Cam Shapansky, a Blue North Strategies partner, is a personalization pioneer and has been a leading consultant and advocate for the cause since the early 1990s.

While working at the prominent Toronto design firm Cooper & Williamson in the early ’90s, Cam realized that by harnessing technology rather than resisting it, corporate communications could have access to a whole new realm of opportunity. As co-founder of Information DesignWorks, Cam turned this realization into a successful business that worked with the who’s who of the Canadian financial sector.

In 1998, Information DesignWorks was bought by Optus Corporation. As a member of the Optus senior management team and president of Optus Art & Logic, Cam continued his industry leadership. As big fish continued to get swallowed by bigger ones, Cam found himself on the Symcor senior management team in 2000. Symcor, a $650-million Canadian company, is Canada’s largest producer of transactional documents.

In early 2002, Cam and Brent started Blue North Strategies, a highly focused, personalized communications firm. Six years later, Cam continues to be a regular presenter and keynote speaker at marketing, design, and industry conferences. Recent events include the Financial Communications Forum in Boston, Xplor events in Mississauga, Toronto and Calgary, the annual CMA conference in Ottawa, and the IIID symposium in Vienna, Austria, where he was the keynote speaker. He has published a variety of articles on personalized communications and is often quoted in the media.

On the personal side, Cam lives on a farm in the Cambridge, Ontario, area with his wife Debbie, and children Gabrielle and Reuben. Cam is a runner and has run a variety of marathons and half marathons. He also lectures part-time at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Business.

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