Brought to you by Technation and Red River College.

Date: Monday, November 2, 2020
Time: 3:00 PM – 10:00 PM CST
All Online at Hopin – a virtual event platform
The BTM TalentMash is an annual event which brings together students and industry professionals to discuss the ways in which Business Technology Management (BTM) grads will create bridges between the technology and business. Employers will learn more about Red River College’s Business Technology Management program and the skills that graduates bring to the workforce. Students gain a deeper understanding of the roles they might play in industry and the competencies that they will require.
The BTM TalentMash includes keynote speakers, panel discussions and opportunities to network. We invite Industry Members and our BTM students to attend.
Red River College’s Business Technology Management diploma program was established in 2016. Students develop skills and knowledge in the areas of technology, communications and business. The program includes a co-op or industry project term so that students can apply their learning.
This years BTM TalentMash is on Monday, November 2, 2020, and we are inviting industry to have an exhibitor booth, or just attend the event. If you would like to have an exhibitor booth, contact Dan Greenberg at dgreenberg@rrc.ca.
Register Today
Event Agenda
Time |
Session |
Speaker |
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. |
Welcome and Keynote Speaker |
Sheila Harris, Capstone Ridge Group |
4:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. |
Break |
4:45 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. |
Breakout Sessions |
Trish Bishop – Managing Remote Work
Shireen Morkous – Team Building and Working with Developers |
5:30 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. |
Break |
5:45 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. |
Industry Panel |
Kevin Haines, Online Business Systems
Ashleigh Lodge, Neovation
Juanita Fraser, Bold Commerce
Rodrigo Raval, 24-7 Intouch Laivly |
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. |
Supper/Exhibitors/Dance Party Room |
8:00 p.m. – 8:45 p.m. |
Breakout Sessions |
Peter Boileau – “The Day It All Changed” Practicing Business Analysis in a Virtual World
Juanita DeSouza-Huletey – Pathway to Professional Prosperity as an Immigrant in Canada
BTM Industry Information Session |
8:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. |
Break |
9:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. |
BTM Alumni Panel |
Thiago Schmidt da Silva, Online Business Systems
Prerna Verma, Winnipeg Construction Association
Amanda Braybrook, Richardson International
Kingsley Franklin, Ironclad Developments |
Each attendee is entitled to a $15 Skip the Dishes food voucher (one use per customer), brought to you by Skip the Dishes .

Keynote Speaker

Sheila Harris
Keynote Presentation – Levers for Success
Information Technology is an exciting field with endless opportunities to advance and grow. We all have strengths and weaknesses that will drive and impact our career path. Today’s business environment demands that we are adaptable, agile, enterprising, and skilled in the art of diplomacy. Recent global events have had huge impacts on how we work individually and in teams, leading to even greater demands on IT workers to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively. Business environments are rapidly changing how they leverage their IT platforms. We are living in an era of Digital Transformation, as there has been a significant shift from on premises, in-house IT solutions to cloud-based platforms and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. Industries need to keep up with the current business demands while planning for the future. Sheila Harris will present on how to develop your skills, overcome your weaknesses, and leverage your strengths to achieve your career goals and work towards becoming a leader in your field.
Sheila Harris is an experienced Management Consultant, Business Architect, Project Manager, and Change Management Specialist with over 20 years of experience in the design and delivery of IT solutions to meet business requirements. She has successfully deployed IT solutions in Health Care, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Public Insurance, Municipal Utilities, and Digital Agriculture industries with specialization in system selection, initiation, development, deployment, and business adoption. She started her career as a software developer and has worked in Information Technology as a Senior IT Consultant specializing in business transformation projects for over a decade. She has taught Business Systems Design in the Red River College Business Analyst program and has sat on the steering committee for the program. Sheila is also an accomplished thought leader, speaker, mentor, and most recently editor to a first-time writer.
Master of Ceremonies
Kay Gardiner, CEO, Tech Manitoba
Kay Gardiner is a leader with a commitment to collaborative problem-solving. As CEO of Tech Manitoba, Kay is a champion for the tech community, empowering stakeholders through initiatives designed to foster a culture of innovation. She has been a senior member of Tech Manitoba’s leadership team since 2015 when she came on board as Program Director of Tech West Canada. Following her vision and direction, the Tech West Canada team garnered national and international recognition for their knowledge and expertise while partnering with SMEs and government at local, provincial, national and international level.
Session Speakers
Trish Bishop
Session Name: Managing Remote Work
Session Description: For people who will be either formal or informal leaders leading a remote workforce or team.
Biography: With more than 27 years of large-scale Program and Project Management experience combined with extensive technical experience, Trish’s expertise is in bringing business solution requirements from vision to reality.
As the National Project Manager for one of the first ISP’s in Canada, Trish quickly found her niche as a ‘translator’ with an exceptional ability to translate business needs into solutions. Moving into the e-learning arena in early 2000, Trish managed national, international and global implementations for up to 250,000 users and developed extensive experience in change management and corporate communications strategies. Most of Trish’s projects were multi-year, multi-million-dollar solutions. Trish also led the development of several proprietary enterprise models to facilitate requirements gathering processes and shifted a 60% project failure rate to a 90% success rate using this approach.
Trish’s strong leadership skills and her ability to ‘meet people where they’re at’ has resulted in her developing 5 high-performance PMO teams from the ground up including defining governance, processes, tools, templates and the discipline to bring them all together to drive huge success in a fun, fast-paced environment. She has also had the opportunity to work directly with C-level executives across organizations of all sizes, including Fortune 500 clients.
Trish brings a unique perspective to every engagement through her ability to combine significant technical knowledge and aptitude, with deep functional, theoretical and hands-on business experience. Her success has been a function of her ability to successfully incorporate a truly multi-stakeholder approach ensuring all needs are understood, honored, and met or exceeded.
Shireen Morkous
Session Name: Team Building and Working with Developers
Session Description: How to build a successful team, building team stages and solving conflicts.
Shireen Morkous is a Senior Project Manager at DXC Technology with 15+ years experience in Agile Practices, Project Manageement, Service Management, Team Lead/Coach, Business/System Analysis.
Relevant Experience
- Mentored and coached Red River college graduation projects/ teams to agile using Scrum practices
- Participated in Enterprise Agile transformation and coordinated Agile adoption for teams across multiple sites in Canada, Denmark and Egypt
- Responsible for deveining the agile transformation strategy for Enterprise Data Services
- Led various teams of agile coaches (onshore/offshore) to esecute the strategy by providing coaching and training support.
Peter Boileau

Session Name: “The Day It All Changed” – Practicing Business Analysis in a virtual world
Session Description: Join Peter as he shares his story of how the pandemic immediately changed how their co-located agile project team worked. Hear the challenges of practicing Business Analysis in a virtual world along with tips to overcome those challenges. As well as how organizations are driving culture and engagement in this new normal.
Peter Boileau is a Senior Business Analyst with CWB National Leasing, a leader in Canadian Equipment Financing. He is an alumnus of RRC and is a member of the RRC Business Analysis Advisor Committee. Peter has been practicing Agile Business Analysis for the past 7 years and was a board member of the Winnipeg Agile User Group during its active years. He has also been an active member of the Winnipeg IIBA Chapter and enjoys connecting with Business Analysts of all experience levels. Be sure to reach out to Peter on LinkedIn.
Juanita DeSouza Huletey
Session Name: Pathway to Professional Prosperity as an Immigrant in Canada
Session Description: Juanita’s shares her key professional experiences over the last 30 years as an immigrant in Canada. This session will draw on her unique path to becoming a professional and will provide insight and advice on how to assimilate into the culture and business world in Canada.
Juanita De-Souza-Huletey is a dynamic Information Technology Management professional with over 25 years of leadership experience in the industry. She is an educator and seasonal instructor at both the University of Winnipeg and Red River college, as she likes to impact knowledge and share her professional experiences. She is currently the Manager of Application Services with the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba. Prior to that, she was the divisional head of the IT Division at Winnipeg Police Service (WPS),a member of the WPS Executive Management Team, and held two other managerial positions at the City of Winnipeg.
Juanita obtained her master’s degree in Economics from the University of Manitoba and successfully completed her course work as a PHD Candidate. She has an undergraduate degree with Double Honors in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Ghana. Juanita also holds a number of professional designations and certificates . She has published a few papers in International journals and has presented papers/reports at international conferences.
Juanita plays an active role within her community/Industry and serves on a number of committees and boards at the executive and advisory levels within educational institutions , NGOs, professional and community-based organizations. She was just appointed to the Board of Governors of the University of Manitoba. She has a passion for volunteering and believes in giving back to the community. It is worth mentioning that Juanita chaired the WCB United Way Campaign for two years during which WCB achieved the highest participation rate and most donations in its history.
She is married and has three adult sons.
BTM Industry Information Session
We welcome our industry attendees to attend an information session about our Business Technology program. Learn what our students and graduates can do for you!
To attend, you can register as a regular industry attendee, or select Information Session Only ticket to attend the session, but not the full event.
Industry Panel
Ashleigh Lodge
Ashleigh is the Application Development Manager at Neovation Learning Solutions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She manages a team of over 20 developers, UX designers and QA analysts who work to maintain and grow two elearning products. A graduate of the Computer/Analyst Programmer (CAP) program at Red River College, she has held various development and management roles in the tech industry for over 10 years.
Ashleigh is a vocal advocate for accessibility and inclusive design, working to make Neovation’s products more accessible to users of all types and abilities. She has spoken about accessibility to a variety of audiences, including at Prairie Dev Con in Winnipeg & Regina, Confoo Montreal, and at TedxWinnipeg 2019, where she brought the idea and foundations of digital accessibility to an audience of nearly 700 Winnipeggers. Ashleigh has also published articles on digital accessibility in Code Magazine in 2019 and 2020.
In her free time, Ashleigh consumes a truly frightening amount of pop culture media, including movies, TV shows, comic books and novels. You can usually find her with Pokémon Go open on her phone, no matter where she is or what she’s (supposed to be) doing.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shimmoril
Website/LinkedIn: http://ashleighlodge.ca
Kevin Haines
Kevin is passionate about using technology to enable business. He has over 20 years of experience in a variety of industries. Kevin is a Program Director and Principal Consultant for Online Business Systems, President of the IIBA Winnipeg Chapter, College Instructor, a Career Mentor and leads teams that improve process and technology to achieve business goals. Kevin enjoys speaking at industry events such as IIBA Leadership Webinars, Professional Development Days, Building Business Capability and BA World (Winnipeg, Orlando and Toronto). Kevin has degrees in Philosophy, Psychology, Finance and MIS from the Asper School of Business. His certifications include Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Management of Risk, PROSCI Org Change Management and PRINCE2 Practitioner.
Juanita Fraser
Juanita Fraser
Lead Product Manager, Bold Commerce
Juanita graduated from the Computer Analyst Programmer(CAP) program in 2002. Having spent the next 17 years working as a developer, business analyst and product owner in the financial services industry, she now ‘hangs her hat’ as a product manager in e-commerce.
Juanita loves agile development and has an astonishing collection of Post-It notes at her disposal for both her personal and professional life.
Rodrigo Raval
Brazillian entrepreneur and Software Development Manager in Canada, Rodrigo Raval is experienced in different industries, including Telecommunications, IT infrastructure, and Software development in several countries worldwide. He brings people, inspiration and ideas together to create highly effective products and teams.
Rodrigo is responsible for orchestrating all the moving pieces and implementing innovative solutions to contact center challenges while optimizing human effort, time, and quality through the use of Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation.
Rodrigo is passionate about people and technology, and he combines both into a solution oriented environment delivering value on both fronts.
Alumni Panel
Thiago Schmidt da Silva
Thiago is an IT Professional with 15 years of experience and a strong background in Business Intelligence and full-stack software development.
He graduated from the Business Technology Management Program at Red River College in Spring 2020 and has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science since 2004.
Thiago works for Online Business Systems providing services of a Business Intelligence Consultant for a major financial sector company.
He is passionate about creating solutions that provide information and insights for better business decisions, analyzing complex business scenarios, and learning new technologies.
He performed several roles throughout his career, such as Java Developer, Systems Analyst, SAP BW Developer, Business Intelligence Consultant, Data Developer. He was also a Manager of an Analytical Solutions Department.
Prerna Verma
Business Technology Management not only teaches you about Business and Information Technology but makes you ready for any field you wish to go in. This certainly happened in my case.
Graduated from the Business Technology Management Program at Red River College, I am working as a Project Coordinator at Winnipeg Construction Association (WCA). WCA is an incorporated, not-for-profit trade association representing commercial contractors and suppliers throughout Manitoba. Being a Project Coordinator at WCA, my foremost role is to provide Construction Information to our 800+ members.
My journey at WCA started as a Business Support Assistant during my Co-op term. I then worked part-time as I went back to RRC to finish my last term. After completing my studies, I got promoted to the title of Project Coordinator in January 2019 and have been working there full-time since then.
I am always excited to learn new things and expand my knowledge. Right now, I am taking an online introductory course in Key Business Technologies – Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science. Over the next few years, I might go back to school to receive higher education in either Project Management or Construction Management (whichever sparks my interest the most at that point).
Amanda Braybrook
Amanda Braybrook is a business Analyst at Richardson International, where she works to bridge the gap between business needs and systems implementations. Prior to taking the BTM course at RRC, Amanda worked in the retail sector for over 10 years. The experience in retail leadership and management, aligned with the technical courses from BTM, makes Amanda unique to her role.
During her free time, Amanda enjoys playing video games, reading and watching television series.
Kingsley Franklin
Did you ever wonder what the BTM Program entails? Where your future is going and what your options are? So did I. I found myself in a position not knowing much of what my future held at the end of the BTM Program from RRC when I first started. Now armed with the knowledge of the program and the experience in the field, I can help answer questions you have from someone who has experienced the same thing.
I started my career with experiences in multiple fields and have had the opportunity to grow my skills well beyond what I believed I could. I was a Store manager at Footlocker and River City Sports for several years allowing myself to gain confidence in managing groups of people and helping deal with stressful situations. I was able to progress as a Project Manager dealing in web development and Chatbot Design and Flow during my coop, to now as a Business Analyst/Project Manager (I wear many hats) with one of Canada’s Best managed companies(Ironclad Developments). I’m currently pursing my CAPM(Certified Associate in Project Management) and ECBA (Entry Certification in Business Analysis) with a long term goal of PMP(Project Management Professional) certification and several Business Analyst Certifications.
In my spare time I enjoy everything with technology, movie trivia and playing Video Games! Please ask me as many questions as you can think of, I’m always easy to spot with my beard!
Exhibitors



Registration
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