Skate Canada Appoints Chief Marketing Officer

OTTAWA, ON:  A seasoned marketing and television executive, Mark Halliday, has been appointed as the Chief Marketing Officer for Skate Canada. He begins his new duties today, almost on the eve of the start of the 2014 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Ottawa, Ontario.

A native of Montreal, Halliday is fluently bilingual and brings almost 25 years of progressive marketing experience to Skate Canada.  In the 1990s he was a global product manager for the Bauer/Nike Skate division and in the early 2000s he served as a Brand Manager for Cadbury Adams.  He continued his career as Senior Product Manager for Rogers Cable where he managed premium TV products, including dealing with rights holders to negotiate programing.  More recently Halliday worked for the CTV/Rogers 2010 Olympic Broadcast Consortium and helped create integrated multiplatform partnerships for Olympic broadcast sponsors creating digital, broadcast and promotional and general content programs.  The last three years Halliday has been the Senior Director Marketing, Content & Pay Per View for UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).

Dan Thompson, Skate Canada’s CEO, was pleased that after an extensive search, a new Chief Marketing Officer has been added to the executive ranks of Skate Canada.  “Mark brings a tremendously rich background to this newly created position. He is a seasoned marketer with a passion for athletes, competition and sport, and knows how to build a brand as well as a having a keen understanding of the multiple media platforms that is today’s marketing reality.  With this addition and the recent appointments of our new Chief Sport Officer, Patricia Chafe and Chief Operating Officer, Bethany Tory, we now have a powerful leadership team that I’m certain will guide Skate Canada boldly towards the implementation of the  association’s 2014 to 2018 strategic plan.”

Halliday will be based in Toronto and will spend his first week learning firsthand about Skate Canada at the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

Thompson added, “Mark will have the opportunity to take in all of the activities surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships, with many returning Canadian Champions in attendance and the excitement of sending off our incredibly talented 2014 Olympic team to Sochi.”

The 2014 championships take place in Ottawa from January 9-15 and will feature approximately 250 of Canada’s best figure skaters in the senior, junior and novice categories. The championships will act as the final step in the 2014 Olympic qualification process.

Tickets for the 2014 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships are available online at www.capitaltickets.ca, by phone at 1.877.788.FANS (3267) or 613.599.FANS (3267), or in person at the Canadian Tire Centre box office.