Howard Kerbel

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT HOWARD KERBEL

Having worked in fast paced, quickly changing marketplaces in financial services, digital start-ups and the arts, I have spent much of my career developing creative business solutions to drive success. I was trained in a world-class marketing company right out of business school and leveraged that knowledge through increasingly more senior marketing roles over the next decade. For the past 15-years I have worked in entrepreneurial environments where you act quickly in order to succeed. Environments where you don’t work in one vertical-you work across many-and in the case of my current role as CEO, across the entire organization. My background as a CEO, VP Marketing/Sponsorship/Business Development in both for profit and not for profit landscapes, combined with expertise across a broad range of strategy, sales, Board management and operational disciplines, gives me a strong ability to understand opportunity and pinpoint what the customer wants in order to drive results. This is how I contributed to tens of millions of dollars of incremental charge volume at American Express as a lead marketer in the Establishment Services division. It is how I identified the need to reposition the Dynamic Funds’ Brand signing golf legend Mike Weir as the new brand ambassador leading to a 400% growth in awareness. It is how I helped launch the Toronto International Film Festival into its new era at TIFF Bell Lightbox including the Brand rollout of the world’s largest public film festival’s new home achieving ticket sales growth of 40% and a 67% increase in sponsorship revenues. This experience, combined with an entrepreneurial-first vision, a passion for music and a desire to make more impact in the city, was how I was able to restructure the Toronto Jazz Festival as CEO. Bringing the cultural diaspora of Toronto together through music was the foundation of the new strategy in parallel with diversifying our musical offerings to grow the under 35-year-old cohort, and moving the footprint to the iconic Avenue Road and Bloor Street hub in the prestigious Yorkville area to drive overall attendance. In 2022, BizBash ranked us as the 5th Best Music Event in North America and #1 in Canada.I create new ideas and I am equally comfortable in small start-ups or established Fortune 500 companies. My work with two global leading Brands—one in the for-profit realm (American Express) and the other in not for profit (TIFF), has given me a unique lens with which to asses business opportunities levering both an entrepreneurial mindset and appropriate level of discipline and rigour.