Hello! I’m Lianne

Business Consultant. Trainer. Writer. Coach. Public Speaker.

I am an entrepreneur with a background in online technology. I worked with the Saint Mary’s University Entrepreneurship Centre (SMUEC) for eight years with a focus on administering employability programs for youth and business training and coaching in social media, mobile technology and online marketing. My flagship project at the SMUEC was OPtions Youth (Overcoming Poverty), recognized as the Best Youth Employability Program in North America in 2014 and 2016 by the International Business Education Partnership Network. During my time at Saint Mary’s University, I was a Faculty Advisor for the award-winning Enactus Saint Mary’s team, currently ranked in the Top 5 in Canada and was named Faculty Advisor of the Year for Canada in 2011. I am a Marketing representative for CanWIT (Canadian Women in Technology) Atlantic Chapter, a member of the Nova Scotia Women in Technology task force and former member of the Techsploration Advisory Board. I previously authored a regular technology column called Tech Talk, which has appeared in the Nova Scotia Business Journal, The Halifax Metro and the Globe and Mail.

I am a current student of the Master’s Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MTEI) program at Saint Mary’s University and have extensive training in areas of entrepreneurship, technology, business start-up and growth, strategy and innovation and online marketing. My thesis work is exploring the subject of Understanding Links Between Social Enterprise and Food Security in Nova Scotia. In 2017, I was the recipient of the Power IT Up: Next Generation Leadership Award, presented by Digital Nova Scotia in celebration of an emerging female leader whose contributions to career advancement and diversity in Nova Scotia’s ICT sector are significant.

In addition to my business pursuits, I am an award-winning freelance writer and performer. I  began a comedy career in the United Kingdom where I wrote and performed sketch comedy with several professional companies and a radio show. Upon returning to Nova Scotia, I  founded an improv comedy game show which ran for a year in Halifax and an all-female sketch/improv/stand-up collective.

I am an experienced MC and event moderator. I have performed in a number of notable theatre productions. I played the female lead Adele Courage in Ryan Van Horne’s political satire Department of Common Sense, which won Fringe Hit at the Atlantic Fringe Festival 2013, was in the Liverpool International Theatre Festival in May 2014 and for which I won Outstanding Theatre Performance at the Elizabeth Boardmore One Act Play Festival in 2014. In 2015, I wrote a one-woman comedy show called She’s Got Mono about mental illness, which I regularly tour in Nova Scotia. I often integrate my creative background with business for interactive and memorable training and speaker sessions.