TEAM

Digital Marketplace for the Performing Arts

Meet our multi-disciplinary team of partners, business and marketing experts and technology developers.

Steering Committee

  • Debbie Peters (Whitehorse, YT), Magnum Opus Management 
  • Margot Holmes (Nanaimo, BC), Caline Artists International
  • Eoin Ó Catháin (Montreal, QC), SISO Agency, Media and Music Publishing
  • Laurie Gillis (Halifax, NS), Atlantic Presenters Association
  • Kevin Korchinski (Regina, SK), Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils
  • Kennedy Jensen (Edmonton, AB), Alberta Arts Touring Alliance
  • Lise Boyer (Quebec), Agence BAM

 

Development Team

  • Margaret Lam, BeMused Network/Octagram (Waterloo, ON); Design Lead/Design Researcher
  • Amine El, Octagram (Waterloo, ON); System Architect / Technical Lead
  • Nicholas Li (Toronto, ON); Video Production Consulting
  • Catherine Moore (Toronto, ON); Strategic Business Advisor

Business Team

Biographies

Debbie Peters, CEO, The Pitch Inc and Founder of Magnum Opus Management

Debbie Peters

Ably equipped with a degree in music and her talents as a musician, Debbie Peters launched a successful teaching career out of her own music studio. Ongoing training in management and marketing, and an increased involvement in the music industry, caused a shift of focus towards artist management. Since 1998, Debbie has built Magnum Opus Management into an award-winning internationally recognized company focused on new audience development for musicians. With thirty years experience working in the arts as a performer, presenter, administrator and manager, Debbie has gained a solid understanding of how a touring artist can enhance a community through public performance and outreach.

A collaborator and connector, Debbie was instrumental in bringing BreakOut West to Whitehorse in 2011. Her ongoing interest in developing performing opportunities for Northern Canadian artists led to an invitation to program performances at PEI 2014 and securing performances at the National Arts Centre’s Northern Scene, Pan Am Games 2015 and Canada Summer Games 2017. Projects she has produced include Bentall, Byrnes & Mann; A Circumpolar Soundscape (featuring Diyet, Leela Gilday, Sylvia Cloutier and Greenand’s Nive Nielsen); and, currently, the New North Collective’s OUTSIDE, a multi-genre music and film experience. For three years, she programmed the High Notes Music Festival at Panorama Mountain Resort. In addition to her work as an artist representative, she is part of a dynamic national organization of Canadian Agents & Managers.

In fall 2017, Debbie joined forces with Margot Holmes of Caline Artists International to form the Maverick Cooperative, a joint marketing initiative for their rosters.

In 2019, over a scrumptious dinner in Whitehorse, Yukon with Margot Holmes and Inga Petri, the idea for The Pitch was born. Armed only with the belief that a digital showcase would greatly increase opportunities for artists and presenters to meet and to book tours, and that it would enhance the traditional showcasing model with mutual benefits for agents and presenting networks, Debbie successfully applied to the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Strategy Fund. Debbie has spearheaded the development of The Pitch throughout one of the most disruptive periods in the live arts – the COVID pandemic – with a fully tested Minimum Viable Product version on the market since 2022. 

 Inga Petri (Strategic Moves)

For 30 years Inga has designed and implemented strategies for organizations in the private, not-for-profit and public sectors.

Inga founded Strategic Moves in 2007, after 16 years in sales and marketing including a decade at ad agencies in Ottawa. Strategic Moves is a research-driven consultancy that designs and implements innovative approaches to solve its clients’ strategic challenges. With Strategic Moves, Inga’s work thrives at the crossroads of research, strategy and marketing. With her experience in diverse sectors – from the performing arts, national museums, publishing and arts service organizations to government, international trade promotion organizations, municipalities, and marketing for technology companies – clients benefit from an uncommon breadth of experience and expertise.

Inga has gained a national reputation through large-scale national studies, and major research and strategy assignments in the arts and culture sector in communities large and small since 2007.

Her record of achievement in the arts and cultural sector spans from her work in Canadian book publishing during the 1990s to research and strategy projects undertaken for some of Canada’s largest arts organizations like the National Arts Centre, Canada Council for the Arts and Canadian War Museum, to nationally focussed arts organizations and festivals like Storytellers of Canada, Canadian Arts Presenting Association (CAPACOA), regional performing arts centres like the Capitol Theatre in Moncton, NB, to organizations in small, rural or remote communities like Alianait Arts Festival in Iqaluit, NU; Island Mountain Arts, Wells, BC; and the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture in the Yukon.

Inga has become a sought-after speaker at national and regional conferences on research, strategy and marketing. Her work is nationally recognized for the landmark study The Value of Presenting: A Study of Performing Arts Presentation in Canada (©2013) and Digitizing the Performing Arts: An Assessment of the Opportunities, Issues and Challenges (©2017) commissioned by CAPACOA on behalf of the arts presenting sector.

Inga has an extensive portfolio of high-tech clients from her years working as senior account executive at Ottawa-based ad agencies, as well as a strong portfolio of web development and digital marketing since 1997.

Over the years, her clients have included some of the giants in the telecommunications like Nortel, Mitel, Nokia, Iridium and Alcatel-Lucent. She has worked with technology start-ups such as MessagingDirect in the late 1990s, a company that envisioned e-billing services at a time when none existed, as well as a digital shopping mall concept before Amazon became the online retail it is today. Inga developed conceptual prototypes for these systems in close collaboration with the client and agency creative staff. She led a project for the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) in 1999 to conceptualize and develop the information architecture and design for the Virtual Trade Commissioner, a comprehensive web portal that provided access to the contacts, services, and products of the TCS to Canadian clients that were export-ready.

Inga has conceptualized dozens of web sites for clients from the Traffic Injury Foundation (1999) to Canadian Geographic’s Canadian Atlas Online (2003). She is skilled at developing information architectures and undertaking web usability and acceptance testing for sites in development. She has designed and implemented online marketing campaigns including lead generation and lead qualification campaigns, search engine optimization and search marketing, and in recent years, social media marketing campaigns.

Inga has been putting digital conversations in the arts sector on the agenda since 2011, when she led the seminal Value of Presenting: A Study of Performing Arts Presentation in Canada (© 2013, CAPACOA). She has a long record of collaboration with our sector including co-writing Digitizing the Performing Arts: An Assessment of Issues, Opportunities and Challenges (© 2017, CAPACOA). From 2019 to 2021 she led Making Tomorrow Better: Taking Digital Action in the Performing Arts (digitalartsnation.ca), a national digital literacy and intelligence initiative that reached more than 3,000 participants with 84 workshops and conference sessions over 3 years. This initiative brought together Atlantic Presenters Association in partnership with BC Touring Council, N3 Northern Arts Network, Manitoba Arts Council, Northern Arts and Cultural Centre in Yellowknife and Island Mountain Arts in Wells, BC. As part of this initiative Inga, along with several colleagues wrote the Digital Playbook for the Performing Arts, housed on digitalartsnation.ca. This Playbook includes an extensive body of work related to discoverability, in particular how artists can leverage structured and linked, open data to greatly enhance their discoverability online.

She helped envision and manages development of ThePitch; designed a needs assessment and feasibility study process for a Creative Lab North at the intersection of art, creativity and technology in Whitehorse, Yukon; and she delivered a profound rethink of how to make online conferences awesome and human on behalf of the BC Museums Association and Heritage BC. During the last three years, Inga has led several complex Digital Assessments and Strategy projects for CAPACOA, Western Arctic Moving Pictures Society in Yellowknife, NWT, STO Union in Farrellton, QC, Manitoba Arts Network, Home Routes / Chemin Chez Nous in Winnipeg, The Heart of Riverdale Community Centre, an arts-based social development centre in Whitehorse, Yukon and MontrARTity, a major South Asian fusion festival in Mississauga, ON.

Most recently, she has been collaborating with Mass Culture on its ASO Future Forward to facilitate conversations about the arts in the digital world.

Inga is a Certified Analytics and Insights Professional (CAIP). She served on the Marketing Research and Intelligence Associations’ Ottawa chapter board from 2004 to 2014 in communications as well as president. She’s the recipient of the 2005 Joseph Doyle Award (MRIA) and has obtained the Certificate in Professional Excellence in Strategic Leadership from the Schulich School of Business (2012). She is a member of the Creative City Network of Canada, the Canadian Arts Presenting Association (CAPACOA), The Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce and TechYukon.  Inga is proficient in English and German and advanced in French and Spanish. Her language of work is English.

 Micheal Mooney

Micheal Mooney, C.E.T. is a technology professional, innovator and entrepreneur with a passion for technology and its potential to drive positive change in the world.  A highly accomplished business leader with over 20 years of experience in the creative, engineering and technology sectors, serving in various leadership positions throughout his career, including CEO, Executive Director and President of several successful Canadian companies and organizations.  Micheal is a Certified Engineering Technologist (C.E.T.) in Ontario, and an Applied Science Technologist (AScT.) in BC posses a wealth of experience building and scaling companies.

Growing up in Stratford, Ontario, a community with a robust performance and visual arts scene, gave Micheal the privilege to be exposed to the intersectionality and value tensions of urban and rural communities, and art and technology at a young age.  Unfortunately, his firsthand experience to youth poverty also made him acutely aware of the privileges of a few and the inequalities that existed…especially when it came to access, whether to housing, art or technology, the reality rarely matched the promise.  This fostered a strong sense of responsibility and passion to develop not just the technical skills needed, but also the socio-economic skills, and new business models needed to address the challenges of the day and the future.  At the core of this was his belief that technology, when used for good, has the potential to bridge gaps and remove barriers.

Micheal began his career as a computer networks & communications specialist, working on a variety of cutting-edge projects in the defense, telecommunications, and broadcast industries.  At the same time staying in touch with his creative side as a musician/performing artist whenever possible.  Quickly realizing that his passion lay in creating new and innovative technology-based solutions, he began focusing on developing his entrepreneurial skills.  In 2003 he co-founded his first technology venture, a digital media streaming service, and since then has founded and led several successful start-ups, each driven by his desire to bring new and exciting technologies and technology-based services to market.

In 2009, Micheal expanded his expertise into the Engineering field, drawing on his experience to lead the application of new technologies on large scale P3 infrastructure projects, before founding Mooney Metaxas Engineering (MME) in 2017.  During his tenure as President of MME, the company experienced tremendous growth and through his ability to identify and capitalize on market opportunities, via the leveraging of innovative technologies, MME was able to successfully compete with larger established firms in the marketplace, until its acquisition by U.S. based GEI in 2020.

In 2021, Micheal was asked to take on the Executive Director role at Creative Labs North Society, a not-for-profit focused on bridging arts and technology to support artists through an economic development lens.  Creating cross-sectoral partnerships, improving access to technology, and developing capacity in the creative & technology sectors of Canada’s north.  At this time Micheal was also elected to serve as President-Elect for the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologist an organization dedicated to promoting the interests of engineering and applied science technician and technologist in industry, academia, the public, and government.

Currently living in the Yukon, Micheal has continued to push the boundaries of what is possible, co-founding and/or leading ventures that are driving innovation in Digital Marketplaces, AI, IoT, Technological Stewardship, and Autonomous Systems.  Creating Windshear Dynamics in 2022, a company that supports research and development of new technologies/processes and investment in businesses focused on bridging technological gaps, enhancing market access, improving digital adoption and developing technical capacity across key sectors in Canada and the North.

Micheal remains deeply committed to corporate social responsibility and actively promotes diversity, inclusion, and 3BL approach within the companies he leads.  Engaging directly with government, Arts & Technology organizations, and speaking at conferences and events across Canada and U.S., on topics related to engineering, technology, technological stewardship, importance of DEI, digital adoption, entrepreneurship, and social enterprise. Despite his busy schedule, Micheal is also committed to giving back to his community.  Volunteering with not-for-profit organizations and as a mentor for young professionals, sharing his resources, knowledge and experience to help them achieve their goals.  His passion for technology and belief in its potential to change lives inspires him and others to continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.

In short, Micheal is a seasoned business leader with a proven track record of success.  His strategic vision, ability to lead high-performing teams, and commitment to corporate social responsibility have helped him build and successful scale organizations and make a positive impact.