Sonya Shorey
Sonya Shorey, Vice President of Strategy, Marketing and Communications for Invest Ottawa and Bayview Yards, is a communications executive and management consultant with more than 20 years of leadership experience with private and public organizations.
With expertise in regional, national and global technology, entrepreneurial, economic development and innovation-based organizations, she specializes in corporate and communications strategy development and execution. This includes investment strategies that secure new cash and in-kind contributions from public and private sources. Since 2005, Sonya has led, strategized, authored and/or made a significant contribution to successful multi-year funding proposals valued at more than $185 million from municipal, provincial, federal and international governments. This includes the Ottawa L5, the first integrated connected and autonomous test environment of its kind in North America; and the first Pan-Ontario Scale-Up Platform of its kind aimed at enabling and accelerating the scaleup and commercial success of more $100 million revenue-generating tech companies in Canada.
She also architected and leads Invest Ottawa’s Female Founder and Womxn-Owned Business Strategy, and International Womxn’s Week in the Capital. Sonya launched her career as the Manager of Communications and Member of the Vice-Presidential Cabinet with the 10G Organization of Optical Networks for Nortel from 1999 to 2002. She then served as the Director of Marketing Communications for CMC Microsystems until 2007. Building on a decade of experience, Sonya launched her own strategy company in 2008, addressing the needs of S&T organizations, innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development agencies across Canada, and their partners around the world.
She currently serves Vice President of Strategy, Marketing and Communications for Invest Ottawa, lead economic development agency for knowledge-based industries for Canada’s Capital, and Bayview Yards, Ottawa’s one-stop business acceleration shop. Sonya holds a Bachelor of Arts, Combined Honours in English and Political Science from Carleton University, and has won nine international awards for her work in communications.
