Kendra J.

The Venned Group

The Venned Group specializes in cultivating the next generation of leadership. Through high-touch, cohort-based training programs, we partner with senior leaders to develop their mid-level counterparts. Our unique approach ensures that tomorrow's leaders are equipped with the necessary skills to effectively guide their teams, influence peers, and communicate seamlessly with top-tier executives.

What sets The Venned Group apart is our laser focus on personalized cohort-based training. Unlike generic, one-size-fits-all programs, we understand that each organization has its unique DNA. Our programs and workshops are adaptable, ensuring that your leadership challenges are addressed head-on, resulting in sustainable growth and improved organizational dynamics.

Founder

Boardy

Connector

Orion's Reach

Orion’s Reach is a Not-for-Profit organization comprised of passionate volunteers dedicated to helping aspiring professionals acquire the skills and knowledge required to REACH their career goals.

At Orion’s Reach our approach to mentorship is different. Professionals are looking to learn from different perspectives in-order-to transform into someone who is ready to REACH for the stars. As a result, we match each Mentee with multiple Mentors based on desired skills they would like to learn as well as interests. With this approach, individuals can develop leadership and presenting skills at the same time from two different experts. Our approach also provides the opportunity for individuals to learn about a specific industry from multiple perspectives.

Advisory Board Member

Chase Hospitality Group

•	Started as Event Coordinator, promoted to Event Manager in March of 2016
•	Corresponded with the client on all details of event from décor to food and beverage pairing
•	Worked closely with the Executive Chef to create custom menus; includes costing and idea formation
•	Coordinated any necessary rentals with preferred suppliers
•	Accommodated client’s provided event budgets ranging from $500 to $30,000
•	Lead, grew and motivated event 'team leads'
•	Executed events from start to finish
•	Accommodated client’s provided event budgets ranging from $500 to $30,000

Event Manager

Donaleighs Irish Public House

Managing all Social Media platforms and organizing annual events such as the Annual Golf Tournament and Charity Calendar production process from start to finish.  Handle all reservations and aid with large party catering requests.

Social Media & Events Manager

I’m bringing real human connection back to the workplace.

You've likely heard this before, but I’m not just talking about it—I’m making it happen. Here’s how ⬇️:

Four ways I can help you:

-> Tailored soft skills-based workshops for global brands
-> Curated events that bring leaders together to connect on soft skills-focused topics (DM me to see if we're coming to a city near you soon!)
-> Global speaking engagements on the power of soft skills to enhance hard skills and maximize performance
-> Our S.P.A.R.K. Assessment & 1-1 coaching to optimize working styles & improve collaboration

Why do I do what I do?

I care deeply about human connection. In today's tech-saturated world, the lack of genuine interaction is destroying performance, well-being, and efficiency across teams. That’s why I’m on a mission to help organizations maximize their potential by leveraging their existing resources.

Do you think we'd have a good chat? Send me a DM!

If my dad knows I'm driving somewhere, he asks the same three questions.
Did you gas up the car?
Do you have your phone charger?
Will you text me when you get there?

In my 20s, it used to drive me nuts.
"I'm an ADULT, Dad. I know these things."
I'd answer with the exact tone that communicated...I've got this handled, you can stop now.

But he never stopped.
Gas. Charger. Text when you arrive.
Every single trip, into my 30's it's something I proactively update him on now.

It took me years to understand what he was actually saying.
He wasn't asking if I had gas in the car. 
He was saying, "I need to know you're safe."
He wasn't checking if I was competent. 
He was managing his own worry the only way he knew how.

In one of our past cohorts, a CEO and her team sat down to review their S.P.A.R.K. assessment results.

Her entire team rated her as a 'definite' collaborative style, every single person.
The assessment showed she was 100% flexible in her leadership style, meaning someone who could read her team and adjust in real time.

The room went quiet when they saw the gap between her intent and their experience.

Then she told her side of the story...

"I care so much about you. I don't want you to burn out. I'm just trying to catch things before you're drowning."

She wasn't micromanaging. 
She was adjusting constantly to make sure no one fell through the cracks.
But because she never named it, her care landed as control.

Gas. Charger. Text when you arrive.
Did you finish the report? Do you need help? Are you sure you're okay?

Care has its own language.
And when we don't translate it, people hear something else entirely.

Every week, I write about these patterns for middle managers and the senior leaders who support them, like how care gets mistranslated and what it costs when we don't name what we actually mean.

Newsletter in the comments.

P.S. Tomorrow's my dad's birthday. Gift ideas from (or for) the fathers out there?

Kendra Johnson

Canada’s leading soft skills expert | Creator of The S.P.A.R.K. Method™ | 1900+ managers upskilled | The Peak’s 2025 Emerging Leader | Get weekly tips👇

I turned 35 this week, so here are 35 reminders I've noted throughout this past year.

1. People really do want to help you. Get out of your own way and ask
2. Learning what you want and stating it gets you farther much faster
3. Highs and lows are part of business. The more people you talk to, the more normal it becomes
4. Your mindset makes or breaks your day. Choose it intentionally
5. What someone does is the most boring thing about them. Why they do it matters more
6. The world is big. Get outside your bubble often
7. Stop building for the fantasy workplace. Meet people in the actual chaos
8. Clarity about guardrails beats confidence coaching every time
9. A good mentor changes everything. Find one. Be one
10. Your worst moment probably taught you more than your best one
11. People talk a lot. Be the one that takes action
12. Burnout is a choice you make by not saying no
13. Ask for what you need. State what you want. Watch how fast things shift
14. Simple acronyms beat complex systems every single time
15. Dogs will always say hello. People won’t. Be more like dogs
16. If a situation happens more than once, that’s a lesson. It’s up to you to change the pattern
17. Sometimes you really do just need a hug from your mom
18. As much as you might not want to, getting a good sweat will fix you right up
19. Finding the right partner will change your life
20. Maintain your individuality and let your partner do the same
21. Don’t mistake ignorance for malice
22. Dress for the type of day you want to have, not the way you feel
23. Skincare is important
24. The gap between theory and reality is where actual business happens
25. One-size-fits-all anything is corporate theater
26. Transformation happens when someone takes the time to actually know you
27. Sometimes the best leadership move is stepping back
28. There is always a solution, you just have to be willing to think outside the box
29. Say thank you more often
30. Record the small moments, those are the ones you’ll hang on to
31. A day of rest doesn’t mean you’re not productive
32. Knowing where your time and energy are best spent is a superpower
33. You don't have to hang onto things that no longer serve you
34. Every day can be a fun adventure if you let it
35. Smiling can change your mood, especially when shared

And as Ricardo Ulises Hernandez Gomez added, last but not least, wear sunscreen. 

Which of these did you need to hear today?

Finding skilled talent is hard.
Integrating that talent successfully is harder.

The Toronto Region Board of Trade recognized this gap and decided to address it directly. 

They brought together 90 employers & PSI's all there with the same intention, to run strong WIL programs and develop skilled talent pipelines. 

I ran a workshop focused on what WIL actually looks like and how to create a successful process from employer onboarding through to providing feedback to students.

Here were some of the key takeaways from the room: 

1. Soft skills are the gap.
Students come in with strong technical abilities. 
What they lack is how to communicate. 
How to problem-solve. 
How to navigate a workplace. 
That's what employers actually need to train.
You're not just training on a task, you're training on a culture.
How you show up, how you handle mistakes, how you receive feedback. 
That's what gets transferred whether you know it or not.

2. Know your capacity before day one.
Who's taking the lead? 
What does success look like at the end? 
What will they actually learn?
Answer these ahead of time and the whole engagement changes.

3. Managers need to get good at feedback.
This is where most programs fall apart. 
Managers hesitate or they soften the message. 
They don't know how to be direct without discouraging. 
When you improve this skill in your full-time staff, your WIL success transforms.

This applies whether you're onboarding an intern or hiring a new manager. 
The fundamentals are the same. 
Intentionality, clarity & communication.

Thank you to my fellow presenters Derek Newton, Amanda Brown, Jason Fung Architect Inc., Peter Odle, Andrew Bieler, and everyone in that room who came ready to think differently.

A big thank you to Saad Usmani, Anahid Najafizadeh & Laura Tocker for putting on an incredibly valuable program! 

Conversations like this are what strengthen a region.

--------------------
At The Venned Group we partner with organizations to upskill managers who can set expectations clearly, give feedback that lands, and create cultures where people actually want to show up. 

If this is on your priorities list for 2026, send me a DM with the word Spark.

There's a line in Hamilton that's been stuck with me.

'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.'

(Yes, it's a nod to Newton's third law of motion...but it's more memorable when sung)

I've seen that musical more times than I'll admit, and it's served as a constant reminder of how I'm showing up.

Over the years, I've become more and more aware of how my energy creates a response in those around me.

Ex. When I bring stress into a meeting, I feel stress reflected back.

If you're the leader, all eyes are on you.

Your team reads your energy before you even open your mouth.

I started asking myself three questions before every team meeting or client call:

1. What energy am I bringing? Clarity or chaos? Confidence or stress?

2. What do I want them to feel when we're done? Inspired? Clear? Confident? Name it, clearly.

3. Are my actions & my energy matching my words? Urgency & stress through a half-a**ed smile saying 'everything's fine' never lands well.

Many times, the reaction you're getting is information about what you're putting out there.

→ If you're facing resistance, consider how you're presenting ideas.
→ If there's confusion, check whether you're giving direction or just enthusiasm.
→ If there's disengagement, pulse check your energy first.

Self-awareness is never about being perfect OR (and let me be very clear) taking responsibility for everyone else's actions.

It's about recognizing when you're part of the dynamic, and choosing to show up differently.

This is your Monday morning reminder as you head into a fresh week to check how you're showing up. 

Your energy sets the tone. What an opportunity you have ahead of you!

This morning I was unwillingly thrust into someone else's feedback conversation.

I was at a coffee shop, noise-cancelling headphones on, minding my own business...but when you can still hear every word of a performance conversation from three tables away, you've become an involuntary witness to a trainwreck.

The recipient sat with shoulders hunched, eyes down, trapped in a public space while strangers absorbed every detail of her professional shortcomings. 

The manager had her feet crossed under her on the bench, casual and comfortable, seemingly unaware of the damage unfolding.

Sentence after sentence, the same hedging pattern, "I'm not saying YOU do this, but just so you know..." Which of course means you absolutely do this, but I'm too uncomfortable to say it directly. 

Then came the gossip about someone else on the team. The unspoken message of, I'm on your side, we both know Sarah is the real problem here.

Most managers have never been taught that feedback starts with reflection, not delivery. 
What's your intent? 
What outcome are you trying to create? 
What environment supports that outcome? 

Skip this, and you end up hedging, gossiping, and performing care while your team member walks away confused about what actually needs to change.

A few takeaways:
→ Spatial awareness & etiquette matter as much as self-awareness. 
→ Difficult conversations belong in private rooms, not public stages. 
→ And direct, specific, depersonalized feedback isn't unkind, it's the kindest thing you can do.

The leaders I work with are often shocked to discover they've been "giving feedback" for years without ever actually giving it. 

Our S.P.A.R.K. framework starts with that reflection piece because without it, you get frameworks paired with coffee shop disasters.

How much clarity & progress is your team losing to feedback that never actually lands?
-----
Ps. This conversation didn't take place at Wallace Espresso as the photo suggests, but it IS one of my favourite places in the city for coffee & their seasonal London Nog.

You hired someone, gave them a role description, walked them through their responsibilities and by three weeks in, you're already frustrated...

They're not getting it.
Except what is "it"?

You told them what to do. 
You might have even told them how. 
But did you tell them what doing it well looks like in your specific environment? 

With your pace, your culture, your unspoken rules about what matters most when everything's on fire?
Probably not...

And now you're sitting with the disappointment, you engineered yourself.

This is the gap that kills placements, tanks new hires, and makes leaders assume they have a people problem when they actually have a clarity problem.

You can't course correct something you haven't defined. 
You can't praise progress toward a standard that only exists in your head.

In our S.P.A.R.K. Leadership Program, this is where we start. 

Not with 'how to provide difficult feedback' right away.
Not with simply naming expectations (any leader can do that). 
We dig into defining what measuring those expectations actually looks like. 

Building the criteria that turn "figure it out" into "here's what success is."

It's difficult work, especially for middle managers trying to translate senior leadership's vision into measurable criteria they can actually enforce. 

When they get this clarity right, their conversations become remarkably simpler. They finally have language for what they've been trying to articulate and an objective lens for performance.

The disappointment you keep running into is fixable. 
It just requires you to clarify the target before you ask someone to hit it.

Give your team the gift of clarity, this holiday season...send me a DM to see which of our solutions best suits your teams needs!

Alex M.

Dotdash Meredith

Head of Marketing for Dotdash's first consumer SaaS.

Head of Marketing MyRecipes

The Remarkable

I am a growth advisor to consumer, SaaS and Subscription companies wanting to scale fast.  Average growth rates of firms that engage on my full model is 30% YoY.   Advisory/project work is open.

Founder | Growth Advisor

BENlabs

Lead a 40 person marketing team for BENlabs. A 400 person B2B/B2C scale up providing martech and creator economy solutions and owned by Bill Gates. Promoted from Head of Growth to SVP to EVP of Marketing.

Executive Vice President Marketing

Senior Vice President Marketing

led growth marketing for Tubebuddy.  Helped it grow 50% YoY during our first year.

Vice President Growth Marketing

Bloomberg

In charge of all performance marketing and partnerships for Bloomberg’s first direct-to-consumer business.  In a period of two years, we grew sales from $2M to $100M while reducing the cost of acquiring new subscribers by 300%

📈 Increased paid media subscribers by 400% through the management of budget allocations, creating audience growth experiments and working with product teams to improve our onsite experience 
📈 Hired and managed all performance marketing internal and external staff 
📈 Helped launch and design our first customer data platform and built high intent audiences to be used on paid, email and on-site

Global Head of Performance Marketing and Strategic Partnerships

Verizon

Verizon media established go90 as a mobile competitor to Hulu and Netflix in late 2015.  As the head of sports marketing, I managed teams across organic social, email, push notifications,  PR, creative and paid media.   In a year we grew the app to a 1M monthly active users the great majority of them coming from my channels. 

Along the way I did the following: 

📈 Grew the audience of go90, an entertainment app, by creating marketing plans and overseeing paid media budgets that led to the acquisition of over 1 million monthly active users
📈 Worked with customer retention team to create push notification and e-mail strategy for all campaigns
📈 Signed and approved digital marketing sponsorship agreements worth over $20M with external partners such as NFL, BEIN Sports and FC Barcelona
📈 Managed and approved creative and content and scheduling of social media posts and appearances by external influencer talent such as Lebron James and Rob Gronkowsky 
📈 Served as the main marketing point of contact for the NBA and NFL as well as entertainment companies such as VICE, Buzzfeed and Funny or Die

Director Product Marketing and Content - go90 Sports

Verizon Digital Media Services

📈 Managed a 10-person editorial team that included curation experts, graphic designers, partner outreach, and quality control analysts and led to the creation of over 5,000 headlines and doubled our platform's user engagement
📈 Oversaw high-level content strategy, including channel tone and voice and 52 week calendar
📈 Monitored daily, weekly and monthly viewership performance and adjusted editorial strategy and tactics accordingly
📈 Promoted to acting director

Senior Content & Product Marketing Manager

Verizon Wireless

I was tasked with creating Verizon's strategy for acquiring Hispanics, African American and Asian American customers.  I piloted and launched our national Asian American student program.  Created a call the Caribbean plan and within a year increased our multicultural market share 10% YoY. 

📈 Led multicultural marketing for Verizon's Northeast by overseeing marketing across 24 people, 5 regions, 4 agencies and 6 regional marketing analysts/consultants
📈 Created marketing plans that included in-store events, B2B business luncheons and pop-up store which resulted in over 270K cross cultural gross adds during 2015
📈 Increased customer utilization of the device payment product from 50% to 75% by applying customer feedback, working with training teams and changing product features
📈 Created business cases and collected data that resulted in the creation of promotions for basic phones and connected devices that resulted in YOY lifts of 17% and 400% respectively
📈 Promoted from go-to-market manager

Head of Multicultural Northeast - Branding and New Product 

CABRERA'S DELI GROCERY INC

I owned a grocery store!   Revenue increased by 4X from 2007-2013.

I did all accounting, taxation and inventory decisions and hired all employees.

Grocery Store Owner

Lean Startup Machine

📈 Created e-mail marketing and customer referral campaigns that increased sales and prospective customers by more than 300%.
📈 Identified and created media partnerships with influential bloggers, entrepreneurship websites and vital news portals to create positive PR and increase sales of LSM products
📈 Developed sponsorship opportunities with companies interested in lean startup methodologies and the LSM brand

Digital Marketing Manager

Mars

📈 Identified portfolio opportunities for $12M in extra revenues for brands such as Dove and M&Ms
📈 Reviewed data from advertising agencies, compared it to internal consumer insight reports and created a media budget that increased ROI by more than $3M in the last quarter of 2013
📈 Led research on value proposition and messaging for M&M 2014 superbowl ad
📈 Compiled a gap analysis of competitors along with direct implications of their growth to Mars

Summer Associate Brand Manager

CMO | Fractional Head of Growth | Over $200M in Incremental Revenue 📈 | Aspiring Movie Critic | Angel Investor

Executive marketing leader helping companies achieve their next level of growth.  Successful at both Fortune 50 companies and startups.  Examples include: 

 📈 At BENlabs, I managed all marketing teams, created all marketing infrastructure, guided the company's rebranding and helped spear its transformation from an agency model to an AI tech-oriented firm. My teams achieved revenue growth of our direct to consumer business and the most ever leads from a marketing team. 

 📈 At Bloomberg Media I reduced paid media costs by 400% and helped grow it first subscription business from $1M to $100M.  I did this by managing all our media expenditures, hiring and managing our agencies and signing partnerships with the likes of JetBlue and Samsung. 

 📈 At TubeBuddy I increased revenue by 30% during my first 6 months by revising pricing and packaging and A/B testing our messaging and positioning. 

 📈 At Verizon, I managed go to market and used a mixture of direct response and top of funnel marketing to lead multicultural marketing for the northeast area.  My team was responsible for an incremental 300K subscribers. Along the way, I won an award for Latino Marketer of the Year. 

None of the above happens without thinking a lot about leadership, both of my direct reports and cross functional colleagues while caring a lot about the intersection of data and creativity.

Fractional CMO

I oversee all marketing for BENlabs.  A tech company infusing AI into the creator economy across content optimization,  product placement, and influencer marketing. 

I lead a 20-person team that oversees the whole marketing funnel, including, brand, growth, and paid media.

Some recent wins include:

1) Increased our organic views by 200% 2) Led the creation of our brand strategy and creative assets 3) Increased subscribers and revenue 30% YoY

We work autonomously, and independently with a NO BS approach.   We believe in being world-class because intrinsically it is the best way to connect individual interests with company ones.

Come and join us.  We are just getting started!

On Thanksgiving Eve, I want to take the opportunity to be thankful.

Many of you were around as I transitioned to entrepreneurship and now as I explore a portfolio career that blends full time with ownership.

While I haven't been as active as I was earlier LinkedIn was a big part of my success.

It has been a banner year across business, health, and life.

While there’s still much to build there's a lot to be thankful for. 

To my partner, clients, co-workers, employees, friends, acquaintances, and comrades in arms.

Thank you all.

Alex Montas Hernández

Chief Marketing Officer | Growth Advisor | Helping Companies Scale Revenue and Customer Value

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