Ray Adamson, Vice President
Ray is a proven senior Sales Leader, who has helped thousands of business professionals achieve sustainable business growth and people development results. Ray consistently achieves top customer ratings, and is held in very high regard for making a real difference in their business results.
As Vice President, Ray will be responsible for the overall management of a number of the company’s strategic clients, with strong focus on executive coaching, consulting and facilitation to client personnel.
Prior to joining Optimé, Ray served in a number of senior sales leadership roles at a North American insurance and financial services leader, driving market share growth that consistently exceeded the industry average. He developed a reputation for his unique ability to build strong relationships and add strategic value with customers.
Marty D. Blake, Vice President
Marty is a respected sales and marketing leader with a background in customer marketing and brand management. He has spent over 10 years developing and implementing strategic plans to build and grow businesses against global brand equities for major Fortune 500 companies.
As Group Manager Innovation with The Hershey Company, he led large multi-functional teams through key strategic projects, shaping the future direction and diversification of the company’s brand portfolio. Leading collaboration initiatives with key customers Marty built product development and implementation plans directly tied to retailer specific strategies. Previous to this, he was involved in the Health Care industry delivering business results both in Brand Management and Sales for a major pharmaceutical company.
As Vice President, Marty is responsible for building client relationships, and developing and executing Optimé’s strategic direction.
Tom J. Blake, Chief Executive Officer
Tom is the founder of Optimé International and is one of North America 's most dynamic sales and customer development executives. He has an excellent track record of applied senior sales experience with a leading global corporation, including membership on the company's Management Committee in Canada. Key accomplishments included highest people development results over four years, the successful integration of the sales and merchandising programs of 3 companies, Team Leader for the development and implementation of Customer Business Teams, and the development of a National Part-Time Sales Organization which is recognized as "World Class" and has been implemented in 15 countries.
Tom speaks at numerous conferences on the topic of performance improvement with the National Speaker's Bureau rating him in the top three Canadian speakers. He has played a leadership role in the transformation of numerous Canadian and American companies. Tom holds a Bachelor of Commerce (B Comm SPAD) from Laurentian University. As CEO of Optimé, Tom is responsible for the overall management of Optimé's international business.
Hugues Gibeault, President
Hugues (“Hugh”) Gibeault is the President and co-founder of Optimé International. Under his leadership, Optimé has helped clients achieve consistently superior performance and business results, along with industry-leading levels of employee engagement. A notable highlight has been Optimé’s partnership with a Fortune 100 company division that achieved and has been recognized as the #1 operating unit in the world for the past two consecutive years.
Hugues is known for developing strong relationships and working very closely with sales and company leaders. Prior to co-founding Optimé, Hugues also established a proven track record of strong business results as Vice President Sales of a professional sports franchise and with Procter & Gamble’s Health & Beauty Care Products division in Eastern Canada.
On a personal note, Hugues currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Paralympic Committee and is responsible for the Marketing and Partner Relations portfolio. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce (B Comm SPAD) from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
Dave Hewitt, Vice President, Optimé International USA
Dave has worked both as a consultant and employee for a number of mid-size public companies and smaller entrepreneurial organizations. Dave has experience with global companies and in addition to his experience in North America, has worked extensively in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
As President and Group President he has successfully developed and executed renewal, growth and turnaround strategies for 5 different operating divisions with annual sales revenue up to $500 million. His consulting strengths include providing guidance to organizations requiring support to turnaround a business, devising strategies to accelerate sales and earnings growth as well as business and organizational development. Dave has an outstanding background in consistently driving business growth with top companies such as Johnson & Johnson, GBC and Crayola.
Marina de Mattos Staub, Managing Director, Optimé Brazil
In 1989 Marina started her career in P&D in the Health & Beauty care Products Division with a leading global CPG corporation. During 4 years, she had responsibility for project implementation in Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela. With a strong entrepreneurial sense, Marina worked at the initial stages of Eccelera, the Venture Capital arm of the Cisneros Group of Companies in Brazil.
As a Marketing Director, she was responsible for structuring the marketing group, strategic marketing plan development for each one of the invested companies, sales and marketing training and relationship development with key government, universities and NPO’s.
Result driven and business oriented, Marina has the ability to lead teams into established goals while establishing company’s systems and process at very high standards.
Grant McClement, Senior Sales Practice Leader
Grant is considered a thought leader and creative innovator on Strategic Customer Management.
Prior to joining Optimé, he held executive level customer marketing (sales) positions at consumer packaged goods industry leader Procter & Gamble and at life sciences global leader Monsanto. Grant has worked in Canada, the USA and Western Europe. In leading complex regional and global teams, he established a reputation for enabling ‘customer marketers’ at P&G and Monsanto to create unique value for their customers.
François Marois, Vice President
François is a managing director with over 15 year experience in leading sales organizations, marketing strategic planning and business development in North American and European organizations. As VP at Optimé International, François leads sales effectiveness and capability programs with clients to create sustainable improvements in business performance.
Prior to joining Optimé, François’ sales leadership included 12 years within the Procter & Gamble organization on various CPG and pharmaceutical assignments including Executive Sales Director at P&G Pharmaceutical France and Belgium, Director of Sales, Western France at P&G Pharmaceuticals France, President & founder of GlobeFit International, a business consulting firm supporting go-to-market and sales force effectiveness expertise to early-stage pharmaceutical, health/wellness and consumer goods companies, as well as Associate Director/Global Business Development Europeat MedPlan Communications, a strategic healthcare communications agency specialized in medical communications and continuing medical/health education.
François holds an International MBA from the University of Ottawa.
Dana Dramnitske, Senior Consultant
Dana is a senior Human Resources professional, who has held a number of key HR leadership roles. Most recently Dana was VP HR for Revera Inc., Canada’s 11th largest private employer, where she was a member of the executive team and accountable for the alignment of HR activities with the business strategy. She has also held leadership roles in a not-for-profit social service/health care agency funded by the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and with Arbor Memorial Services Inc. In addition to her HR and Organizational Development background, Dana has had accountability for overseeing collective agreement administration and bargaining with unions such as CAW, OPSEU and the UFCW.
Having now turned her focus to consulting, she is providing services to clients such as Sun Life Financial, DuPont Canada, Continuing Care Information Management (CCIM), Amex and Nova Scotia Pension Agency. In addition to this, Dana has a long history of providing coaching – 5 years in private practice and 15 years as an executive – to mid- and senior-level managers including VP’s and CEO’s.
Dana has an undergraduate degree in Commerce from the University of Toronto. She is a Certified Compensation Professional.
Michel Guérin, Senior Consultant
Michel is a recognized Sales & Marketing visionary in consumer packaged goods. Throughout a 30-year career he has led the creation of innovative approaches to driving exceptional results in Quebec. His leadership of Procter & Gamble’s Quebec Sales organization resulted in consistently exceptional results. Michel has been able to utilize his deep understanding of the marketplace and leverage the multiple tools available in Sales, Public Relations, Consumer Promotions and Media Relations to achieve success.
As the leader of Sales, Marketing and Public Relations in Quebec for P&G, Michel has led the development and implementation of local/regional initiatives and programs built on customer and consumer insight. Many of the initiatives began in the Quebec marketplace and have now migrated to the national stage as well, reflecting the quality of the insight and implementation. Examples of these local/regional initiatives are the high value, integrated partnerships developed with Star Académie and Destination Tendance. Additionally his Quebec team led the internal consultation which resulted in the repositioning of the P&G beauty platform in Quebec.
Michel has a vast experience in developing both capability and effectiveness within organizations he has led as well as in organizations with which he has consulted over the last 3-years as a Senior Consultant with Optimé. He is an experienced facilitator, coach and mentor and in addition to his corporate work has been an instructor and facilitator at Université Québec Rouyn, Banque Fédérale de Développement and at Procter & Gamble.
Michel has a Bachelor of Business Management from l’Université du Quebec àMontréal.
Jim Harrison , Senior Consultant
As a strategic and forward thinker, Jim has helped numerous senior executives and management teams in building sustainable profit models. For over a decade he has designed and facilitated workshops that teach senior sales executives and account managers the mind-level and skill to engage with C-level executives. Clients have included IBM, Deloitte, Accenture, Deutsche Bank, FujiFilm, AGFA, The Ontario Services Safety Alliance and selected law firms. His one-on-one coaching also addresses such issues as leadership, strategy, selling, issues of revenue increases and cost containment, and personal and career development issues
Working closely with all clients, Jim has created business strategies and programs to bring innovation and opportunities to businesses that have urgency for change, while developing a well thought execution plan with time-bound realistic implementation plans.
Jim holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Florida State University.
Dominic Scaffidi , Senior Consultant
Dominic has coached executives and managers in a variety of organizations as they take on challenges including new roles, goals, dealing with significant change/transition and new projects. He helps leaders engage the full potential of their people to achieve unprecedented performance. His approach is to work with people through intentional conversations that cause them to generate new thinking, create new strategies and produce new actions in areas that are most important.
With over 20 years of business experience as an HR executive, sales manager, entrepreneur, and consultant; Dominic has worked with leading edge global organizations across a variety of industries including consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, software, telecommunications, financial services, retail and not-for-profit.
Dominic is a graduate of the University of Toronto where he completed his Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Economics. He has also completed graduate level certification programs at the Rotman School of Management (U of T) and at Royal Roads University. He is a Certified Human Resources Professional, a Certified Executive Coach and holds the Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential through the International Coach Federation.
Heather Smeall , Senior Consultant
Heather is a customer-oriented work process and supply chain executive with a track record of delivering outstanding results in the areas of cost efficiencies and productivity that support and enable the business strategy. She has significant experience in managing the supply chain impact resulting from product launches, acquisitions, divestitures, and plant closures with underlying strength in governance.
At a leading CPG firm, Heather served as a leadership team member at both the country and organization levels which resulted in a skilled and collaborative approach to dealings with Marketing, Sales, IT, Finance, Manufacturing, HR and PR. Select project leadership highlights included leading a 200+ employee organization through 6 consecutive years of improved operational results utilizing 6 Sigma “like” techniques to deliver process improvement and efficiencies in support of results improvement as well as staffing, coaching and directing Subject Matter Expert resources for an average of 30 concurrent projects worldwide.
Heather is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University.
Tammy Sturge , Senior Consultant
A senior Human Resources professional, Tammy is a former HR executive who led the transformation of the Human Resources strategy at CYBERplex Interactive Media and Ericsson Communications Inc. Tammy spent 11 years at Procter & Gamble Inc. in various HR leadership roles, including developing and implementing the corporate training strategy and designing the global performance management system. Currently she provides HR consulting services for such clients as American Express, Toyota, TDMMI, the United Way, ConAgra Foods, Chapters Indigo, State Street, SunLife, and BMO.
Her experience also includes work with the IS/IT functions at OTIP (Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan), BMO and a major American bank. The purpose of the work within the functions includes developing a resource leveling model, diagnosing the source of low employee engagement within the IS/IT function, and assessing the impact of a major IS/IT restructuring on its people and related processes.
Tammy has appeared weekly on Workopolis TV, as the ‘Corporate Confidant” where she consulted on workplace questions.
Eugene Dubejsky, Senior Consultant
Eugene is a dynamic, entrepreneurial Sales Management strategist with a 35 year record of achievement and demonstrated success driving multimillion-dollar growth. Adept at driving growth of company revenues and improving sales-team performance. Exceptional facilitator, mentor and coach. Tenacious in building new business and forging strong relationships with internal and external business partners. He has the added skill of being able to quickly develop strategic relationships at the executive suite. At the other end, he is not afraid to “roll up the sleeves” and help deliver tactical solutions.
His core competencies include: Market Strategy Development, Strategic Selling and Negotiation Platforms, Key Leader Development, Team Building/Coaching, Multi-Functional Collaboration, Multimillion-Dollar Negotiations, Global Retailer Knowledge, Organizational Leadership, Personal Life/Health Models.
As a Senior Executive at Procter and Gamble, he led Market Strategy and Planning functions, Joint Business Planning/Value Creation with key Accounts, Customer Relationship Development, Contract/PVA Negotiations, and Retail Pricing Strategies. He launched P&G’s multi-functional team at Walmart Canada and helped facilitate many industry pertinent topics at retailer/vendor conferences. He is very knowledgeable in consumer and shopper based marketing models. He has also designed and implemented multi-functional team training in Mexico, Germany, United Kingdom, and Korea.
On the personal side, Eugene has an HBA from the University of Toronto, is trilingual (English, French, Ukrainian) and has completed 3 marathons (New York City, Berlin, Vienna).