Matt Rhodes Email & Phone Number

Vancouver, Bc, Ca

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

Vancouver

As Chief Operating Officer, I was brought on to operationalize and scale this early-stage digital coaching education SaaS startup. I envisioned and executed comprehensive sales, growth, and pricing strategies across both B2B and D2C channels. Under my leadership, we achieved an impressive 63% year-over-year growth, increasing subscriptions by 185%.

Richmond Hill

Originally joining OMHA as Marketing Manager, I stepped into the role of Director of Marketing after championing the adoption of digital marketing, influencing a major shift for the organization. As Director of Marketing (officially Director of Business Development & Communications), I strategically drive growth-focused marketing, communications, and brand development strategy for the 300,000-member hockey association that represents 20% of all players in Canada. I set vision for campaigns and activations, overseeing the planning and execution of a large portfolio of events.Leading a lean team of 5 and managing the agencies, we partner with key sponsors such as Under Armour, CCM, HelloFresh, Dodge, and Gatorade.A few highlights sparked from my marketing strategies and activations have included: ● Growing a network of 200 association, league, and team websites, which garners considerable advertising revenue and 90M impressions annually● Negotiating and successfully selling a trademark to Rogers and reinvesting the funds into a rebrand and integration of digital media tools● Conceptualizing and launching Breakaway, The Minor Hockey Podcast, now in Season 6, with 110K listens in 2019● Producing the widely watched Home Ice Documentary, which leverages emotional connection through storytelling, and is sponsored by Under Armour, earning 100,000s of viewsWhile COVID-19 restricts our members from lacing up and getting on the ice, we know how important sport is to them, fostering connection, camaraderie, and well-being. My team and I adapted our approach by:● Reimagining the championship after COVID-19 cancelled the finals. We doubled sales of championship merchandise, with a planned charitable donation in name of our title sponsor, and I leveraged my TSN network to deliver a Zoom call experience with TSN on-air personalities to two lucky teams.● Developed a new revenue stream with the launch of an e-sport tournament and virtual skill clinics

Richmond Hill

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

After crafting a proposal, I secured the lead social media position for the World Junior championships. I volunteered my time for both the 2015 and 2017 championships when Canada was the host country. Along with my team, we ignited social media, which drove much of the experience for viewers both in venue and at home. We fed our social channels into the stadium, Maple Leaf Square, the downtown Toronto concourse, and of course, on air. Social media was so active, thanks to our strategy and execution, that Twitter servers crashed in the final minute of the 2015 gold medal game due to an immense surge in traffic. We also seized all 10 trending hashtags, and maintained our trending spots for 12+ hours. We generated 20M organic impressions and 17.2M earned media impressions.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

While working at ParaSport and later Ontario Minor Hockey Association, I held a part-time role at TSN where I developed and produced topical content and emerging storylines. Given that this was a live production with more than 1M nightly viewers, I had to always be at the top of my game (so to speak). Within the live environment, I would often have less than 15 minutes to write copy, fact check, and compile footage for use during game intermissions.I worked with a group of very smart, outgoing, and personable people, which I thoroughly enjoyed and also explains why I stayed in this role for nearly 7 years, while also holding full-time marketing leadership roles.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

As Marketing and Communications Manager, I oversaw the development and execution of marketing plans, strategies, events, and campaigns for the accessibility in sport organization. I led the planning and hosting of several unique events, including the largest multi-sport event in Canada at the time, for athletes living with physical disabilities.I partnered with communities, government, and agencies, in order to execute on the ParaSport vision, and continue to maintain this network. Balancing creativity with strategy was the key to my successes at ParaSport, which allowed me to deliver results including: ● Rebranding the organization to ParaSport Ontario in a very short period of time and with a modest budget. The term “ParaSport” is now synonymous with accessibility in sport.● Integrating Braille into businesses cards and documents in order to amplify brand aligned with accessibility● Contributing to the coordination of the Toronto leg of the 2010 Paralympic Games torch relay by partnering with VANOC. We developed a creative way to accommodate the carrying of the torch across the ice at Nathan Phillips Square on a hockey sledge.Not only am I proud of these results, but I’m also very proud of the experiences we created for our athletes. We were committed to creating high-performance athletic events that were equivalent to what would be delivered to non-disabled athletes. This required us to find creative solutions for challenges like securing hundreds of accessible hotel rooms or addressing complex logistics.One of our most memorable events was creating a unique cross-country ski course for the ParaSport Winter Games, where we shut down downtown Huntsville and brought in 250+ truckloads of snow. This event garnered significant media attention.