Markus Griesser
Markus is the principal of Blue Ocean Consulting. Having lived and worked in British Columbia for close to 28 years, he created and implemented strategic business plans for boutique hotels and resorts and was involved in the development of new properties, hotel expansions and business turnarounds.
Markus has always been drawn to discover and understand the distinctive nature of a place, and to find creative ways to share these experiences in a thoughtful and sustainable manner.
He re-positioned and expanded a family-run enterprise to establish it as an award-winning five-star resort and RevPAR leader; the business was the recipient of the ‘Best Resort in North America’ award by Conde Nast Traveler Magazine’s Gold List and ‘Best Hotel in North America’ award by Travel & Leisure Magazine. Markus worked on hotel developments in British Columbia, Austria and Central America.
From 2012 - 2018, Markus worked for a real estate investment, development, and management company to open and manage a LEED certified $250 million, 600,000 square foot, open-air regional shopping center.
Currently, Markus is working with coastal First Nations in creating economic and employment opportunities on traditional territories within the Great Bear Rainforest, fostering Indigenous and eco-tourism initiatives as a catalyst to sustainable economic development and land stewardship, transitioning from resource-based industries.
Markus served as Vice Chair of Tourism Victoria for four years (chairing the Finance Committee), as Strata Chair of a mixed-use development, as well as founding board member of the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea (chairing the Marketing Committee).
Ryan McRonald
Ryan is an experienced and reliable project manager with over twenty years of leading projects with government agencies. He is a former Deloitte Director recently transitioned to freelance consulting. Shaped by his experience in public sector consulting, he is known for managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects, and for working well with people. He studied public policy administration the at York University.
As a PMP certified project manager he has been responsible for planning projects, estimating effort, reviewing deliverables, dealing with issues and managing people. These projects included work streams for: project management, business process design, technical design, organizational change management, testing, training and deployment.
His clients have included the Provinces of BC, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. Other clients include the Welsh Government and the United Arab Emirates. Some examples include:
Service Alberta: he managed workstreams for the Province’s Digital Regulatory Assurance System (DRAS) program involving “red tape” reduction/policy simplification and land use programs.
BC Ministry of Citizens’ Services: He managed projects including the planning the implementation of an identity management program managing significant workforce impacts.
Edmonton Oliver Primary Care Network: he managed a project to create its business continuity strategy and plans.
BC Lottery Corporation: he managed a 12-week project to review requirements, design and propose a $10M modernized Lottery Management project. He managed a 15-person team and oversaw the development of the proposed project’s approach and plan.
BC's Ministry of Advanced Education: he led a team in designing and estimating a provincial student aid solution including a gap/fit assessment, scoping, estimating and planning a $20M project. The solution included a design for electronic service delivery to the province’s students.
United Arab Emirates: he was a strategic advisor to the leadership team of a project to implement new government services. He supported the development of an operating model, gathering requirements and software vendor selection.
Welsh Government: he managed an 18-week project to develop operation model options and recommend an approach to implement newly devolved government services.
Mara Jernigan
Mara is a Canadian food and hospitality specialist with over 30 years of hands on, international experience specializing in sustainability, local food and cultures. Her work experience spans from Austria, Italy, Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria to Belize. A multilingual certified chef, culinary instructor and manager, Mara believes in working side by side with staff to provide solid training and systems focused on quality and efficiency to create outstanding guest experiences and foster accountability, pride and sense of place.
She oversaw the transition of a fly-fishing lodge to an eco-tourism resort and consulted for Belize’s top performing luxury hotel owned by Francis Ford-Coppola, actively training and mentoring local staff in leadership.
Most recently, Mara has been engaged by a soon to be opened vineyard in the Okanagan to create and implement the culinary program.
Mara establishing Feast of Fields, an annual festival in its 20th year promoting local food and wine artisans and featured in dozens of articles in major travel and food publications. She also served as president of Slow Food Canada for several years.