TEN STEPS FOR GROWING YOUR BUSINESS BY GETTING OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY with Pat Mussieux Morning Keynote

Pat Mussieux has a message of hope and success. For more than 20 years, Pat has studied the internal driving forces that create happiness and success at all levels. She knows what drives women, what inspires them and what it really takes to transform them from the inside out.

As a coach, speaker, author and radio host, she teaches women mindset and marketing techniques to help them figure out what they want to be when they grow up, how to get out of their own way, how to attract more clients, make more money and have more freedom – so they can develop the confidence and courage to live their best life – at any age!

co-founded Event Spectrum in 1997 and her dynamic leadership has led the company to be on the Profit 100 Top Canadian Growth Companies. Cynthia made the decision to launch Event Spectrum based on her own experience as a corporate meeting planner who worked with large event management agencies.

Cynthia has been on the list of the Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs in Canada for the last six years, and has been profiled on television and in numerous magazines for developing an exciting and empowering work culture that has garnered Cynthia recognition as “one of Toronto’s Best Bosses.”

, entrepreneur, mother of eight and founder of Kids & Company, understands the delicate balancing act and is determined to make a difference by helping working parents and concerned employers.

As President and CEO of Kids & Company, which was recently ranked #1 in the 2008 PROFIT Magazine’s list of Canada’s fastest-growing companies, Victoria Sopik oversees the company’s strategic direction and provides leadership to the company’s management team to deliver industry leading childcare services.

LORI VAN OPSTAL has owned and operated Your Advantage Staffing Consulting, a very successful transportation staffing company in Cambridge since 1997. Her experience in the staffing business began in Los Angeles in 1983. She immigrated to Canada in 1988, and has become an active member of the region by participating in both community and industry groups.

Because of Lori’s Mohawk ancestry, her business has been recognized by both the Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council and the Native American Business Alliance as a Native American/Aboriginal Canadian Company.

The difficult people in her life became her best teachers, challenging Rona to acquire new skills and confront her own difficult side. After a lifetime of striving to prove she was always right, she learned it was more important to be able to fix what she does wrong.

Join her for a no-holds-barred conversation about what it really takes to deal constructively with ego-bashers, nay-sayers and your own inner troublemaker. With Rona’s life-tested wisdom, you’ll turn conflicts into wellsprings of mastery and inspiration--both professionally and personally.

THE HULA HOOP ADVANTAGE with Diana Bishop Arternoon Keynote

When Diana Bishop was 14 years old, her father enlisted her to help him in his public relations business by dreaming up an outrageous scheme to revive the hula-hoop craze of the 1950’s. Much to everyone’s surprise, it worked, and with that experience, grew Diana’s understanding that you can market almost anything if you have the right story. What’s your story?

After 30 years of telling stories as a TV News Correspondent and now as one of Canada’s leading packaging and branding specialists, Diana explores the challenges that businesses face telling their story and yes, it's true, in today’s crowded marketplace, whoever tells the best story wins.