Tara Hunt

Last updated October 14th 2011
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TARA E. HUNT

Verdun, QC H4G 3M3 - Canada
http://www.buyosphere.com

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SUMMARY 

Tara Hunt, CEO of Buyosphere, was named as one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company Magazine and has spent her entire adult life online and the years pre-internet obsessed with technology.

In April 2009, she published a book with Random House called The Whuffie Factor/Power of Social Networking (paperback) that discussed how the social web has changed business forever. It is published in 8 languages and is an international bestseller. She spent 5 years as a professional public speaker, traveling worldwide to keynote on the topic of the social web.

Today, Buyosphere, the company she cofounded in Montreal, is revolutionizing shopping online by connecting people searching for products with people who know how to find them. Buyosphere leverages Tara's knowledge of the social web to democratize e-commerce.

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WORK EXPERIENCE 

Buyosphere, Montreal, QC

June 2011 - Present

CEO (Customer Experience Officer)

Buyosphere aims to be THE place that people will go to find products right for them. It is a Q&A platform for shopping.

I have been the CEO at the company full-time since January 2010, but we launched the product in June 2011. My duties include:

  • Raising money (investor pitches, etc)
  • Marketing & community building
  • Company vision
  • Public relations, copywriting, strategic planning
  • Partnerships
  • and much, much more...

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Professional Public Speaker, Worldwide

January 2006 - January 2010

Speaker

I've spoken at well over 100 conferences worldwide and did so for a living for many years. I still do it occasionally in order to keep my company profile high.

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Intuit Inc., Mountain View, California

February 2009 - June 2009

Marketing Manager, Intuit Partner Platform

SKILLS USED: User Experience Design, online marketing, marketing strategy, management, product management, project management, brand development, market research, trend analysis, presentation development and delivery, web design.

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Citizen Agency LLC, San Francisco, California

June 2006 - January 2009

Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder

Citizen Agency is a boutique firm designed to help technology companies understand and serve their customer communities better. The community marketing techniques I developed for Riya.com left me with the reputation for being a strong online community marketer, so merely one month after we launched, I gained a full client roster. Two years later, and after many other successes with these techniques for other clients, Citizen Agency gained the reputation for bringing cost-effective, relationship building marketing and product development strategies to the wide roster of clients.

Some clients worked with: Slideshare.net, Ma.gnolia.com, Social Text, Facebook's F8 platform, Get Satisfaction, Songbird, Timbuk2, Scrapblog, Jajah, TripIt and Strands.

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Riya.com, Redwood City, California

August 2005 - June 2006

Online Marketing Director

In six months pre-launch, and as the sole marketing person, my community outreach strategy raised enough awareness to land Riya as the 'sweetheart' of Web 2.0, appearing on over 500 blogs, in over 20 publications and gathering interest from all corners of the world. All of this was achieved pre-launch.

The first day Riya launched, there were over 1 million photos uploaded and nearly 20,000 sign-ups.

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Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario

April 2003 - August 2005

New Media Manager

At HRPAO, I worked on a team to implement a massive new Content Management System, complete with over 2500 articles on Human Resources and an additional 1500 pages of other resources for the 15,000+ member organization in Ontario.

I also set up affiliate programs with organizations such as Monster.ca, Yahoo!HotJobs and various Canadian HR publications.

SKILLS USED: Online marketing, new media management, digital marketing, brand development, strategic planning, budgeting, project management, search engine marketing, customer relationship management, market research, trend analysis, copywriting/editing, presentation development & delivery, web design, etc.

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Rogue Strategies, Calgary, Alberta & Toronto, Ontario

June 2002 - August 2006

President

I set up Rogue Strategies to offer both on and offline marketing strategies to my small and medium business clients across Canada.

Rogue Strategies was the recipient of many awards for our campaigns, including merit for best gaming/promotion site for the Canadian Digital Marketing Awards and Applied Arts Magazine's 2003 Best Poster and Poster Series for my online/offline Joe Stiff's Spiked Root Beer campaign.

The multiple clients served over the lifetime of Rogue Strategies reaped the benefits of low cost, high-impact online marketing strategies.

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MGM Communications, Calgary, Alberta

April 2001 - June 2002

Account Director

I handled over 20 clients at any given time, both as a strategic planner and implementer on campaigns and launches. Often working in large agency/client teams, my role was to come up with the non-traditional tactics, including online, event and experiential elements. I also managed all other aspects of account direction, including client relations and project management.

SKILLS USED: Public relations, investor relations, online marketing, new media management, digital marketing, brand development, strategic planning, budgeting, project management, search engine marketing, market research, trend analysis, copywriting/editing, presentation development & delivery, web design.

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MAXX Petroleum Ltd., Calgary, Alberta

August 1999 - April 2001

Communications & New Media Manager

SKILLS USED: Public relations, investor relations, online marketing, new media management, digital marketing, brand development, strategic planning, budgeting, project management, search engine marketing, market research, trend analysis, copywriting/editing, presentation development & delivery, web design.

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EDUCATION 

University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, 1995 - 1999

Bachelor of Arts in Communications & Culture, 3.92 Grade Point Average

 

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BOOKS 

The Power of Social Networking: Using the Whuffie Factor to Build Your Business - Random House, May 2010. ISBN: 978-0-3074494-0-5

The Whuffie Factor: The Five Keys for Maxing Social Capital and Winning with Online Communities - Random House, April 2009. ISBN: 978-0-3074095-0-8

Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age (contributor) - Personal Democracy Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-9817509-0-3

Women in Technology (contributor) - O'Reilly Media Inc.

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PUBLIC SPEAKING 

Presented at over 110 conferences over the past four years including: Fuel Conference, Thinking Digital, Web 2.0 Expo, ETech, SXSW Interactive, Gnomedex, Web Directions and SuperNova.

Presentations can be found here:
http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue

List of speaking experience here:
http://www.horsepigcow.com/public-speaking/

Represented by Leigh Bureau.

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EVENT PLANNING 

Organized over 50 events - including conferences, unconferences, educational seminars and meetups - ranging in size from 50 to 2,000 attendees.

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COMMUNITY ORGANIZING 

TransitCampBayArea, BarCamp, WineCamp, Coworking, OpenMediaWeb.org, HeroCamp, Creative Commons, Microformats, OpenID, Net Squared, Sunlight Foundation, EFF, Craigslist Foundation

Volunteering:
Freecycle - 2007
Net Squared - 2006/2007
Inspiration Festival - New York 2006
Sunnybrook Women's Hospital - 2005
Toronto International Film Festival - 2003/2004

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AWARDS AND HONORS 

2011 - 25 Women-Led Startups to Watch
2009 - Most Influential Women in Technology (Fast Company)
2003 - Canadian Digital Marketing Awards: Certificate, Promotional/Gaming Site
2003 - Applied Arts Magazine: Best Poster & Best Poster Series

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ONLINE PRESENCE 

http://www.buyosphere.com

http://www.horsepigcow.com
http://www.agingungracefully.net

http://about.me/tarahunt

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