"Your Mountain is Waiting: stepping from good to great" - Julia Rivard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Rivard
By offering insight into her experience as an Olympic Athlete and Organizer, Julia Rivard will explore how to make it to the top of your profession, interest, passion and once it has been achieved, how easily it can be repeated.
In 1995 Julia came to Atlantic Canada from North Bay, Ontario to chase her dream of becoming a member of the Canadian Olympic team. Four years of training on Lake Banook in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia landed her a spot on the team for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney Australia.
After retiring from high level sport and completing studies at Dalhousie and NSCAD, she started up Queen Street Studios in 2004, an incubation space supporting independent creative professionals in the HRM.
In 2007 she successfully merged Queen Street studios with Norex.ca run by Brandon Kolybaba to offer full marketing, design and web development services to clients. In 2008, Norex successfully spun out Dynamic Hosting which continues to see significant growth.
In the fall of 2008, Brandon and Julia started SheepDogInc.ca as they saw an opportunity to migrate and develop Google Apps. Their early positioning in the market and successful execution for clients led to their position as the Preferred Canadian Partner for Google in the migration of Google Apps which earned them a seat at the Google Partner Advisory Board (a group of the 8 preferred international Google partners).
In the last year, SheepDogInc.ca has grown to 30 FTEs and continues to see success not only in migrations but also in the promising space of software development for the cloud. In August, they were selected as the first external vendor to build an internal application for Google to use in their business operations.
Julia also continues to pursue her other passion, sport. She is a Member of the Canadian Olympic Committee and managed Canadian Team Operations in Beijing (2008) and Vancouver/Whistler (2010). Julia also volunteers locally as a member of the Board of Governors at NSCADU, the Federal nomination to the Board of Directors for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games and the Director of Marketing for CanoeKayak Canada.
Accolades
· Special recognition Certificate from the Office of the Prime Minister for volunteer contributions to the Canadian Canoe Association (CanoeKayak Canada).
· Member of the North Bay Sport Hall of Fame (2001 Female Athlete of the Year)
· Finalist for the Globe and Mail “Top 40 Under 40”
· Recipient of Progress Fastest Growing Companies (2009, 2010)
· 2008 Finalist of the Halifax Chamber Best New Business of the Year
· Named one of the top ten Nova Scotia startups by the Nova Scotia Business Journal
Julia lives in Dartmouth and is a single mum of three great kids; Oscar (8), Max (6) and Phoenix (6).
By offering insight into her experience as an Olympic Athlete and Organizer, Julia Rivard will explore how to make it to the top of your profession, interest, passion and once it has been achieved, how easily it can be repeated.
In 1995 Julia came to Atlantic Canada from North Bay, Ontario to chase her dream of becoming a member of the Canadian Olympic team. Four years of training on Lake Banook in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia landed her a spot on the team for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney Australia.
After retiring from high level sport and completing studies at Dalhousie and NSCAD, she started up Queen Street Studios in 2004, an incubation space supporting independent creative professionals in the HRM.
In 2007 she successfully merged Queen Street studios with Norex.ca run by Brandon Kolybaba to offer full marketing, design and web development services to clients. In 2008, Norex successfully spun out Dynamic Hosting which continues to see significant growth.
In the fall of 2008, Brandon and Julia started SheepDogInc.ca as they saw an opportunity to migrate and develop Google Apps. Their early positioning in the market and successful execution for clients led to their position as the Preferred Canadian Partner for Google in the migration of Google Apps which earned them a seat at the Google Partner Advisory Board (a group of the 8 preferred international Google partners).
In the last year, SheepDogInc.ca has grown to 30 FTEs and continues to see success not only in migrations but also in the promising space of software development for the cloud. In August, they were selected as the first external vendor to build an internal application for Google to use in their business operations.
Julia also continues to pursue her other passion, sport. She is a Member of the Canadian Olympic Committee and managed Canadian Team Operations in Beijing (2008) and Vancouver/Whistler (2010). Julia also volunteers locally as a member of the Board of Governors at NSCADU, the Federal nomination to the Board of Directors for the Halifax 2011 Canada Games and the Director of Marketing for CanoeKayak Canada.
Accolades
· Special recognition Certificate from the Office of the Prime Minister for volunteer contributions to the Canadian Canoe Association (CanoeKayak Canada).
· Member of the North Bay Sport Hall of Fame (2001 Female Athlete of the Year)
· Finalist for the Globe and Mail “Top 40 Under 40”
· Recipient of Progress Fastest Growing Companies (2009, 2010)
· 2008 Finalist of the Halifax Chamber Best New Business of the Year
· Named one of the top ten Nova Scotia startups by the Nova Scotia Business Journal
Julia lives in Dartmouth and is a single mum of three great kids; Oscar (8), Max (6) and Phoenix (6).
