied in rapid growth clients in sports gear and engineering industries. She has run international training sessions for Big Fish clients in Ireland and Germany to bring more consistency to cross-cultural office communications. She facilitated a national training program to support Imperial Oil Retailers grow their businesses and increase sales. Locally, Linda has worked with companies such as the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario, Manulife Insurance and many of the major universities in southern Ontario developing and implementing programs on topics as diverse as creativity in the workplace, leadership, customer service and operational systems.

    Linda is also in demand for her instructional design expertise including Compliance Training for Municipal Water Treatment. Recently, one of her new staff introductory programs received accreditation from the University of Ottawa and currently, she is working on a global program for Exxon Mobil developing middle managers’ coaching skills.

    Linda, a true Big Fish with diverse talents, holds a BMus Honours degree from University of Victoria and is a professional flautist and pianist. And if that's not enough, Linda is completing her Masters Degree in Behaviour Intervention.

    Ada Tang, Management Consultant, Facilitation.

    A University of Toronto instructor and physiotherapist, Ada is an inspiring facilitator who brings a supportive focus into participant issues. As a fishy freelancer, Ada is a quiet, gentle leader who has the rare ability to make each person feel like they are the most important in the room.

    When she is not demonstrating leadership in the classroom, Ada is living her leadership abilities in the dragon boat. Ada is a long-standing member of the Big Fish dragon boat crew and the Toronto Women’s crew.

    Shilpa Panchmatia, Management Consultant, Facilitation.

    Based in London, England, Shilpa is a natural people communicator, with special knowledge in teambuilding, business development, and personal development. Shilpa is also the founder of Human Xpression based in London, England.

    Her early background in marketing and business development was followed by IT training and helping get a dot com off the ground. Shilpa is a published business writer in the fields of sales management, stress management and personal achievement. She also appears regularly as a keynote speaker, empowering and motivating entrepreneurs and women in business.