Armed with a business marketing degree at Ottawa’s Algonquin College, upon graduation, Kelly Bizeau took on a job with the school’s marketing department. Little did she know at the time she’d turn into an advocate for the small to mid-size channel in Canada.
Bizeau started in high tech as marketing director at several firms in the IT industry, such as Nitro Microsystems and Sona/FoxWise Technologies, but soon started her own business. She’s now the president of Ottawa-based MarketWorks Ltd., an IT channel marketing company that designs and delivers channel development strategies for distributors, resellers and manufacturers to help them through the complex maze that is the federal government.
“I work with my clients in being able to asses what their business needs are in relation to development,” she explained. “We build a go-to-market strategy for them and based on the organization, we’ll either support it if it’s a large national, or we’d manage that by completely outsourcing it.”
Solution providers know Bizeau has their collective backs. In 2006, she worked behind the scenes to help stop a restrictive federal government single-sourcing procurement system that included reverse auctions. Called the Way Forward, it could have shut down many resellers in Ottawa.
Late last year Bizeau was at it again, hosting several top solution providers at her own Federal IT 911 event to inform them of a new type of IT procurement reform that could again challenge their livelihoods.
In terms of her work life, Bizeau says she and her staff have demanding schedules. “We’re usually working 15 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week from September to March but with transformation in the government and with new accountability measures, we’ll probably be working these hours into the coming months too.”
