At the heart of an industrial revolution is an innovation that changes everything. Building AI Boston sees artificial intelligence as a renaissance. From the heart of innovation and the mecca of tech learning, we bring you AI for real people. A conversation for everyone. In this episode, we feature Amanda Dorenberg, a technology and media executive with a passion for disrupting traditional industries via new and emerging tech. Her work has been featured in top national and international media outlets including Mashable, Forbes Tech, LIndia Tech Times to name just a few. She's an active contributor to Forbes Tech Council, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company Executive Board, and Rolling Stone Culture Council. Amanda is also the co-founder and global CEO of Arts House Media Group, the parent company to Billboard Canada, Billboard UK, Rolling Stone Quebec, Arts Help, Waveland, North by North East, the Climate Library, OOH Orc, and so much more. Find out how this CEO is driving innovative change across the media industry by combining community, media, and technology. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Anna. It's a pleasure to be here. Always nice to see you. So nice to be with you. And my God, I get exhausted just reading all of that. I don't know how you function. Not a lot of sleeping. I know you have an... Oh my God, but you have a lot of entourage, and I have to tell the audience I'm really jelly of your social media that make you look just stunning. Oh, thank you. Shout out to the Marketing and PR and Communications team for that. No kidding. And may I say in this month of international women's history, I bow to you, Godus. You are fantastic. Oh, likewise. Honestly, let's support all of us females and female entrepreneurs, female executives, females looking to get into the space. I love it. Thank you. I love it too, but that's really... That was my wonderful landslide get for the month is to get you on here and to chat a little bit about what you do. I mean, you're just one of those people that I marvel that I know you and yet you're so grounded and so down to earth. And I got to say that shout out to that Canadian sensibility that you have. I mean, let's just start. I'd love to know a little bit about Young Amanda because I know something about your history. I'm going to ask you for your human story, but were you interested in tech as a young person? To be honest, no. I'm full transparency. So I grew up in the middle of nowhere. So outside of Toronto in Canada, probably four hours outside of the city really didn't have a lot growing up. And it was back in the 80s, early 80s. So there wasn't a lot of technology to even be interested in. Right? That's so OG, but that's true. Yeah. So I played in farm fields and I picked blueberries and I fought with my older brother. I was interested in fashion, really interested in fashion. I used to collect in my 10 to early teens, I would collect fashion magazines. And I really I was intrigued by that because I grew up in a very small town that was maybe 1200 people. And so foreign to me, I never saw these beautiful creations in real life. So I just kind of like drowned myself into fashion magazines and I was an artist. I started drawing and painting as a young child. So technology was not in the forefront. To be honest, how I got into tech, I fast-tracked through public school. I skipped a few grades and I graduated high school by the time I was 16. And I had moved out of my parents' house. You and I have spoke about this previously and I'm an open book. It was a relatively tumultuous youth. My parents struggled with addiction and were physically abusive. So I decided to leave my parents' house two days after my 16th birthday, but I had already graduated high school. And I needed to go to college. So I get the college book, the pamphlets back then when everything was on paper. I was reading the course offerings and what was potentially available. And I looked because I was on my own, I looked at what education was going to get me the highest salary post-graduating. And it happened to be computer programming. So that's what I took, but I ended up loving it. That's amazing because I'll stop you right there. And I do thank you for your transparency. That's kind of one of the other things I love about you is just to bring it down to a very human level. I think that's why you and I are passionate about mental health and passionate about people that we serve. I have a very similar background. It was not perfect. It was actually really hard. I didn't touch a computer though till I was in college. So I'm kind of impressed that you picked programming. And if you don't mind talking a little bit about your journey from this college girl into, is it fair to call you the Queen of Digital Media? Do people still call you that? I don't know. I just know I'm not comfortable with that. I'm just a normal person who understands digital media. So let's just go with no. Good answer. And I respect that. And I would just love to find out though a little bit about how you made the jump from, you know, from modeling into, you know, into where you are now. I know that's the story. If you don't mind sharing a little bit of that too. It is a bit of a story. So as I said, as a young child, I was interested in fashion and coincidentally, I did get scouted by elite modeling agency when I was 14. So very young put through the model development program. So when you're that young, they put you through courses to learn about the industry and, you know, various different components of working in the fashion world, whether it be print or editorial or, you know, commercial campaigns, runway, that type of thing. And when I was 16, I got placed with IMG worldwide. So I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to some really cool places at a very young age and to be very transparent. Most of my college education, I didn't even show up at I wrote tests to be exempt from attending the classes. And I would just show up to write like the midterms of the exams and then I showed up to write the finals to get my degree. So I really didn't have a typical college experience. I was modeling and working at a call center. And I relate to that because I had a theater degree and I was always taking a full load of classes and then dropping out to do a theater gig and then work full time is like, I don't know what my GPA is from college, but it was just for us. Yeah, I know I graduated. You have nightmares about it along to I had nightmares that I didn't finish everything and then I see, you know, I didn't go to like high school prom or like the college graduation ceremony. So in my head, I'm like, I don't even know if I have the actual certificates anywhere. And it's so long ago. I mean, it's like 25 years ago. Oh, gosh, I have to hold down. No, you don't have to know to have to take down the math, but I'm telling you this is what's so important about your story because I just spoke at a women in data. Like AI summit and they were so they were so shocked by my vulnerability saying, yeah, my kid is my IT person. I don't know anything about AI and here I am doing an AI show. I love that because it's our vulnerability that expresses something to younger generations of women. And that's what I love about your story. It's not a straight line and women need to understand like your passion is your through line and continue. I didn't mean to hijack that story. No, I love it. Thank you so much. So I did going through like the college experience and just learning. There's a lot of math and computer programming, you know, it's code. It's a different language. There's a lot of math. So inherently math was always one of my favorite subjects in school. But as as a young fashion model, you know, traveling and being exposed to different countries and different cultures, being able to travel internationally for the first time and experience these unique opportunities. I didn't look like everyone else and I still don't, which I love now, but especially back then I really didn't fit into the stereotypical fashion model. So the girls weren't nice to me. They were mean. I ended up making friends with the production staff on on shoots because the girls wouldn't really talk to me or engage with me. So I was inquisitive and I wanted to learn. I would ask questions about, you know, why the brand or the campaign or whoever is producing the art director would choose somebody like me in addition to these other, you know, models and these other talents that are on set. And so I inherently gained a pretty curious nature with respect to the marketing and advertising space. And so I went back to school when I was 18 and I did a bachelor's degree in marketing media and communications. And when I was 21, I opened my first company. So it was a model placement agency where I would scout young talent and I would place them with the large international and national agencies. And then when I was 23, I opened a an artist representation agency. So representing photographers, videographers, DOPs, etc. Very much in the creative space and I was still a model myself. And so my early part of my the early part of my journey is very much on the creative side like the fashion, the media, the entertainment, the marketing, the campaign creative side of things. And when I was 27, you and I spoke about this before someone won't go into too much detail but happy to answer any questions if people watching want to learn more about this part of my journey. When I was 27, I had I was modeling on set at a photo shoot. And I had a brain aneurysm to that ruptured simultaneously so I was sent immediately to hospital I was paralyzed on my right side temporarily and blind and it was a very significant time in my life so that happened in June of 2009. And in September, at the end, I wasn't able to have a full surgery until September because there was too much damage to my brain. And so I had to wait, wait that process out a little bit for some healing before they could do what's called a full craniotomy which is a 12 hour plus surgery and I have a beautiful horseshoe shaped scar that I wear very proudly. But that experience actually caused me to have to close those two businesses and to reevaluate my journey and my path I wanted something a little more stable. I still was into the fashion side of things so I did some PR for a fashion designer for a brief period of time but then I really loved the business side of the media and the advertising space so I decided to take a role at a traditional newspaper company. And so back in the day and I was in charge of creating innovative opportunities for print newspapers so this was back in 2011 and we leveraged QR codes which no one used because no one and no one had a phone to be able to scan it. So a little bit early. And then I was fortunate enough to get brought into a startup company in the media and the outer home space and leveraged my curiosity within the technology space and self taught an understanding of consumer analytics and consumer targeting demographic targeting life lifestyle targeting as to how brands and marketers are speaking to their target audience and was able to position that in a technical way where back in 2012 we were the first company in the Canadian space to integrate mobile retargeting with traditional at a home. I know that sounds so rudimentary now but. No it's good it's good this is a great history lesson along with your personal history I really and I you know I love advertising and marketing similar little Cinderella story but keep going. So yeah we built we built product offering under that and went from zero dollars in revenue to five million in our first year and ultimately sold that company to a large telco. And then I joined another startup company and built what we called an audience intelligence platform so we ingested we partnered with a major telco company and not only did we use what's called triangulation so that the bounces of the cellular signals between specific towers. We also ingested what's called geospatial location data from mobile applications which again back in 2015 when we were doing this. It was quite revolutionary and we were ingesting this data in on a 30 minute to 15 minute interval so in the Canadian space we were the first to offer programmatic digital out of home in the Canadian market. And we ultimately sold that to a large publicly traded out of home company and I had to stay with that company for about 18 months. And then I left to start a blockchain company and was a partner at another ad tech company and then I got recruited to take over as president of the industry association which was back in 2020 so I was 37 at the time. And I was the youngest president globally and in that space to run an association that was responsible for creating the industry standard on a measurement perspective for billions of dollars in the offline advertising space. So that was a big focus on data science and analytics and I could nerd out for hours on that but simultaneously while I was doing that the journey of and the passion for sustainability and social cause was always inherently there so my business partners and I built a few platforms let's say. One of which is now the largest global digital arts publication with over 20 million followers across our platforms and I actually can't take credit that was my business partner that was his passion project and he just kind of brought me into be the sounding board from a business perspective but that's one of our not for profits that has a very deep rooted relationship with the the UN SDGs so everything to do with climate change and from there we just started spiraling and building various different companies in the publishing and the arts and cultural space to support artists really our goal and our ethos across everything is that we believe that art music and culture can actually. Really change the world and I know that sounds like a lofty goal but we passionately believe that. I totally believe it which is why we're here having this conversation. I think it is really thank you for that. Thank you for that arc and I learned new things about that story when I hear it so I'm really glad that you break it down in such detail and what I would say about all that now is right place right time. Right time and and I now that I have an AI show and now that I've known you a couple of years I actually understand most of what you just explained. I'm like this is why I started an AI show to understand what's going on in the world but I'm I'm I'm actually so happy to feature you for just the intersection of your passions and your abilities and your ability to toggle and pivot that's so important for people to remember. Because I think there's a great deal of anxiety in the world today around job change and they don't need right and they don't make them like us we are certainly an OG species of you know. I think the resilience in your stories important but I can relate to it even though I have never had a traumatic brain injury or surgery feel like sometimes life just made me road rash right on my face. It's true and I think you know at the end of the day everyone has a personal struggle everyone has a personal story and I find that for me as an individual I love to share my journey I love to be transparent because I want people to know that I came from nothing and if I was able to go through all of this stuff and have that resilience to put myself through school to travel you know as a young teen on my own internationally and have to learn different things. And so I have to learn cultures and languages and then take you know take the risk to start a business and then have to close those businesses and deal with medical stuff and then have to start over again. You know in my 30s when most people are probably well situated and settled I was like I don't know what I'm doing. That's a beautiful statement right there I'm going to start right there what I'm noticing about you know moderating and attending these femtech summits of women empowering women and women in AI particularly because we are an AI show is that the ability to let your guard down and say I don't know what I know I don't know what I don't know and that it's okay to show up and figure it out together and empower each other I. I think you're living the renaissance that I see the world can be a part of by just intersection of passion drive. I aspire to change the world as you know from my own perspective and corner of it and I think that understanding that we are more connected than ever and that somehow it's all going to be okay you don't get that from you know day one you have to go through some stuff to see that it's really going to be okay I think it's an important message right now. I really do as well and I think you know a lot of people and especially a lot of females in business like the AI space is a very male dominated sector and you know technology in general is very male dominated so you know sometimes that can be intimidating to speak up. Whether it be to provide your opinion and your expertise or whether it be to say I don't know this but I will learn it and I will figure it out and I may have a lot of questions on that path to figuring it out but that's okay because we can all be experts all of the time and if we're not learning if we're not curious if we don't have that inherent desire to to grow as individuals as you know employees as partners as business partners as entrepreneurs. You know what are we doing we for me I always love to learn I want to hear different perspectives I want to hear other other people's journeys and maybe that will trigger and inspire a thought that I wouldn't have thought of because I didn't hear their their you know specific insights. I feel like this is a good conversation again I'm going to pick at the human side of this a little bit because I was just a human X and at a women's event and I heard something that kind of hurt my heart and as this woman said well you know you have to be three times smarter than a man or if you're pretty it's only two times as smart and I think in my in my and I get it I'm an actor a former actor I know that competition exists but I think that's one of those things I'd like to see drop immediately if you're not a female. Is like if you don't understand that we got to have each other's back and that it's what you look like on the outside I mean you've lived that you've lived that model world and I've lived that very fiercely competitive actor world it's like that's the thing I want to see drop first because when women don't compete. We literally have we've got this and so many I would love that and I think what's so interesting I was just having this conversation with them. One of the CMOs of a large financial institution you're having lunch yesterday and so the timing of this conversation is quite perfect because she and I were having a similar conversation and she said can I ask you a question do you have strong females in your corner in your life who pick you up and I said maybe one. Which is shocking and astonishing for a lot of people and so her question was not dissimilar to yours how do you stay resilient in this space like you know as females when we walk into a meeting room a board room and it's in a male dominated industry there may be one other female there and there's inherently this like competition that comes out from many females where it's like well there's only room for one of us at this time. And I think that's the most important thing to do is to have a table and it's going to be me and I would love to see that go away because I think if we could actually just collaborate and work together we would be far more effective. And I have experienced in my entire life you know I've been the youngest executive out of publicly traded company and I look very different I you know I have a mohawk and and I have tattoos and so people make assumptions and they assume okay you're here because you're pretty or you're here because of X Y Z. And then when you show them how you can actually deliver and what the results that you're capable of. I feel like that does go away so for me when I talk about this, this particular subject. I like to reiterate that everyone's going to look at anyone and judge immediately that's just human nature people people make assumptions, and I don't take it personally. I think versus you issue that's not a you versus me issue me versus me is having the confidence to know what I know and having the confidence to admit what I don't know and being completely okay with that. I feel that that allows and provides a lot more inspiration and a lot more collaboration when you're humble enough and you're vulnerable enough to say, I don't know the answer to that. Does anybody else know the answer to that do we want to work together to try to figure it out. Who wants to lead on this because not my area of expertise. Oh my gosh, I think that should be our anthem for the year just really get out of the competition mode and I'm excited because I think you're breaking ground in so many areas I would love to pivot though and talk about arts help I think it's incredible what you do I aspire as you know to own a little piece of that world and thank you for your mentorship and your love a little bit across the border for that as you know. Yes. Yeah, and if you wouldn't mind just tell the world what that is what what you do. So, I'll talk to full so arts house media group is a media company that myself and my two business partners formed we wholly own it's completely independent. We came together all with different backgrounds. Elizabeth has a background in experiential marketing and she's very passionate about the creative and the immersive side of things but prior to that she went to law school and worked at her family's law firm for five years. So again, not that you know for inspiration it's not a linear path she was being groomed to take over her family's law firm and decided, I don't want to do this I'm passionate about this creative immersive experiential in industry, and I want to go down that route. Mo who's my other business partner came for broadcast he created a TV show for young youth that were being bullied and focused on mental health and various different social aspects for young youth. And he then went into the PR side of things and content publishing so we all have very different backgrounds but it comes together very cohesively to all of the platforms that we have underneath AMG which is arts house media group. One of our not for profits we do have two not for profits underneath AMG which first is is arts help. And, as I mentioned earlier it's now the largest global digital arts publisher focused really focused on, you know, social change so we do believe that arts can actually drive change we have a deep relationship with the United Nations. And so all of the projects that we work on, whether they be large projects or small projects have some sort of connection with the UN SDG so the 17 sustainability goals, and then sort of tied to that we have another initiative called the climate library. And the climate library is a direct partnership with the United Nations where we are digitizing approximately 190 different countries, part of the UN, their climate legislation so believe it or not for those of you podcasting and the younger generations a lot of that climate legislation is still on paper with ink, and said ink is drying so we don't want that history to be lost. And that we have committed to digitizing that so there's a tie in with our sustainability passion and our passion for just making the world a better place but also even within our publishing side of things so with billboard Canada billboard UK with growing some Quebec we we've leveraged those platforms to really amplify the talent on a global scale so our full ethos within each of our organizations is to take a look at the local, organic, homegrown talent and put on a global platform. Let them have a voice. They love that I feel like that's that's what's kept me from the music industry is it just felt so dog eat dog. And every time I see you celebrating women in that space. I just go, that's the beacon on the hill. We have such a beautiful event. It's so we launched in Canada last year our first one it was it's billboard Canada's women in music celebration, where we honor both artists executives industry professionals could be managers but all female or gender diverse in the industry and it was such a huge success. We're bringing it back again this year in September of 2025. So it's going to be bigger and better. Last year we honored Alainis Morcette as our icon of the year so you know who doesn't know the Canadian icon Alainis Morcette and you know if you're an 80s or 90s baby you definitely know some of her tracks. I was just telling you offline how most Canadian artists have influenced my style and just my love of music and creativity and it's it's it's good to know you one thing I want to point out since we're, you know, kind of tying it up. I think last time we talked you were announcing that you have north by northeast but now it's out there on Yeah, so And what's your role in all that do you are you yes, do you go to South by Southwest. A lot of our team goes to South by Southwest it's happening, you know, as we're recording this. As you can see I'm not But a lot of our team does go, whether it be to cover the the artist the events, things that are happening or just to you know thoroughly enjoy South by Southwest so We did recently acquire majority stake in North by Northeast which is the Canadian version of South by Southwest interesting fun fact the original founder Michael Hallett. He's still a partner of ours and he he and the original founders of South by Southwest 30 years ago founded North by Northeast. And so he ended up acquiring the full stakes and the South by team part of ways with that but Yes, we did acquire majority stakes in North by Northeast and we are so excited to partner with them and their entire team. This year is coming up in June so June 11 to the 15th in Toronto so we have over 200 emerging artists unsigned talent that will be showcasing all of their beautiful musical skills at over 22 different venues across Toronto. We are starting the week off with a big event that we call Power Players which honors the top music executives within the industry really driving change and sharing a voice for Canadian artists. We're also launching our billboard live segment which is a consumer facing event that will happen at Sinkova Square which is the formerly known young Dundas Square in Toronto so the Times Square of Canada. We have a big headliner whose name I cannot release yet but it will be a big one. We are very excited. But yes the North by team and we have some some programming with respect to conferencing as well so we're doing some artists artists, many master classes and educational seminars on how to you know, one-on-ones like how to build a media kit if you're an independent artist and you want to get press publication coverage or how to talk and negotiate a label contract. But then the inspirational side is you know some big name artists coming in. We have a very large global Punjabi celebrity coming into to do a talk. We've got some other big headliners that I can't announce at this point in time but yeah it's going to be amazing. I like the tease. It's good. It's good to tease. It's the 30th anniversary. We have to go big. We have to celebrate. And you know I want to point this out because we're building AI Boston and we've gone around the globe with you a little bit and I appreciate all of that and Boston to me is a state of mind. I'm in Vegas. I go to Boston for this rich academic world but I learned from you know another female, Bobby Carlton. She goes down to South by and judges there and I didn't know that Boston and Austin were close cousins. I didn't realize that. I don't know these things and now I hope we'll say that Toronto is a close cousin above us. I love it. It's funny because we were speaking to one of our contacts at the Grammys and he's American and he's a good friend of ours. And one when Mo had, one of my business partners had said you know we acquired and partnered with North by Northeast. He said oh my gosh I'm so excited that you guys have this festival now because it's so near and dear to my heart. And he has all of these fond memories. It's been around for 30 years. It's showcased some of the biggest celebrities like Post Malone played at North by Northeast before he was Post Malone. Wow. Wow. It's really known as a platform to discover the next up and coming artists from the Canadian landscape and what better of a partnership than to partner with our Billboard Canada title to amplify that and give that media exposure to this festival. And to these artists. We're so excited. I'm excited to know you and I have to say that this episode just makes me like it just brings me joy and hope to understand people are out there doing good things and every program that you touch is building community. I feel very much in league with you. I'm not separated by a border with you. You're very down to earth and accessible and I so I thank you for that. I thank you for joining and talking a little bit about technology. And I had no idea your human journey was just really the foundation. And I'd say that about AI. If you're not connected to what makes you human then join the Renaissance because I was only going to make everything better. We just have to hold tight a little bit a little while. Absolutely agree. There's so many opportunities. So I'll stop there. I could talk for hours. We'll come back and we'll stay tuned. What's going on in your neck of the woods. And as always it's a pleasure. Thank you so much friend. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us on Building AI Boston. Stay tuned for more enlightening episodes that put you at the forefront of the conversations shaping our future.
