Advisory Board
-
STEVEN
DENURECo-Founder, Wildbrain (formerly DHX Media)
-
ANITA
LEEExecutive Producer, National Film Board of Canada
-
ARON
LEVITZGM, Wattpad Studios
-
ANNE MARIE
MADURIPresident, Maduri & Associates
-
TRINA
MCQUEENCo-Director of the Arts, Media & Entertainment Management Program, Schulich School of Business
-
TARA
PARKERPartner, Goodmans LLP
-
NOAH
SEGALPresident, Elevation Pictures
-
SHARON
ZOHARFounder/CEO, The Big Push
Steven DeNure is a media executive and entrepreneur, and co-founder and a key builder of Wildbrain (formerly DHX Media), where he served for many years as President and Chief Operating Officer.
He also was President and co-founder of DECODE, and prior to that President of Alliance Productions. At Wildbrain he was responsible for the key business units: broadcasting (Family Channel), all content development and production, world-wide distribution and sales, as well as the integration and re-imagining of the iconic Peanuts brand and business, and Wildbrain Spark, which manages content across AVOD platforms.
DeNure has served as Executive Producer or Producer on numerous film and TV productions including Degrassi, Yo Gabba Gabba, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Inspector Gadget, Angela Anaconda, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and LetterKenney. In his Alliance days he developed or Executive Produced many well-known titles, including Reboot, Transformers: Beastwars, Due South, E.N.G., North of 60, Whale Music and Black Robe.
Mr. DeNure studied film at Simon Fraser University, graduated with a BA in Economics & Business Administration and studied French and Art History at the Université de Grenoble, France.
Mr. DeNure currently serves on the board of the Canadian Film Centre as Vice Chair, theboard of Dark Slope Studios, and in the past has served on the boards of the CMPA, the Banff World Media Festival and the Youth Media Alliance.
Anita Lee is Executive Producer and Head of Studio in Toronto for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) where she helms the programming and production of Ontario projects including Canadian and international co-productions, and forges key strategic partnerships. A multi-award-winning producer, Lee produced some of the most critically acclaimed works in NFB history, including Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, named Best Documentary Feature by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, and Best Canadian Film by the Toronto Film Critics Association. She was awarded a Peabody for The Apology. Recent projects as Executive Producer include: This is not a Movie (TIFF 2019); What is Democracy (TIFF 2018); What Walaa Wants (Berlin 2018, Hot Docs Jury Prize Best Canadian Feature Documentary, TIFF Top Ten Film, CSA nominee for Best Feature Documentary); Unarmed Verses (Hot Docs 2017 Best Canadian Feature Documentary, TIFF Top Ten, CSA nomination for Best Feature Documentary); A Better Man (Hot Docs 2017, Doc NYC 2017) and Draw Me Close (Tribeca, Venice 2017). Lee established NFB’s Creative Non-Fiction Immersive Lab which partnered with the CFC and Ford Foundation on Open ImmersionVR, Creative Doc VR Lab with National Theatre (UK), and Otherly, a non-fiction Instagram Stories Lab in partnership with POV Spark (PBS). Lee is the Founder/Advisory Chair of the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
As Head of Wattpad Studios, Aron Levitz connects the entertainment and publishing industries with new voices and original content on Wattpad. Leveraging data and community insights, Aron works with the industry to co-produce Wattpad stories for film, television, print and digital formats.
Previously, as Head of Business Development, Aron helped establish the company’s monetization strategy and launched Wattpad Brand Stories, a native advertising solution. He was also instrumental in launching the Wattpad Stars program that gives top influencers access to a variety of opportunities.
Throughout his career, Aron has connected the entertainment industry with emerging technology and mobile platforms. As Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at Xtreme Labs, Aron developed business and mobile strategies for the world’s top media brands including MTV. Prior to Xtreme Labs, he was Director of Entertainment and Global Content Acquisition at BlackBerry where he worked with artists and other talent, as well as launched innovative music, movie, TV, and gaming services. Aron received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Waterloo.
Anne Marie is President of Maduri + Assocs. Inc., which provides corporate finance advisory services to Digital Media, Entertainment & Enabling-Technology companies. Maduri’s work is sector specific, assisting early-stage to public companies to secure investment and execute M&A transactions domestically and in emerging markets. Her focus is on building sustainable, competitive companies that best ensure successful outcomes for founders and investors.
At present Maduri works primarily as an independent advisor, and as required, in partnership with various investment banks. Her previous work experience was sell-side oriented in equity research and corporate finance with both boutique firms and major banks. Prior to working in capital markets, Maduri was an award-winning theater producer.
Maduri holds an MBA (Finance) and is completing the CFA charter.
Trina McQueen is the Bell Media Professor in Media Management, and Co-Director of the Arts, Media and Entertainment Program at Schulich School of Business at York University. In her industry career she was President and COO of CTV Inc., founding President of Discovery Channel Canada, and Head of CBC television news. She was the first woman in North America to run a national television news service. She has remained active in the industry with service on boards including CBC, Telefilm Canada, TVOntario and Canadian Television (now Media) Fund. For her services to Canadian media, she has been given an eclectic series of honours, including Canadian Journalism Foundation Lifetime Achievement, memberships in the Playback Movie and Télévision and the CBC News Halls of Fame, honourary membership in Director’s Guild of Canada, and the Order of Canada. She started her career as an on-air reporter working at CTV’s W-5 and later at CBC’s The National.
Tara Parker is a partner in the Entertainment Law Group at Goodmans. She represents major US and Canadian studios, broadcasters, independent producers and a range of creative and business clients, in the development, production, financing and exploitation of film, television, digital and other media projects. She is recognized as a leading Entertainment lawyer by The Best Lawyers in Canada (named 2015 Toronto Entertainment Lawyer of the Year), The Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory, The Lexpert®/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada (Entertainment), Chambers Canada, Who’s Who Legal: Sports & Entertainment and Euromoney’s Guides to the World’s Leading Technology, Media & Telecommunications Lawyers and Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law (media).
She is a frequent speaker/panelist at media conferences (including “Dealing with Social Media Influencers”, at Entertainment & Media Law Symposium 2019) and guest lecturer on entertainment law at the University of Toronto Law School, Ryerson University and for the Osgoode Certificate in Entertainment Law course. She has appeared as a guest expert on the subject of “format/reality programming” and “copyright/street art” on BNN and CTV networks, respectively. She has contributed articles to various publications including: "Views about Drake's 6IX trademark dispute" and “Cartoonist challenges Banksy’s intellectual Property Rights” in The Lawyer’s Daily, published by LexisNexis Canada.
After starting as a producer’s assistant at Cambium Productions, Noah moved over to film distribution with New World – Mutual Films. Noah spent 9 years at New World, (later re-titled Malofilm) rising through the ranks of the company to Vice President and General Manager. His responsibilities entailed overseeing Canadian Distribution activities for Malofilm’s new releases and catalogue titles in the Theatrical, Video and Television cycles.
Changing gears, Mr. Segal joined multinational BMG, the third largest entertainment company in the world, where he acted as Vice President of marketing for the music company’s Canadian operation.
In January of 1999, Noah rejoined the film business as Senior Vice President of Distribution with the then burgeoning entertainment company, Lions Gate Films. Rising to Executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Noah ankled the company in August 2001 to form a new producing partnership entitled, “The 49th Parallel”.
In the course of two years, Noah executive produced 4 films including the “Ginger Snaps” trilogy. Noah also executive produced the Cannes Film Festival 2004 award winning 3-D animated/documentary “Ryan”. The piece also went on to win an Oscar for best animated short.
After the partnership ended, Noah began Memento Pictures. Through this endeavor, Noah executive produced the remake of the cult classic, “Black Christmas” that was a wide release by The Weinstein Company. He followed that with exec producing chores on a series of successful rock documentaries with Banger films, including, “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey”, “Global Metal”, and “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage”.
Noah re-entered distribution heading up the home entertainment division of Alliance Atlantis Entertainment, the largest entertainment company in Canada. When Entertainment One bought the company in 2013, Noah was installed as Co-President of Canada for the company. In his time with Alliance Films and Entertainment One, Noah executive produced 10 films and acted as an executive for the company in countless productions. This included his first foray into television with an executive producing credit on the hit reality TV show, “Undercover Boss: Canada”.
In 2014, Noah co-founded Canada’s newest full service film and TV distributor, Elevation Pictures with Laurie May and financier, Teddy Schwarzman. In its short five year existence, Elevation has quickly become a game changer in feature film distribution in Canada. The company has won Playback’s distributor of the year, and won two consecutive People’s Choice Awards at the Toronto International Film Festival, with “The Imitation Game” and “Room”. The company also released 2016’s Best Picture “Moonlight”.
In late 2016, Noah expanded his duties to spearhead Elevation’s new production division. Elevation Productions is actively focused on producing and co-producing original film and TV content. The company produced Canadian features including “American Woman” (directed by Semi Chellas, starring Sarah Gadon, official selection at Tribeca Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival), “Random Acts of Violence” (directed by and starring Jay Baruchel) and co-productions including “The Nest” (directed by Sean Durkin starring Jude Law).
Current productions include “The Exchange” (directed by Dan Mazer) and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3” (sequel to worldwide phenomenon franchise). Elevation also has numerous projects in development including the TV series “Night Patrol” (to be directed by Jay Baruchel), and feature film “French Exit” (directed by Azazel Jacobs, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges).
Sharon Zohar is a serial entrepreneur and investor with more than twenty years of experience founding, investing, advising, and operating technology, internet, and digital media companies. She is driven by her passion to identify new innovative technologies and business models that have the potential to disrupt traditional markets and are designed to improve the human condition.
As founder and CEO of the Big Push, an all-women led business accelerator, Sharon has developed a unique “Service for Equity” business model dedicated to accelerating the growth of women-led start-ups and prepare them for Series A financing. She leads a diverse group of professionals with years of experience in the areas of finance, design, law, technology, research, sales, and marketing dedicated to supplementing women founders’ own expertise during the critical start-up phase.