An entrepreneur at heart, Shawna is originally from the Kitchener-Waterloo area, where she was active in the local Junior Achievement and DECA programs, even in high school. She then headed to St Catharines to complete her BA from Brock University for Communications, and dabbled in Psychology and Entrepreneurship along the way. After graduating, Shawna moved to Ottawa to work in telecom and quickly became a highly sought after Corporate Trainer. Shawna incorporated her communications and psychology training to create highly engaging and unconventional training programs that produced lasting results for front-line employees and executives alike.

When Shawna started incorporating emerging tools like blogs and Twitter into her training strategies, she developed a reputation for leveraging new technology platforms for innovative business growth. This talent quickly spun out a side business for Shawna as a social media consultant, which evolved into the creation of the digital marketing agency, ReSoMe. (A pseudo-acronym for Relevant Social Media.)

Shawna didn’t make the leap into full time agency life until she was approached by an investor who gave her the push she had been waiting for. For the next six years, Shawna focused on growing the agency and dedicated herself fulltime to digital marketing. As marketing and tech became increasingly intertwined, Shawna knew to succeed she would need to do something drastic to stay competitive. In mid-2017, she partnered with and had her company successfully acquired by Ottawa’s fastest growing mobile, web, and next-gen technology agency, Iversoft.

Shawna lead the Digital Services and Analytics Marketing division of Iversoft for three years before her desire to get back to being closer to the marketing work kicked in. Shawna wanted to get closer to her clients and get her hands dirty with the marketing execution and is now a marketing consultant working with a select few of her favourite clients.

Shawna has always been active in the entrepreneur community as well, having lead the Startup Ottawa Community for three years and helped launch the early stage startup accelerator, Founder Institute, as a Director for Ottawa.

Shawna is a passionate advocate for women in business and tech, believes great marketing is data driven and trackable, loves learning and trying new things, is energized by public speaking, is an enthusiastic supporter of startups and entrepreneurs, she loves dogs, wine and jazz, and can be found on most social media platforms as @ShawnaActually (Twitter is her favourite with Instagram a close second).

Engage Me As A Promotional Partner

If you’re looking for a nano influencer and blogger in the business, tech, startup, app/tool, marketing and B2B space (or on the more personal side – anything around dogs, wine, food, travel and events) – let’s chat to see if we’re a good match! 

Services I Offer:

• Sponsored content
• App/tool reviews (blog & social posts)
• Book/podcast/course reviews (blog & social posts)
• Social media content, mentions or shares (including links and unique photo or video media) on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram 
• Contesting & giveaways
• Website ads on ShawnaActually.ca
• Brand Ambassador
• Media rep / personality for hire
• Event attendance, live & post event social media coverage
• Custom requests welcome!