Driving brand awareness for the right reasons.

Krista Vriend is a marketing professional with 20 years of experience in the financial industry, touching some the most iconic national and regional brands. Krista’s strength is in developing brands and marketing strategies that drive equity, revenue and profitability. She has launched both national and global brands, most recently taking her experience into the international market, working across the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America.

After graduating from KCSS, Krista travelled to Europe, making the Netherlands her home for 6 months before returning to Canada to attend Mt. Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Here she completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in Economics and a double minor in Marketing and International Studies.

After graduating Krista moved back to Toronto to launch her career with a start-up mutual fund company in sales and marketing, where she was part of a dynamic team that saw the company become the fastest growing asset management firm in Canada surpassing $1 billion in assets under management in under 3 years.

From there her career grew as she headed up brand marketing for Dundee Wealth Management, an investment advisory firm that was in a period of significant growth and expansion through acquisition, taking the firm from a regional to a national institution.

As a newly wed, Krista moved out to Vancouver, BC to lead the brand development and launch of a new mutual fund company for Vancity, Canada’s largest Credit Union, helping to establish a place in the market for Socially Responsible investing.

In 2008 Krista moved back to Toronto to take a position at Scotiabank, leading their initiative to develop an investment and mutual fund platform for distribution through their retail bank branches, which achieved number #1 in Canada for new asset growth within 18 months, during an economic downturn.

In her almost 10 year career at Scotiabank, Krista has lead the marketing platforms, brands and launches of all the major Canadian product lines including the Scene partnership with Cineplex, the NHL sponsorship support and the launch of the only white-labelled AMEX card in Canada which achieved 150% of its year one targets in 6 months.

Krista now oversees all the Global Insurance, International Wealth and Asset Management brands as Director of Marketing. Throughout her tenure at Scotiabank, Krista and her teams have won several Gold and Silver CMAs (Canadian Marketing Awards) multiple years in a row, as well as the 2013 Gold Internationalist Award for Innovative Digital Marketing Solutions.

Outside of her professional life, Krista is dedicated to being active in the community and has worked across a number of not-for-profit organizations over the years. Most notably with Ontario Track 3 Ski Association for children and youth with disabilities, where over a 10 year tenure she served on the Board of Directors, as fundraising chair and as a ski school director and instructor. Currently Krista is President of the Canadian Congenital Heart Association, an organization that is committed to raising awareness, creating advocacy and supporting research for Congenital Heart Disease – a lifelong condition that 1 in every 100 babies worldwide are born with, including Krista herself who has undergone numerous heart surgeries throughout her life.

Krista lives in Toronto’s west-end with her husband and son and is an avid home cook, traveler, skier and rock climber.

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