The Mark of a Leader

The Mark of a Leader is a team of visionary business leaders with backgrounds in consumer packaged goods, communication, training, and event production.

We have started and built businesses from scratch, worked for global brands, and been suppliers to many of the Fortune 500 over the past 30+ years. We also all share a love of stage, screen, and music, and believe in the power of stories to impact people.

What We Do:

1. Engage your people and customers more fully

We have a foundational principle called Five Level Leadership. Its premise is that all humans operate on five levels – Spirit, Imagination, Intellect, Heart, and Hands. Only when all five of these are active are your people and customers fully engaged. And it is only when they are fully engaged that your business and people are working at their best.

2. Get everyone thinking and acting like leaders

HR studies show that in typical organizations, only 20% of the employees think of themselves as leaders. If you can increase that %, you change your business. Leadership thinking is about constantly working to improve yourself and what you do, about being accountable, and about helping others to be their best – no matter what your job is.

3. Use stories strategically

Great leaders and organizations understand the power of stories and they use them. Stories touch us on all of our levels, so they cause us to change our behaviour and we remember them. That’s why all the world’s religions are built on stories. And it’s why great companies use stories to define who they are and what they stand for, like:

·         The Pirate flag on Apple’s Macintosh developers building (“We’re different”)

·         The FedEx driver who rented a helicopter to deliver a package and fulfill their service promise (“Absolutely, Positively On Time”)

·         Nordstrom giving a customer a refund on tires which they do not even sell (No questions asked)

Some clients simply use us to Keynote or MC a conference – a sales kickoff, a customer event, the launch of a new initiative. We use our incredible library of multimedia stories to challenge, teach, and inspire your audience to do whatever it is you want them to do. We are repeatedly told by clients and audience members that our keynotes are the best they have ever seen. Period.

Our stories show people, companies, and ideas that have changed the world, and our magic comes from how we model their success and apply it to your audience to show them how to drive their performance.

The story library includes:

·         Spectacular accomplishments like Shackleton’s Endurance, Bannister’s 4 minute mile, and putting a man on the moon.

·         Innovative companies like Starbucks, Apple, Cirque du Soleil, the Dabbawala of Mumbai, and Uber.

·         World-changers like Sir Winston Churchill, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rosa Parks, and Pablo Picasso.

·         And perspective-changing ideas using music, interactivities, comedy improv, and much more.

Meet The Team:

Doug Keeley

Doug Keeley is a globally recognized communicator, a master storyteller, and a self-professed “leadership junkie”.

After graduating from music school with a Fine Arts degree as a jazz guitarist, Doug wisely decided to start a business rather than starve as a jazzer. His company, ICE, quickly became a pioneer in the communications industry, and he travelled the world working with Fortune 500 corporations. It became clear to him that leadership was the differentiator in business and that storytelling was being lost as strategic skill.

In 2004, he created The Mark of a Leader, designed to inspire new thinking in the workforce about leadership, engagement, and corporate culture. His goal was to create the world’s best library of leadership stories for the corporate market and the most unique way to use stories to drive engagement and performance. And that’s what The Mark of a Leader is today.

Doug has written a book of inspiring stories, authored many magazine features and columns, and been interviewed many times on radio and television. He is an inductee in the Meetings & Incentive Travel Hall of Fame.

When he is not on the road, he and his wife are usually at a rink watching his son play hockey. And he continually proves that he made a wise choice when he made music a hobby rather than a career.

Tim Magwood

Tim is a creative, collaborative, and passionate leader. A colleague describes him as a “lightening rod in driving positive change.”

Before entering the business world, Tim delighted audiences in stage productions such as Les Miserables (Royal Alexandra Theatre, National Arts Centre), Napoleon (Elgin Theatre), and Fiddler on the Roof (Huron Country Playhouse).

In the mid 1990s he joined ICE, Canada’s largest private communications company, as a Senior Account Director, where he worked with many of Canada’s best corporations. He left to pursue his passion for training, joining Horn and Associates where he designed and delivered sales and sales management training programs.

In 1999, he started Fusion Learning, which became the fastest growing sales effectiveness firm in the country, providing programs for hundreds of corporate clients.

Tim sold Fusion and, in 2012, reunited with ICE’s CEO Doug Keeley at the Mark of a Leader. He now combines his unique skills and passion for storytelling and leadership to teach, challenge, and inspire audiences around the world.

Outside of work, he enjoys time with his wife and 3 kids, and fuelling his passion for music, having released two successful CDs of original songs.

Andy Siklos

Andy is an engaging and authentic leader who over the last 25 years as an executive at PepsiCo has successfully coached and developed his teams to drive results in the highly competitive Beverage industry.

A natural born “storyteller”, Andy has been leveraging the power of stories to change behaviors, drive culture, and deliver results through his whole career. He has led large teams across multiple disciplines (Marketing, Sales, Operations) in both the US and Canada, and has had the privilege of learning about leadership from great leaders throughout his long career at PepsiCo.

Andy was first a client of The Mark of a Leader while at Pepsi, and when he left to start the second phase of his career, he immediately gravitated to us. Now he is putting his storytelling and executive leadership skills to work and receiving fantastic reviews from our clients.

In addition to his passion for storytelling and leadership, Andy continues to challenge himself with cycling (and uni-cycling), golf, and improv comedy.

The Mark of a Leader

When we ask our clients “What are the stories that define your company or values?” many can’t answer. That’s why we developed our Story Program. It is designed to help companies discover, craft, capture, and share their core stories.

The goal may be to bring a vision, values, or strategy to life in ways people remember. It may be to capture your best customer experiences so that they are more than just “case studies”. It may be to change or improve the way people see their roles or contribution.

No matter what your goal is, our proven process can help your company bring its stories to life to become powerful strategic tools.