Matthew Grimes

I am a development professional turned entrepreneur with over a decade of public relations, social media strategy, business development and marketing experience. I combine my passion for storytelling with strategic communications perspective and a geeky fascination with the latest tools for reaching audiences for new businesses, emerging businesses/brands and established organizations. Expertise includes launch strategies, operational restructuring, program and product launches, and multi-platform marketing. My eclectic background means I speak both with content and business in mind, left brain and right brain, qualitative and quantitative, creative and analytical. Based in New York City. Currently driving creative and revenue-led projects for restaurants and e-commerce companies. Specialties:Team and individual management, company structuring, process initiation and supervision, timeline and objective management, relationship fostering, brand guardian, PR management, media activity. Degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies and Rutgers College.

Canadian Entrepreneur: Experience in leading $MM IT/Innovation projects. Assist companies in choosing the best IT approaches, service plans, hardware and software products! Coaching in: Creating Social Learning Communities | Public Consultation | Social Initiatives | Digital Strategy | PMI (Project Management) Accreditation. Dianne founded Trendspire Canada Inc. in 2000, a company that navigates and nurtures sceptical users to embrace social platforms and digital engagement methodologies. Dianne is a pioneer, a thought leader, who conceptualizes leading-edge ideas and is able to translate them into recognizable strategies, products and services. Dianne simplifies technical jargon, encourages opinions and continues to use this inclusive style in order to solve problems and effect organizational change. Dianne Clark, brings a diverse background to her current professional endeavors. Prior to services like Monster and Workopolis, in 1995, she started 'The Job Connection', her first social startup. Dianne’s second startup, 'Community Life Online'was a Pre-Internet BBS (Bulletin Board System), with a membership of 250 university students and seniors dialing up regularly. Dianne also taught leadership and digital courses at the post-secondary level at the time. In 2004, Dianne managed teams at the national level, for both Industry Canada and HRSDC. In 2008, she was the Technical Innovation Manager for a multi-million dollar communications project, stimulating community leadership in over 30 communities across Alberta. Ms. Clark was nominated for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award and Niagara’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. She attributes her success to investing in building healthy relationships; delivering on promises, and maintaining regular, purposeful, open and honest communication. As a Project Manager, Dianne works with innovative leaders, solving problems using collaborative strategies while implementing strategies to improve capacity of organizations with whom she works. In addition to providing informative columns to community news publications, Dianne also makes time to volunteer on various boards and committees.

Helped launch, build, and run Code for America; ran product strategy, fundraising, and growth. Built first-of-its-kind civic startup accelerator, peer network for 100+ local governments, and volunteer corps in 60+ cities, 7,000+ strong. Previously: Google, Center for American Progress, Rose Institute of State & Local Government. Board of Directors at OpenGov Foundation; Truman National Security Partner; and Board of Advisors of Significance Labs.