Making Mega-Points Pay Dividends

For Zora Kriz, holding an American Express Business Gold card sometimes seems like having her own airline. (more...)

Return on event

It's a soggy Saturday night in Niagara Falls, Ont., but the weather isn't doing much to dampen this party. Inside the plush-carpeted, cavernous lower levels of the Fallsview Casino Hotel, Nissan Canada is doing some celebrating. Its annual Club Excellence event-a VIP gathering of its top salespeople from across the country-is in full corporate swing, and a bevy of awards are set to be handed out after dinner.(more...)

Event-planning firm built on innovation

Rubber chicken, ho-hum venues, droning speeches, pat-on-the-back presentations.

Today, these traditional staples just aren’t cutting it as magnets for hordes of attendees at annual conferences, product introductions or impress-potential-clients events. (more...)

Set the stage to boost impact

Companies are trying to add pizzazz to product launches, corporate
appreciation events and training sessions by hiring entertainers who use magic tricks, comedy routines and even golf tips to deliver the message.

An increasingly popular device is the corporate imposter. (more...)

Women entrepreneurs make their mark

The cliché, “behind every great man is a great woman,” has been pushed aside, and those great women are stepping forward. According the the Prime Minister’s Task Force on women entrepreneurs, more than 821,000 women entrepreneurs in Canada annually contribute in excess of $18 billion to the economy. An increase of more than 200% over the past 20 years makes them Canada’s fastest growing business sector. (more...)

A Salute to Toronto’s Best Bosses

Cynthia’s chosen career could not be more in line with her passion for
making people happy. According to all who work with her, Cynthia is a boss like none other, and her business acumen reflects her giving and charismatic personality. Her enthusiasm is as infectious as her laugh. (more...)

Coaches teach clients to coach themselves

Cynthia Richards has been running Event Spectrum Inc. (ESI) for nearly
nine years, and business has been brisk. The event-planning business reached $6 million of sales this year, but Richards felt she needed help. “I wanted to make sure operations were streamlined and efficient,” explains Richards. (more...)

Good times pay off for local entrepreneur

For North Toronto resident Cynthia Richards, having fun at work comes from making work fun for others.
“I was working as a corporate meeting planner and I would do big productions and launches for various suppliers, but I always felt that the message I wanted to get out wasn’t getting out,” Richards said. “There, the companies were just vying to meet budget.” (more...)

All Pumped Up

Last Summer, there was a small fire at the hair salon that shares a driveway with Toronto-based independent meeting planning firm Event Spectrum. It was an extremely hot day. And when company president and co-founder Cynthia Richards looked across the drive and saw firefighters working hard in the heat to contain the blaze, she turned to her staff of 14 women and said, “Let's give these guys some water.” Then someone had an even better idea: Serve up the freeze pops chilling in the company icebox. (more...)

Events firm focuses on internal communications opportunities

Cynthia Richards, president of Toronto-based Event Spectrum Inc., says the experience of being a leading female entrepreneur in Canada has not yet become old hat. ESI, which focuses on staging internal corporate events, targets a range of sectors, including IT. Richards spoke to Pipeline about the shift in marketing focus in that sector and how her firm is capturing the resulting opportunities. (more...)

PROFIT 100 Overview: The only thing that matters

Over the past five years, the enterprises on PROFIT’s 17th annual ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies have grown their annual revenue by an average of 1,609%. Pretty impressive, considering the obstacles they faced. How did they do it? By raising hard-to-find capital, building great teams, performing a little marketing magic and seizing opportunities abroad. (more...)