pe.ma Pema Hegan's collection of news and ideas too long for a tweet

Bio

Conference organizers sometimes need a bio and photo and I'm always embarrassingly slow to send them through. So, I thought I'd put this up here. I'll never be late again!

Bio for Pema Hegan (updated March, 2010)

Pema is a prolific entrepreneur, content creator and marketer who has helped launch everything from a Canadian media company to the UK's first Indy Car racetrack.

In April 2010 Pema joined the celebrated Canadian digital, advertising and design agency Rethink to open their new Toronto office. Pema is a partner at Rethink and the managing director of Rethink Toronto.

Prior to joining Rethink, Pema's most recent challenge was co-founding GigPark, a popular social web startup that lets members find local businesses through recommendations from friends. In August 2009, GigPark was acquired by Canpages, the largest independent local search and directories publisher in Canada.

Before GigPark, Pema was the founding editor-in-chief of Dose Magazine, taking the Canadian print and online media brand from a standing start to more than 330,000 daily readers.

Pema's advertising and communications experience includes time spent as an account director at Rethink in 2004 and four years as a strategist at Michealides & Bednash (London) creating content and marketing concepts for some of Europe's most innovative companies, including Channel 4 Television, Unilever and the BBC. Originally from New Zealand, Pema began his career as a media planner at Young & Rubicam Advertising before starting his own media company, Sonar.

Pema is a compulsive traveller, a part-time surfer, and has a (sometimes) unhealthy obsession with modern architecture. Fun fact: Pema is a Tibetan name. It was given to him by a monk in northern India, where his parents lived for many years.