Speakers 2026

Michael Vickers

Executive Director

Summit Learning Systems

Michael Vickers inspires success! Michael redefines the possible for sales professionals, leaders, and managers. Whatever the sales or business opportunity, Michael will enhance the odds. Every person who has an idea to promote, a team to motivate, or a competitor to challenge will attain a new level of success after an event with Michael. Whatever result you are striving for, if it involves influencing others, or achieving success through others, Michael will build your confidence and accelerate your team's performance.

A popular speaker, consultant and educator, Michael coaches thousands of professionals across Canada and the United States, every year to grow individual and organizational performance. Summit Learning Systems, Michael's training organization, brings leading-edge strategies to clients in every sector of the North American economy.

Michael's success is completely grounded in and built on his personal experience. A consummate entrepreneur, Michael is a graduate of his own franchised retailing enterprise, a manufacturing and distribution company, and a highly successful publishing venture. A ceaseless innovator, Michael is constantly researching leading companies, searching for best practices, and distilling the experience of success, many of which can be found in his best-selling books entitled, "Becoming Preferred: How to Outsell Your Competition", and "Dance of the Rainmaker: Creating Authentic Differentiation in Today's Competitive Marketplace".

Michael also shares weekly insights as the host of the podcast, "Becoming Preferred," available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Michael's unique gift is his mastery of the art of influence, and his ability to translate that mastery into practical, powerful techniques anyone can use. His presentations are entertaining, intimate and unabashed. He is hilarious in his stories, boundless in his enthusiasm, and relentless in his message that success is available to everyone!

Zack Newton

Senior Director, Investments

Wittington Investments, Ltd

Zack is currently on the investment team at Wittington Investments, Ltd., the holding company for the Weston group of companies. At Wittington, one of his responsibilities includes the Made in Canada program which seeks to make equity or debt investments in companies or projects that improve Canadian food resiliency. Previously he held roles at organizations including Thomvest and Torys and he has served on several boards of directors.

He received a J.D./M.B.A. from the University of Toronto and a B.A. (Honors) from Cornell University. Zack has been actively involved with several community organizations, including as Vice Chair of Canada’s National Ballet School and as past Co-Chair of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s AGO Next program.

Kelly Dowson

Group Managing Director

F!S Group

Kelly Dowson is the Managing Director of F!S Group, leading a collective of innovation and consumer insight businesses that support growth across the food and beverage industry. With a background in food science and more than 15 years’ experience spanning foodservice, hospitality, retail, and manufacturing, she specialises in turning consumer behaviour and emerging trends into actionable strategies. Kelly is also an industry speaker, awards judge, and expert advisor on food and drink innovation and strategy.

Nestor Gomez

Founder and President

BrightLine Solutions

Nestor Gomez is the founder of BrightLine Solutions Inc., a New Brunswick based technology consulting and professional services firm focused on the agri-food sector. BrightLine Solutions helps food companies validate, pilot, adopt and enhance technology solutions that deliver clear value with minimal risk, while supporting a portfolio of foodtech SMEs and startups expanding into, or operating in, the food sector.

Nestor has over 20 years of experience in technology leadership, analytics, and digital transformation across food manufacturing, innovation networks, and associations. Previously, he held senior technology and innovation roles at McCain Foods and the Canadian Food Innovation Network, where he led digital manufacturing and data analytics initiatives and launched collaboration platforms.

His current work focuses on practical AI applications in the post-farm food sector, including manufacturing, quality checks, process monitoring, packaging, distribution, and food service. He helps organizations move from exploration to execution through clear use cases, change management, and measurable results.

Brett Casavant

CEO

C-Merak

For Brett, agriculture is a profession of execution and optimism. He believes people need to feel a connection to the land that feeds their body, mind, and soul.

Following university, Brett returned to the 4th generation family farm, expanding the operation by 400% and bringing new crop varieties such as faba beans into the Tisdale region. Today as CEO of C-Merak, Brett leads the farm’s growth in value added processing – connecting consumers to quality food ingredients from locally grown protein-rich crops. C-Merak manages every step of the process - sourcing directly from family farms, preparing and storing the feedstock in C-Merak’s grain terminal and creating ingredients in the brand-new state-of-art dry mill and fractionation facility. C-Merak’s portfolio includes our flagship FABAFuel Protein Concentrate and FABAFuel Flour. Simple, pure, all natural and 100% Saskatchewan – C-Merak’s ingredients are totally FABAlous!

Heather Huesison

Co-owner and Chief Operating Officer

Naturally Amped

Heather Huenison is the co-owner and Chief Operating Officer of Naturally Amped, a Saskatchewan-based fermented foods company that has experienced rapid growth by bringing traditionally fermented, gut-supportive foods into mainstream retail. With a background in engineering and an MBA, Heather brings a systems-driven approach to scaling food-as-medicine products within real-world agri-food constraints.

She leads operations, regulatory compliance, and strategic growth at Naturally Amped, overseeing CFIA licensing, ingredient sourcing, production scale-up, and multi-province retail expansion. As demand accelerated, Heather has been responsible for building the operational infrastructure, processes, and supply chains required to support growth while maintaining food safety, quality, and consumer trust.

Heather’s perspective on food as medicine is rooted in execution - how evidence-informed food systems move from concept to shelf, and how they can be produced efficiently, transparently, and at scale. She brings an in-the-trenches view of what it takes to make functional food viable with Canada’s food system.

Cameron Bergen

CEO

Mode40

Bio coming soon...

Katherine Ng

Principal Scientist

One.Bio

Katherine Ng is a Principal Data Scientist at One.Bio, a biotech spinout of University of California, Davis focused on creating highly soluble natural fibers that can selectively modulate human health. A microbiologist by training, Kat completed her PhD in Justin Sonnenburg's lab at Stanford University, where she studied antibiotic-mediated disruption of the gut microbiota. She performed postdoctoral work in KC Huang's lab at Stanford, studying the factors that influence recovery of the microbiota after perturbation, including diet. As a senior research associate in Carolina Tropini's lab at the University of British Columbia, Kat worked on understanding how single strain growth of bacteria under stress can be generalized to predicting larger community responses.

In her role as a principal data scientist, Kat has worked with the R&D team to characterize the compositional diversity of dietary fiber in our food systems, as well as to understand how different dietary fibers exert distinct effects on the gut microbiota, enabling the selection of fibers for specific health applications. She has also spearheaded numerous consumer research projects and worked on product development at One.Bio, providing a perspective on functional foods that is informed by basic science and consumer preferences.