Management Bios

Tony Baylis joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in January 2002 bringing 17 years of professional business experience in various senior roles within the entertainment industry. Most recently he held the position of President, Balmur Corus Music Inc. and also executive produced award-winning television specials for broadcast in Canada and the United States.

Today he takes a leadership role in helping guide the company’s strategic plans through its domestic and international growth. Thus far, he has been instrumental in structuring the company’s operations and management resources and systems; overseeing all business affairs; executive producing the company’s newest video lines – and aggressively pursuing and analyzing new business opportunities.

Tony has a Bachelor of Commerce, Honours Finance, from Dalhousie University and is a Chartered Accountant.

tony.baylis@merrithew.com

Sandy Gardner joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in 2009 and is responsible for leading the commercial and retail sales team, customer service and corporate events departments. She is integral in implementing leads management programs, managing international distribution and reseller partners along with executing customer after-care programs to increase overall customer relations.

Sandy has close to 20 years of progressive Sales Management experience within the Entertainment Industry beginning her career as a Marketing Manager at Warner Music Canada. She then took on the challenge of marketing the Classical Kids® brand at The Children’s Group, moving onwards to Madacy Entertainment Group. Most recently, Sandy held the position of Vice-President of Sales for Twin Sisters Productions, an award-winning producer of children’s entertainment before joining Merrithew Health & Fitness.

sandy.gardner@merrithew.com

Christine Newey joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in 2010 and is responsible for managing the Finance, HR and IT departments.

Christine brings almost 20 years of professional experience in various finance roles, most recently as Vice-President of Finance with Canadian Springs. During her 14-year career at Canadian Springs, Christine held a number of titles such as Corporate Controller and Director of Planning and Analysis before being promoted to Vice-President of Finance. Prior to working at Canadian Springs, she worked in the field of forensic accounting and also in a public accounting practice handling various client audits and tax return preparation.

Christine holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, with a specialty in Commerce, from the University of Toronto and is also a Chartered Accountant.

christine.newey@merrithew.com

Carol Tricoche joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in July 2006 as Sales Manager, Full Solutions and was promoted to Global Sales Director a year later and then to Vice-President, Full Solutions. Now, as Vice-President, Education Sales, she is responsible for streamlining education sales strategy for both student enrollment and education program sales through the hosting-to-facilities process. By expanding this area, Carol will help streamline corporate marketing initiatives and messaging to all students and facilities in order to continue to contribute to their business success.

Prior to joining the Company, Carol spent five years as the Group Exercise/Pilates Director at the Claremont Club in California where she pioneered a successful Pilates program which continues to thrive today. Carol was the Owner/Operator of Make It Happen Health and Fitness Personal Training Studio in Covina, California and VP Commercial Sales for Holiday Travel. As a sought-after speaker, Carol has presented at top fitness events around the globe prior to and after joining the Merrithew team.

Carol is a STOTT PILATES® Certified Instructor, Level 1, a Mad Dogg Athletic Certified Spinning® Instructor and posses an AFAA certification in Personal Training, Weight Room, Primary Group Exercise, Kickboxing, and Step. She has a Liberal Arts degree from Mt. San Antonia College, California with an emphasis on Communications and Physical Education.

carol.tricoche@merrithew.com

Viral was appointed Vice-President, Manufacturing in 2012 and provides leadership for all product design, engineering and manufacturing along with procurement growth. He continues to oversee a staff of 45 across metal fabrication, upholstery, carpentry, assembly and shipping/receiving departments. Viral has also been instrumental in the development of an MRP (Material Resource Planning) system and has assisted in the research, design, development and production of the STOTT PILATES® equipment line.

Prior to joining The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in 1996, Viral was Director of Production for BASQ International, a Montreal-based company specializing in packaging design and manufacturing for major packaged goods companies. Before emigrating from India to Canada, he was a practicing mechanical engineer with GSFC, one of the country's largest fertilizer and chemical companies.

Viral holds a Mechanical Engineering Degree from India's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University.

viral.bhatt@merrithew.com

Beth Gibbs-Bartel plays a leadership role in building the company’s video and retail products business and managing international account sales. She has also been instrumental in bringing numerous new DVD titles and retail products under the STOTT PILATES® brand to domestic and international markets.

Beth was a Senior Vice-President with KOCH Entertainment Inc. prior to joining Merrithew Health & Fitness™ in 2004. She was responsible for overseeing sales and marketing for KOCH Vision, the video division of the company. During her eight years with the company, her responsibilities included: increasing sales of 14 different video brands, growing existing business channels and developing new business with non-traditional video retailers and overseeing the acquisition of new video lines, including the Gaiam line of mind-body videos and retail products, marketing and promoting 14 video studios. Prior to KOCH, Beth worked for an agency that placed her in an international marketing role at EMI Music Canada where she focused on the development of EMI’s domestic artist roster.

Beth is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University with an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and French. She also has a Certificate in International Conversational French.

beth.gibbs@merrithew.com

Alison Byrne joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in 2012 and is responsible for leading the development, coordination and execution of our corporate communications, public relations, advertising, intellectual property, brand, marketing, e-commerce and customer retention strategies for all Merrithew Health & Fitness™ brands.

Alison has almost 15 years of progressive experience in delivering successful traditional and digital marketing strategy. Beginning her career in Product and Retail Marketing Alison spent 9 years at Harlequin Enterprises Limited, leading marketing teams in both Canada and the United Kingdom.  Drawing on her publishing and retail marketing experience Alison moved on to become the Partner Marketing Manager at eReading start-up Kobo.  Most recently Alison was responsible for the development of consumer marketing initiatives for a portfolio of digital products at Star Media Group.

Alison holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Memorial University of Newfoundland and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

alison.byrne@merrithew.com

A member of the Merrithew Health & Fitness™ programming team since 1998, Stefania Della Pia is a STOTT PILATES® Master Instructor Trainer and has represented the company in more than 14 countries on 5 continents as a presenter, trainer and examiner. As Senior Program Director, Education, Stefania continues her invaluable contributions to the Education Department and is instrumental in organizing the development and procedures within the department. She oversees the growth of the Instructor Trainer program and global implementation of training and certification programs.

stefania.dellapia@merrithew.com

A leader in IT, Rob Hanson joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in 2008.

Rob’s career path started off at Xerox where he was promoted to major IT roles which further lead to becoming a professor at Niagara College, teaching a variety of information technology courses. Later, enticed by the challenges he saw in an upstart company, Rob left teaching to join Sportexe as an IT Director. For Sportexe, Rob designed and simultaneous launched a corporate website and e-commerce portal.

Rob holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from North Carolina State University, North Carolina.

rob.hanson@merrithew.com

Laureen DuBeau joined The Merrithew Health & Fitness Group in 1998. As an integral member of the programming team she is responsible for the global development and implementation of STOTT PILATES®, CORE Athletic Conditioning & Performance Training and ZEN•GA™ training and certification programs. Laureen began teaching Pilates in 1995 and is now a Master Instructor Trainer. She is a featured performer and Associate Producer on several Merrithew Health & Fitness DVDs, the associate editor of numerous teaching manuals, and an author of articles in several industry publications.

Prior to joining Merrithew, Laureen worked for Tennis Canada where she was responsible for Canadian and international public relations in the capacity of media relations and communications, player relations and event organization.

Laureen studied Dance and Physical Education at York University in Toronto where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

lauren.dubeau@merrithew.com

As a creative leader for well over a decade, Deborah Peterson joined Merrithew Health & Fitness in 2011 to help define and lead the creative vision for branding and design, as the company continues to grow and expand into new fitness areas. Deborah brings extensive branding, design, advertising and web experience from leadership roles at international publishing houses, consulting with top tier companies, as well as digital and web companies. Deborah was most recently the Creative Director at Harlequin Enterprises, leading the overall creative direction of the series romance packaging, advertising and branding in North America, where over 100 books are designed, illustrated and published every single month.

In addition to this, she also re-branded the Harlequin series brand from the ground up, including in-store signage, racking, graphic standards and all touch points for the end-consumer. Deborah also developed a unique art exhibit to celebrate the notorious publisher’s 60th anniversary—highlighting original Harlequin cover paintings from 1949 to 2010. The exhibit toured to New York City and Las Vegas to critical print and online success—winning a bronze Marketing Digital Award for an interactive wall in the exhibit.

deborah.peterson@merrithew.com

As a member of MH&F’s Senior management team, Cindy brought to the company over 20 years of extensive background in strategic marketing, international business development and global strategic sourcing. Cindy has contributed to the company’s product portfolio expansion through effective international sourcing strategy and execution since she joined the company in early 2011. She plays a leadership role in planning and executing the company’s aggressive business development strategy in China through establishing the right partnerships.

Prior to joining MH&F, Cindy was a management consultant in Go-to-market strategy and Global Strategic Sourcing and is a subject matter expert in doing business with China and in international sourcing. She was a featured speaker at the 3rd Canada China Business Forum in “Doing Business in China” in 2009 to 400 business leaders of both countries. Prior to joining The Merrithew Health & Fitness, Cindy held senior executive positions at Genesis Worldwide Inc., PharmEng Technology Inc. and before that, she had served in national business leadership capacity in strategic marketing with Philips and Glaxo (GSK) in China.

Cindy holds an MBA in Marketing from ESLSCA, France and a BA from Sichuan International Studies University in English, China.

cindy.sun@merrithew.com