Ian Capstick

I am the co-founder of Secret Agents, and a social impact strategist.

My professional experience intersects several key sectors: advertising, government, media, social impact entertainment and environmental protection.

As a political strategist I worked as a special assistant to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, as press secretary to Hon. Jack Layton and managed election advertising and messaging for a Premier and seven third-party campaigns. I spent eight seasons as a contributor to CBC’s flagship political program Power & Politics, and am widely quoted in the media and have provided analysis for the New York Times, the Guardian, CNN and every national news broadcast in Canada.

I founded MediaStyle in 2009, a progressive public affairs agency, which supported innovation and helped create national-level impacts. The firm was established as a purpose-driven enterprise specializing in the communications related to the Canadian federal political arena. 

Leading an incredible team of young people, we managed crisis communications situations on behalf of major political players and coordinated campaigns for well known Canadians and organizations. 

I helped lead the communications efforts for the two official closings and reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commision and was an advisor to Gord Downie and the Wenjack family during the release of the Secret Path album, movie, graphic novel and live concerts. I also managed the production of transmedia content for CBC's landmark series Becoming Canadian, Jack Layton’s meet the NDP convention and several other televised broadcasts. 

After a successful exit, MediaStyle is still going strong after recently celebrating its tenth anniversary.

In 2017, I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Impact Strategy (CSIS) and have been a Teaching Fellow with the Center since then. I help coach students from around the globe in social entrepreneurship and sustainability. As a guest lecturer at Concordia University’s Workshop on Social Science Research (WSSR) since 2015, I’ve explored the theoretical and practical application of politics with students. 

Over the past three years, I actively stepped back from partisan commentary and day-to-day operations of an agency and started digging deeper into the causes and enterprises I want to champion. As part of this journey, I was honoured to research, report and have some of the key-findings used to construct new ways for Greenpeace Canada to communicate in impactful and measurable ways. I’m now vice-chair of the Board of Directors.

I’ve also advised several emerging startups, including as a member of the Future of Good  global advisory circle and I’m co-owner of a sustainable furniture company.

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Shawn Dearn

I am the co-founder of Secret Agents, a journalism professor at Concordia University, the host of Queer Legends: An Oral History Podcast, and a digital storyteller.

I’m also an award-winning bilingual broadcaster with a strategic communications and marketing background spanning 25 years in the public, private, environmental and post-secondary education sectors. 

My expertise includes helping leaders and organizations communicate complicated public policy and science, leading crisis communications, and compelling storytelling. My work is inclusive, honest and brings thoughtful advice to executive boardrooms. I’ve been recognized by my employers and colleagues for creative thinking, strategies and programming that produce impact. 

After several years as a radio news anchor and journalist, my peers elected me president of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in 1999. Later that year I moved to Sarajevo to be the general manager of Radio FERN (Free Elections Radio Network) - the only national radio network in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Under my leadership it became the most listened to and politically influential news source in the country. In 2001, as part of a project to restructure the State broadcaster, I helped transition Radio FERN to become the flagship of BiH’s new public radio broadcaster - BiH Radio 1.

I returned to Canada to join the federal public service after a short media capacity building project for the OSCE Mission to BiH. I was a Government of Canada spokesperson or strategic communications executive on matters of domestic and international policy, public safety, international trade, fisheries and the Canadian Coast Guard. I’ve advised cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister’s office, diplomats, CEOs, policy makers, scientists and decision makers at all levels.

In 2006, I was awarded a citation from the Minister of International Trade for my “outstanding service to the Canadian business community.”

After more than a dozen years, I left the public service to become Director of Communications at the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. As a member of senior management I led the association’s rebranding project and name-change to Colleges and Institutes Canada. It remains one of the projects I am most proud of.

In 2017, I returned to Montreal to care for family and got back behind the news-anchor microphone at CJAD 800 and CHOM FM. In 2020, Ian and I launched Secret Agents to help others tell their own stories and to have more impact.

I believe in helping others achieve their potential and when a crisis hits - I’m one of the people jumping into the thick of it. My passion for social justice and equality is equally contagious.

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