Our Culture.

Derek Rider

Derek is an award-winning executive and serial entrepreneur. Starting as a journalist for CTV and BNN early in his career, Derek went on to found an advertising agency and co-founded the digital video agency now known as Media One Creative.

He is the recipient of Canada’s 30 Under 30 for Marketing (2016), the winner of Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada (2015) and the winner of the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Business Excellence Awards for 30 Under 30 (2014).

As one of Canada’s leading young entrepreneurs, Derek has led the agency to win the Canadian and global business for some of the world’s largest brands, including: Bell, Budweiser, EY, GE, Nike, Mark’s, SAP, Salesforce, Xerox, among others. He spends most of his time growing the business in Canada and the USA and ensuring Media One Creative is geared up for the future of marketing.

Derek is passionate about entrepreneurship, travel, video games and, most of all, his family. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Stephanie and their son, Theodore.

Corey Peck

Corey is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Media One Creative. Since 2010, Corey has grown Media One Creative’s team from 2 to almost 200 and has been recognized by the Toronto Region Board of Trade with a Business Excellence Award for both Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year and Top Under 30.

Corey is also an award winning Executive Producer and has led over 400 video projects for the world’s most recognizable brands such as Nike, SAP, OLG, EY, CGI, Tim Hortons, MLSE, BMO, Scotiabank, Xerox, YMCA, and many others.

Corey is passionate about creating great content across multiple art forms and spends his time away from the office with his wife and two daughters. On the weekends, you can find Corey beside his Offset Smoker in his backyard on a never ending quest to become a Barbecue Pit Master.

Amy McDowell

Amy has over 15+ years of experience in corporate marketing, events and communications on both the client and agency side. She has worked with organizations of all sizes including Samsung, BlackBerry, Intel, EY, Shopify and Vidyard.

Kelly Formela

Kelly is a classically trained sales leader with over 18 years of direct sales experience with roles at Xerox, Demand Metric, Buchanan Group, NRS Media and now leading the Sales & Marketing team here at Media One Creative.

Kelly has been in Advertising and TV/Video Production for over 10 years and most recently lead the North American business division of Buchanan Group, the makers of “Brand Power” and “Medifacts”. This role saw Kelly launch the business in to LATAM as well as travel overseas for secondment in London, UK where he grew the business by over 700% thus earning him Employee Of The Year in 2013.

Kelly has worked with virtually all of the CPG/FMCG giants including J&J, GSK, Reckitt Benckiser, General Mills and P&G to name a few.

If you visit Kelly’s home in Burlington you will find in his “man cave” with a stellar fine Bourbon collection, a shrine to Wendell Clarke and a “fan boy” type collection of Star Wars and Spiderman collectibles. The lights of his life are his two British beauties – his wife Tara and daughter Lily.

Aine Corby

Aine is a Producer at Media One Creative with over 8 years of project and production experience in both media and live events.

Aine has toured the world with numerous international performers, including Andrea Bocelli, Dead Can Dance and Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twin. She has coordinated events in over 80 cities worldwide.

What originally was a working holiday from Ireland in 2013 grew into a life here in Toronto that Aine loves and still continues to love 4 years later.

Aine is passionate about travelling, trying new food, live music and getting outdoors, exploring all Toronto has to offer.

Leen Tangney

Cait Martin Newnham

Rakush Sarkari

Rakush is a Project Coordinator at Media One Creative. Born in India, Rakush moved to Canada in 2001, and over the years he has developed a penchant for immersing himself in new cultures, environments and challenges.

After graduating from the Broadcast – Television Program at Seneca College in 2015, Rakush joined Juice Worldwide as a Project Coordinator and worked with renowned studios such as Miramax, HBO, Entertainment One and others.

Jenny Williams

Jenny has worked in production for the past 6 years on a range of television documentary and docu-drama shows whilst living in London, England. 

She was production coordinator on a BAFTA winning series for BBC and most recently worked as Production Manager on a documentary series for CNN in the US. She moved to Toronto in 2019 to expand her passion for production whilst gaining a larger world view. 

Since moving to Toronto, Jenny has been working with the Media One team on a number of TV commercials, documentary projects and events.

Ben Del Vasto

Ben graduated from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University with a BFA in Film Studies and a Minor in Theology, in 2018.  He has also supplemented his education with a certificate in Project Management and Post-Graduate Diploma in Filmmaking – both from Sheridan College.  While at school he produced and wrote multiple festival accepted documentary shorts.  In is own time he has also directed and produced four narrative shorts, with his latest Separated at Code to be released the summer of 2020.

His love for all things movies has led him to a career in the media industry, and he is happy to have found a team at Media One that shares the same passion and drive.  He continues to write in his spare time and collaborate with friends.

Bella Li

Nisha Sanyal

Nisha Sanyal is the Executive Assistant to the CEO. She’s previously worked as an Executive Assistant as well as a Project Coordinator. She graduated with a degree in political science. She holds  a post graduate diploma in Human Resources. She’s tech savvy and always looking to learn new software skills.

Ken Simpson

Toronto native Ken Simpson has worked in film continuously since leaving art school. Over the past seventeen years as a filmmaker, he has become known for his distinct and complex visual style with an innovative fusion of technology and creativity. His passion for trick photography and visual effects has made Simpson a sought-after compositor for film, television and the web.

In the summer of 2013,  Simpson premiered his ambitious $50,000 feature film directorial debut, Headcase, at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival which was then followed by a very successful ten day run in Toronto. In early 2014, Simpson directed the hour-long documentary, The Trouble with Dying about the controversial topic of assisted suicide & euthanasia and its socio-political implications in Canada. The Trouble with Dying was narrated by the Academy award winning actor Christopher Plummer, and aired nationally on Vision TV.

In 2015 Simpson was hired to direct and edit a five part miniseries as part of a co-production between CTN (Cambodia) and GMA Network (Philippines). The series “Blood in Dispute” starred Mikael Daez, Andrea Torres and was co-written by Simpson and Romilly Belcourt based on an outline by Phum Pitch films. The series aired in Cambodia in late 2015 and the Philippines in 2016. 

Abbi Morrison

Abbi is a a video editor at Media One Creative. She discovered her passion experimenting with video at an early age.

Abbi has since translated that passion into a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Industries from Ryerson University. She began her professional career as a video editor for advertising agency Buchanan Group working with major brands through the agency’s Brand Power and Medifacts platforms.

Carter Pinkowski

Carter is a video editor on Media One Creative’s in-house post-production team. A lifelong Toronto resident, Carter graduated from Ryerson University’s RTA School of Media in 2018, receiving his undergraduate degree in Media Production with a specialization in Video Production.

Shelley Vaz

Shelley is Media One Creative’s Content Specialist, in charge of content creation ranging from graphic design, animation, web design and blog content.

Shelley graduated from Ryerson’s RTA Media Production program, concentrating in Digital Media and minoring in Marketing.