Joanna is a visionary individual known for her strategic mindset, leadership capabilities, and ability to inspire innovation across various facets of marketing, loyalty program design, and gift card frameworks. With a rich background from renowned loyalty and retail brands like LoyaltyOne, Hudson’s Bay Company, and Bond Brand Loyalty, she places a strong emphasis on understanding her client’s needs while pushing boundaries to create lasting impact.

Her proficiency lies in strategy development, crafting, implementing, and launching effective customer engagement programs and building internal consensus to invest in the process and the business infrastructure that sets up the organization for long-term success. Clients can rely on her unwavering commitment to their best interests, ensuring they feel well-supported throughout their journey.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, Joanna is a passionate advocate for women in business and takes an active role in coaching and facilitating business strategy planning sessions to help push boundaries and drive success. With her guidance, many individuals find the encouragement and resources they need to flourish in their ventures.

Michelle is a seasoned Program Manager with over a decade of experience in successfully driving diverse teams to deliver complex projects in the retail and e-commerce sectors. Known for her strategic vision and precise execution, Michelle excels at merging business objectives with innovative solutions ensuring programs not only meet their deadlines and budgets but also drive substantial business growth.

With extensive experience in business strategy, marketing, and communications, Michelle has been instrumental in leading high priority projects, fostering strong client relationships, and enhancing operational efficiencies through effective program oversight. She has successfully led numerous cross-functional teams, demonstrating her ability to navigate complex project landscapes and deliver results that align with strategic business goals.

Michelle’s diverse skill set, business acumen, strong leadership, and commitment to client success have made her a trusted advisor and key asset to organizations looking to elevate their program offerings and achieve measurable outcomes.

Steve boasts a remarkable career, having served in Executive roles for esteemed companies within the loyalty industry, including AIMIA Canada, Aeroplan, The Hudson’s Bay Company, and LoyaltyOne. Throughout his journey, he has successfully cultivated strategic partnerships with various players in the loyalty, retail, travel, finance, and marketing sectors. Steve’s expertise in the loyalty industry stands unrivalled, with a profound understanding of its intricacies.

Renowned for his uncanny talent in recognizing market gaps and opportunities, he has demonstrated an exceptional ability to forge strategic alliances that pave the way for a new vision. Moreover, his execution of these initiatives consistently drives value for organizations. Steve’s dedication and contributions to the loyalty industry have left an indelible mark, making him a true standout.

Steve is a valued Strategic Advisor and continues to support Loyalty & Co and our clients with his expertise, strategic thinking and wisdom.

With more than a decade of expertise in retail partnerships, loyalty programs, and sponsorships, Nicki holds an MBA specializing in strategic management and marketing.

She has dedicated her career to managing and cultivating extensive retail loyalty initiatives for prominent Canadian and global brands, with a particular focus on strategic planning and program evaluation. Nicki possesses a keen understanding of the pivotal role that loyalty and customer-centric marketing play in the modern marketplace, and she consistently brings a practical and insightful approach to her work.

Nicki is a valued Advisor to Loyalty & Co., lending strategic thinking and best practices in negotiating, building and executing large-scale loyalty programs in highly competitive retail markets.

Ron’s background is rooted in successful Franchise operations within the retail gas station, auto service center industries and Home Services. His career started in family-owned Franchises, after which Ron transitioned to management roles within Franchisors, progressively assuming more senior positions within emerging and established brands. Throughout his career, he has consistently provided unwavering support to single and multi-unit franchisees. His unique ability to transform franchisor strategies into actionable outcomes has led to remarkable revenue growth and notable system enhancements with brands such as Canadian Tire, Mr. Lube, Garage Living and Anderson Windows.

Now as the Founder and CEO of Franchise Strategy Co., Ron possesses a wealth of experience in executing effective strategies for a diverse range of organizations. Drawing from firsthand corporate experience, he has developed a simplified strategic planning approach tailored for emerging franchisors and multi-unit franchisees, equipping them to think and expand like larger enterprises. This approach is underpinned by a proprietary strategic planning process structured around three vital pillars: revenue, operations, and people.

Ron is a valued partner of Loyalty & Co., supporting large retail and franchise systems consulting engagements implementing system, technology and process improvements.

Stephen has been a trusted advisor in the payments and loyalty businesses for over 20 years, specializing in developing unique card partnerships between retailers and issuers, strategy roadmaps, new payment products, optimizing portfolio returns, and implementing data monetization programs. Stephen has consulted for major retail and FI brands such as; Air Canada, AIR MILES, Amex, ATB, Borrowell, CAA, CIBC, Coast Capital, Dymon Group, GAP, GM Canada, HBC, Irving Oil, Manulife Bank, OLG, PC Bank, RBC, Scotiabank, Tangerine Bank, Target, TD/Visa and WestJet, amongst others.

Before his fourteen years in consulting, Stephen was Senior Vice President, Credit & Loyalty for Hudson’s Bay Company, one of Canada’s largest retailers. 

In both consulting and corporate roles, Stephen brings a wealth of knowledge in areas such as finding growth opportunities, monetizing customer data, systems implementations, engineering financial results through relationship metrics and management accountabilities, portfolio risk management, operational effectiveness, and proactive management reporting.

Stephen brings strong experience in ​​Co-Branded Card Issuing Partnerships, De-Novo Card Issuing Support, P&L ownership, Systems Selection / Conversion and Implementation, Systems Selection / Conversion and Implementation.

Stephen is a valued partner of Loyalty & Co.,  consistently contributing significant value to our large-scale consulting projects.

Chantel is a dynamic Marketing Professional with an extensive 24-year career that spans various high-impact industries, including gaming, charitable gaming, non-profit, legal technology, financial services, travel, and retail. As Founder of CE Marketing Solutions Inc.  and a Professor of Marketing at Durham College, Chantel possesses a unique ability to quickly discern connections and correlations, making her a powerful strategist in the marketing realm. Chantel‘s robust background is complemented by a deep understanding of both consumer and B2B markets, where she has consistently driven growth and innovation.

Chantel excels in leading strategic marketing initiatives, significantly enhancing engagement and sales across diverse industries. Her expertise in orchestrating comprehensive omni-channel marketing campaigns ensures consistent brand messaging and strong market presence.

With sharp analytical skills, Chantel evaluates and refines marketing strategies and promotional efforts using both quantitative and qualitative assessments. Her collaborative approach is key in her effective management of cross-functional teams, fostering innovation and successful product launches.

As an educator, Chantel designs and facilitates dynamic marketing workshops that engage a diverse array of professionals, applying adult education principles to enhance learning experiences.

Chantel also adeptly manages marketing budgets, ensuring optimal resource allocation and effective financial forecasting to support organizational objectives and sustainable growth.

Gene Jigota is a leader with 25 years experience in leadership and consulting roles.  Her approach is both strategic and detail oriented, focused on the customer as well as internal organizational processes and structures to achieve desired business outcomes.  She has entered organizations to build data analytics capabilities and secured new areas of business, helping clients be more in control of their data, enabling fact based decisioning and measurement.

In financial institutions and insurance, she has led redesigns of the business models cross-functionally and a growth strategy across channels, internal processes and partners.  Gene’s strength in quantitative techniques and methods ensure clients will get to the insight they are seeking.  She has the ability to spot market patterns, connect quantitative, qualitative and bring new data sources that deliver a true competitive advantage.

She is a hands-on strategic and technical manager, identifying projects’ critical path and removing barriers, rallying the team as well as being an active participant in solutioning and architecture, to ensure products deliver on the business objectives.

Gene is a leader in Loyalty Program Build & Implementation, specializing in bridging the gap between business (loyalty design teams) and technical resources. Expertise includes designing loyalty currency calculations, defining data flow, establishing reward mechanisms, and creating data structures for instant analytics and algorithmic decisioning.