Born in the small town of Nuneaton, England (just outside of Birmingham), Lisa came to Canada when she was 1.5 years old and grew up in the automotive metropolis of Oshawa, Ontario. She entered into the world of theater, entertainment, music and show business at the young age of 2 as a gifted ballet, tap and jazz dancer. Her love for music and rhythm kept her dancing for 16 years and even took her to perform in festivals in such places as Spain and Africa, as well as in competitions across Ontario. After spending 8 hours in a dance studio every day for 16 years, it’s not a wonder that she chose a career path that focused on music and the music industry.

Once she completed high school, Lisa decided to pursue a career in Journalism, focusing on music and entertainment. Her articles were picked up and featured in the local paper even before graduating college and some were even picked up by the youth section of the Toronto Star. Her interest in the music industry, the economy and business behind bands and the talent that exploded from their voices and musical instruments fascinated her and she knew she had to further explore this avenue.

After several years of freelancing, writing for magazines, newspapers and web-sites, she started her own artist promotions company, SmakDab, which brought the likes of North Bay’s own Left Hand Switch (later renamed to High Holy Days and signed to Road Runner Records) to Toronto for their first gig. Due to her publicity background the performance was more of a record industry artist showcase with the audience filled with heads from the music industry. While working at Universal Music it was mentioned that the reason High Holy Days were signed to Road Runner was because of this industry showcase that first brought the band to the attention of the music industry.

During this time, Lisa became very interested in electronic music. Her fascination with dance music culture led her to learn the art of DJing under the persona of Lady Bass, a craft that she still practices today and has showcased to audiences and fans across Canada and in parts of the UK. She loved broadcasting via internet radio to the world which gave her the opportunity to expand her fan base and audience without even leaving the comfort of her own home DJ set-up. During this time she made many friends in the DJ community, as well as in Internet radio and secured residences on such stations as DJshows.com, Global Groove Radio, Club246.com, and presently on Party934.com and played as a guest on many other stations including 1groove.com (owned by Iceberg Media). She also held down many resident AM and FM shows including CHIN 100.7FM and CKLN 88.1FM in Toronto.

With all of this radio experience under her belt, it wasn’t long before she secured a position at the MAC Cosmetics-funded Internet radio station Woofur.com as the Electronic Music Representative and resident DJ for the station. The idea of choosing music that could affect how people react to or feel about a situation, place, time or experience fascinated Lisa, and she knew that it was something she had to explore further. ‘How could I DJ and play music for TV shows, commercials, video games or films?’ she thought. But she also knew that she needed to further explore the administrative side behind the music industry before pursuing this avenue.

This is what led her to a career move to SPG Music. It was more of an administrative role but it gave Lisa the opportunity to see first hand what it was like to work behind the scenes of the music industry. Her talents in the area of writing, web-site creation, marketing and promotion soon lead to a larger role within the company that was ever expanding and constantly teaching her new things and presenting new opportunities.

One of these new opportunities was with Warner Music as a Synch Music Licensor, as well as in Strategic Marketing to cover a maternity leave. Lisa finally knew how she could play music for others to hear during commercials, TV shows, films and in video games – through synch music licensing! The position at Warner Music lasted just over a year but taught her so much about music licensing, music rights, contractual negotiations, business affairs, the processes behind short and long form licenses and the tight timelines that music supervisors have to work with for their productions, as well as what is needed in terms of audio for post-production. Lisa found this area of her job so interesting and exciting! It also seemed like the perfect cross over between the music industry and DJing.

It’s not a wonder that when 1-800-MISSING (later renamed to MISSING) called looking for a music supervisor to work on their show, Lisa jumped at the opportunity. Although their per-episode budget for music was quite low, it gave her the opportunity to work with indie music and artists who wouldn’t normally get the opportunity to be heard on TV. It presented an excellent opportunity for her to work with these artists to expand their audience, help with their development, work with their current marketing plans and put a little money in their pocket in the process. The entire experience as the music coordinator/supervisor with MISSING was amazing: from working with such a talented composer (Andrew Lockington) to working with 2 very musically-inclined Executive Producers (Glenn Davis and William Lauren) to the uber-talented and cooperative post-production staff at Technicolor, right down to the team at Lions Gate. The entire experience shined a light on an area that Lisa wanted to continue to grow in and explore. It also led to music supervision opportunities on several episodes of Zoey Busiek Wild Card. After 3 Seasons MISSING was canceled and Lisa went on to continue her pursuit of the arts, entertainment and music industries working at the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, Attila Glatz Concert Productions, E1 Entertainment (formerly known as KOCH Entertainment Canada), and The Corporation of Massey Hall & Roy Thomson Hall.

She left the Arts and moved on to working at Air Miles doing social media and mobile marketing. She later left Air Miles to manage social media for Loblaws Companies Limited (for brands like Loblaws, No Frills, Superstore and President’s Choice). She more recently moved on to Koodo, Canadian Tire Corporation (managing social for the Corporation and Jumpstart) and most recently to Aimia to manage social media strategy for Aeroplan.