In a world obsessed with trends, AI, and flashy branding, most businesses are skipping the real foundations of marketing – a key pillar of every successful business. Ina will unpack what’s missing beneath the surface – why storytelling and strategic systems matter more than algorithms or aesthetics.
Through real examples from her work, she’ll reveal how businesses lose their way by focusing on the wrong things: investing in a beautiful website without lead generation or search engine visibility, posting on social media without purpose, or creating campaigns that talk at their audience instead of to them. This keynote brings business owners back to what truly drives growth – a holistic approach where strategy, systems, and human connection work together.
Ina Toncescu is a marketing strategist and creative director with over 15 years of experience helping businesses grow with clarity, purpose, and measurable results. Having worked across small business, non-profit, and government sectors, she’s led transformative marketing strategies, built systems that last, and landed multi-million-dollar deals using the same frameworks she teaches today.
Most capable people don’t stall because they lack drive, direction, or ideas. They stall because growth has outpaced the structure underneath it, and they have quietly become the system everything else runs through. This is Nile Saïd’s territory.
As founder of GoOneUp and a Capacity Growth Strategist, Nile works with entrepreneurs, business owners, and leaders who are capable of more and have started to feel the cost of how they have been growing. He installs the strategy, structure, and clarity that lets a business grow without depending on the founder for every move. His work spans
messaging, marketing, leadership, and execution.
His perspective draws on nearly 40 years studying human behavior and personal performance, alongside 25 years building and leading businesses of his own. He is known for clarity that changes how leaders show up the same week.
Most owners build something successful, then feel trapped by it. No free time, too much personal risk, and their net worth locked inside a company they can’t easily leave. Simon, founder of Freedom For Founders, calls this the Freedom Gap: the distance between the business they built and the freedom they dream of.
Selling or acquiring a business isn’t just financial. It’s personal, tied to identity, family, and what comes next. A well-planned merger or acquisition is the path out. From joint ventures and partial share sales to employee stock ownership plans and many more paths, owners have far more options than they realize. Each comes with its own advantages: immediate liquidity, the chance to stay involved, real tax efficiency, or the ability to protect employees and preserve a legacy.
Simon is founder and President of Freedom For Founders, an M&A advisory firm. A Certified Exit Planning Advisor and Licensed Business Broker with over 12 years guiding founders through selling or acquiring, he’s built his work around one mission: founder, financial and personal freedom.
Every small business is now using AI to create content faster, which means your marketing sounds exactly like your competitors’. Most business owners prompt AI for “professional emails” or “social posts,” but those generic prompts strip out the personality and trust signals that make customers choose you over the competition.
This session reveals the 4 simple principles that separate AI content people engage with from AI content people ignore, and shows you how to train AI on YOUR voice using content you’ve already created. You’ll walk out with practical frameworks you can implement immediately. No technical background needed, just a willingness to make AI work for your business, not against it.
Since 2007, Jason has been immersed in the world of digital marketing, leveraging social media to cultivate a fanbase for his Japanese rock band. His expertise in monetizing online traffic has since led him to become a Co-founder of Merged Media – Canada’s premier digital marketing agency providing services in Social Media Marketing, Google Advertising and SEO. Additionally, he is the host of The Merged Marketing Podcast, and has been a featured speaker and host at marketing conferences worldwide, such as Ad World, The European Summit and The Affiliate Summit. In 2022, he released his debut book, ‘Drop The Mic Marketing: How to Find Your Social Media Voice’, which has become a go-to guide for aspiring entrepreneurs.
