Don Whitbeck

Chief Executive Officer, Partner

Don co-founded Sensei Marketing and is Chief Executive Officer. With over 30 years in the industry, Don combines an extensive background in Global Marketing, Finance, Operations and International Sales with both Enterprise companies and Entrepreneurial organisations. Beginning his career in Sales at HP, Don sold to Fortune 500 companies as well as SME’s, he then moved into Marketing and Operations at Sun Microsystems, then Global Branding and Marketing at IBM. Don has participated in 5 start-ups, including Internet Security, where he drove a start-up’s marketing and sales into 44 countries.  While CEO at an Internet software development firm, Don oversaw the creation and delivery of Canada’s first Internet banking system as well as one of the world’s first internet based equity trading platforms. Don has also co-founded a venture capital firm and founded an internet based logistics company where he purchased and combined 4 companies and integrated 1,200 same-day delivery companies into a North America wide network. He’s taken the helm at 2 publicly traded Enterprise software firms, raised over $50M in financings, recruited sales, marketing, finance, IT, development and operational executives as well as grown, acquired, sold and divested companies.

Sam Fiorella

Chief Strategy Officer, Partner

With  almost 30 years senior sales and marketing experience under his belt, having lead the strategy and development for over 1800 digital projects for some of the world’s largest companies and marketing agencies, Sam heads up the digital & customer experience practice here at Sensei. During this time, he has developed and managed interactive marketing campaigns for AOL America, Sears Travel, Intrawest Resort Properties, GM/Saturn, American Idol, Snyder’s of Hanover, Kraft Foods, and hundreds more, including work for dozens of leading agencies around North America. Further, Sam has designed/developed many “world-first” web-based platforms including the world’s first web-based campground reservation system, the world’s first web-based airport crisis communication platform, and the world’s first interoperable suite of marketing technologies for advertising agencies.

Sam has co-authored  Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage, and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing, published by Pearson Publishing and takes time to teach advanced digital and social marketing strategies as an adjunct professor at Rutger’s Center for Management Development and professor at Seneca College in Toronto. Sam is also a regular Digital and Social Media commentator on CBC Radio.

Robert Clarke

Chief Marketing Officer, Partner

Robert has 15 years of marketing and communications experience including the public sector, technology, telecom, and insurance industries.  In 2011, he co-founded a digital agency called Op Ed Marketing, which merged with Sensei Marketing in 2017.

His marketing background includes brand positioning, copywriting and content, email marketing, lead generation, website conversion, and as a Google Certified Partner has helped manage over $2 million in ad spend.  He has written two eBooks, and has given multiple workshops on topics such as social media, lead generation, and pay per click marketing.

Robert is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (HBA) and the University of Waterloo (MA).

Adrian Savin

Director, Strategy

Through his design and development work with small and large agencies, Adrian has honed an intimate working knowledge of digital product development. His grit and relentless push for quality in the digital space has lead him to win design and development contracts from some of the largest marketing and PR companies in the country including McCann and Media Profile, developing web projects for such clients as TransCanada and Starbucks.

Holding a BA in Psychology from McGill University, Adrian has applied his foundational knowledge in human behaviour and statistics to an early career in User Experience design before transitioning to work as a self-taught programmer. The combination of these skills has lead Adrian to most recently found a front-end design and development studio called Profilio.

Dennis Sherbakov

Chief Technology Officer

With over 20 years of progressively senior technology leadership roles, Dennis has overseen over 1,800 digital projects for a wide range of clients worldwide. Dennis has been involved with the full range of technology solutions including software, embedded systems, Apps, hardware, mechanical devices and robotics.

Dennis has managed teams across all aspects of the development cycle including Design, Development, User acceptance/UI design, Graphic design, Database design and management, Quality Assurance as well as Hosting, Maintenance and Training. Dennis graduated from National Technical University of Belarus in 1994, with a major in robotics and microelectronics.

Sergey Peregud

Manager, Software Development

Sergey has worked with Sam and Dennis, two of firm’s executives, for the past 15 years. During that time, he’s been the quiet mastermind behind the thousands of software applications, mobile technologies, and digital campaign this group has produced. Most recently, Sergey has been the lead software architect of Sensei’s CXM Platform, which supports many of the lead generation and customer development campaigns we deploy.

Today, Sergey is tasked with managing all Sensei’s programming staff, database engineers, and QA staff. In addition, he serves as Senior Project Manager on key implementations. Sergey has a Masters Degree in Engineering and Programming from the University of Informatics and Electronics in Belarus.

Craig Silva

Manager, Digital and Social Strategy

Craig has over 25 years of extensive marketing experience including community management, journalism, public relations, social media moderation, event management, project and account management, content creation, graphic design, and print management. Most recently, he led a large automotive brand’s social team; building their social community to the largest and most active in Canada.

Craig’s passion for the social space is ingrained in all he does – work and play. In June 2017, PR firm Cision identified Craig as one of Canada’s top 10 most popular male bloggers in the parents and family space. He has worked with several brands including Rogers, Netflix, The Florida Keys, Michelin, Sunwing, RIDE Checks, Dyson, Canadian Tire, Ontario’s Lake Country, Air Canada, Ford, Kia, GM, Acura, Purina, Tim Hortons, Visit California, and many more.

Danny Brown

Senior Manager, Digital and Social Strategy

Over the last 20 years in the Marketing field, Danny has delivered results for some of the biggest organizations in the technology, digital and consumer industries including Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, BlackBerry, British Telecom, Orange, Microsoft Canada, IBM, Ford Canada, FedEX, Scotiabank, Vodafone, Dell and LG Electronics. He is the co-author of “Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage, and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing” from Que/Pearson, as well as the author of three other books including “The Parables of Business”.

Danny holds an Associate of Marketing degree from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK and is a multiple award-winning marketer and blogger; voted one of Canada’s Top 50 Marketing Blogs; and won the Hive Award for Best Social Media Blog at the South by Southwest festival.

Elvira Alizada

Senior Account Manager

Elvira is a professional with 19 years of project and account management experience, supporting business operations in Financial Services, Oil & Gas, Legal and Non-Profit industries.

Along with a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree, Elvira has an MBA from the Atkinson Graduate School of Management/Willamette University in Oregon (with an emphasis in marketing and finance) and has completed an executive coaching program at the Rotman School of Management/University of Toronto.

Elvira has been specializing in planning and executing results-driven integrated marketing campaigns utilizing both digital and print strategies, with Oracle, SQL Server and Cube platforms for offline and Google Analytics for online KPI metrics.  Tying into Sensei Marketing’s data analysis focus, Elvira is Google Analytics Certified and brings recognized excellence in relationship building, coaching, planning and execution skills.

Charmaine Deogracias

Digital Marketing Specialist

Charmaine Deogracias is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Sensei Marketing. A journalist by background, she has a solid base for content marketing having 23 years of experience in news writing, producing and reporting for a Japanese television network, print, and online media in the Philippines. The breadth of her coverage of international news events is her edge in research and strategy. Just before she completed a Social Media postgraduate program at Seneca College, she fulfilled a number of journalism, writing and research fellowships in the US and Southeast Asia.

Alison King

Manager, Content Marketing

Alison brings more than 15 years of experience to her role as Manager, Content Development and our resident wordsmith at Sensei. Her background in corporate communications, public relations, publishing and social media management spans a range of industries including professional sports, not-for-profit, travel, hospitality, education and space technology. She now specializes in developing thoughtful, memorable, and engaging content for print, web, advertising and social media channels,

Alison has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Linguistics from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Bachelor of Public Relations from Mount Saint Vincent University.

Yulia Schygel

Project Manager

Yulia has over 8 years of quality assurance experience, including manual and automation testing, and she’s been with Sensei for the past 6 years. As a project manager, she’s responsible for designing, developing and implementing all test processes.

Yulia holds a Master’s degree of Applied Mathematics and a Specialist degree of Economics from Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine.