Valerie Swatkow

Valerie Swatkow

Chief Marketing Advisor, DealEngine

Bio

A Marketing & Growth Leader with deep experience working with both established brands and start-ups to drive growth, performance, innovation and renewal. While foundational marketing strategy, advertising and integrated communications form the core of my technical skills, what fuels me is unleashing the purpose that lies at the centre of WHY a business exists. I’m an optimistic ‘champion of ideas’ with curiosity and passion for assisting newly emerging innovators and disruptors. I brought NewCo, a festival celebrating purpose driven businesses to Toronto in 2016 and soon after joined forces with a few other innovation leaders to co-found and launch Elevate. In 2019 I launched a $5M venture fund with the mission to invest in and accelerate early-stage technology companies in the martech/adtech space. I’m rooted in the belief that marketing isn’t a set of activities that happen on the side of the business, but is in fact the business itself. I also believe that fun matters and if you aren’t having any you must go out and seek it.