Garrett Hall | Co-Principal Researcher
A Professor of Digital Marketing in the Sheridan Pilon School of Business, Marketing Program. Garrett primarily teach in the areas of Marketing, Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship. Garrett is also a Mentor-in-Residence at Sheridan’s EDGE entrepreneurship hub, and a Faculty Advisor with ENACTUS (Entrepreneurial Action for all of US) Sheridan.
Garrett graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Social Psychology & Statistics in 1986. After this, he completed his MBA in 1988 from the University of Alberta with a focus on Direct Marketing and Entrepreneurship.
Garrett brings over 30 years of business management and marketing experience from entrepreneurial and large-enterprise organizations, having held positions across multiple disciplines including advertising agency Account Executive, Director of New Business, Product Group Manager, eCommerce company Business Owner and a marketing & business consultant.
In 1988, Garrett started his career as an Account Executive with Young and Rubicam in the Direct Marketing arm of Wunderman Worldwide, the world’s largest direct marketing agency at the time. Garrett managed the marketing for various clients such as Book-of-the-Month Club, IBM, AGO, and Maclean’s Magazine.
In 1992, Garrett started as the Marketing Manager of Education Book Clubs and New Business Development with Scholastic Canada, an international publisher and educational marketing company. He managed a team of 10 people in the $23+ million Book Clubs department in the areas of creative & design, production, marketing, and all aspects of sales. He set up marketing performance measurements to control costs and integrated direct marketing principles into creative design. Garrett was also responsible for the launch of the Babysitters Club brand into Canada.
From 1996 to 2009, Garrett owned The Added Touch Group, an online, catalogue, and physical retail seller of consumer household, fashion accessories and gift items. During peak season, Garrett supervised more than 100 employees and a staff of seven department managers through all aspects of the offline and digital businesses; including marketing, sales, strategic planning, forecasting, budgeting, internal controls, human resources, operations, technology, internet, accounting activities and more. With the power of Direct and Digital Marketing, The Added Touch was constantly researching our products, customer behaviour, and responses to promotions.
Under Garrett’s leadership, sales grew to $7.5 million and the customer CRM grew to 835,000 contacts. In only six months, pure internet sales grew from $0 to $600,000 and the digital customer base increased from 0 to more than 170,000 contacts. In 2009, Garret sold the business to an American company called Gardens Alive, a $500 million revenue online retailer and began his own consulting business.
During his time as a consultant, Garrett assisted companies looking to expand into new markets. This included Garden’s Alive, which launched nine brands into Canada in 2009, generating more than $25 million in Canadian sales.
Sujinda Hwang-Leslie, Doctor of Creative Industries | Co-Principal Researcher
Dr. Sujinda Hwang-Leslie is a Professor of Marketing in Sheridan Pilon School of Business. She has been working as a creative director and a marketing director in the digital media and marketing fields since 1993. During that time, she bought one business and founded two start-ups.
Her first business, Applied MultiMedia (APMM), was a division of Applied Learning, an ASX listed company in Australia. She took part in the management buyout and became one of the four partners in the business. APMM offered training solutions to top tier companies in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore including ANZ, BHP, Coca-Cola Amatil, Telstra, Woolworth and Australia Post. It won several Masters of Multimedia, Real Estate Marketing Awards, and Australian Institute of Training and Development awards.
Her second business, a start-up called 1024 Design, started as a digital design agency and grew into a marketing firm, offering digital design and marketing consultancy services to mainly start-ups and small businesses. Sujinda worked with both B2B and B2C clients in Australia, UK and Thailand from various industries. Her top tier clients included Shell UK, Shell Thailand, Amcor and CDX.
Her third business, a start-up called 1024 Simulation, offering integrated big data solutions for transport simulation and analysis. Clients included Deutsche Bahn Engineering and Consulting in Germany, South Africa and UK, and SNC-Lavalin in Canada.
Currently, Sujinda is a Marketing Professor at the Business School, Sheridan College. She was part of the team to develop the Graduate Certificate Creative Industries Management Program, which was launched in Fall 2019. She also developed curriculums for two visual communication design courses, and co-developed six digital marketing courses and three micro-credential courses. In addition, she led the team to create integrated experiential learning platforms for students to practice the latest digital marketing technologies.
Sujinda received a Bachelor of Communication Arts (Motion Picture and Still Photography) from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (1989), a Postgraduate Diploma in Design Studies from University of Technology Sydney, Australia (1992), and a Doctorate of Creative Industries from Queensland University of Technology, Australia (2009). Her thesis was an interdisciplinary study of Graphic Design and Marketing.
Sujinda is an Australian and Thai with Chinese and Burmese heritage. She was born moderately deaf so she understands the challenges of being under.
Bethany Osborne, PhD. | Researcher
Dr. Bethany J. Osborne teaches in the Community Worker Outreach and Development and Social Service Worker programs at Sheridan. She was delighted to join the Sheridan team in 2015. For over a decade before coming to Sheridan, she both developed curriculum and taught in community development and social service work programs at the University of Toronto, Guelph Humber University, George Brown College and Seneca College.
Bethany is an innovative educator and researcher with over 20 years of experience building and engaging diverse communities. She has her MA in Adult Education and Community Development in the collaborative program in Women and Gender Studies and a PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto. Over her career, she has worked with non-profit organizations as a researcher, educator and consultant, enjoying a key role in supporting community transformation through innovative and creative program and project design, grant writing, and working with leadership to develop dynamic learning communities.
Bethany has worked extensively with different immigrant and refugee groups. Over the last decade, she has focused her research on women’s experiences of state violence, focusing on forced migration, precarious immigration status and incarceration. She is particularly interested in the impact that violence has on learning, and how communities impacted by violence can be rebuilt. Bethany is committed to participatory action research and often uses creative modes to engage with the communities she is working with.
Bethany has both worked and travelled internationally, including a 3-year term in Bangladesh where she worked with women in rural Bangladesh employed by fair trade organizations in order to increase their sustainability. She has published extensively in U.S. based media sources, academic books and journals and has had the opportunity to presented conference papers in both Canada and internationally.
