About KD Consulting Group

KD Consulting Group | Venue & Event Management in London Ontario > About Us

WHY WE WERE FORMED

The Group was formed in an effort to support, grow and sustain new or existing events in Southwestern Ontario. With over 50 years of well rounded experience and knowledge in a wide range of events and venues, Kris and the Group bring together industry best practice along with some “lessons learned” knowledge.

One of our goals with every client is to help them provide the best experience to the end user. Customer experience can make or break any event and your customers need to be your ambassadors.

The Group is active in supporting the event industry and is confident our efforts will help sustain a thriving event industry.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

EXPERIENCE DRIVES DECISIONS

We don’t use crystal balls or “gut feelings”. Decisions are based on data and experience

LONG TERM SUCCESS AND SUSTAINABILITY IS THE PRIORITY

Short term thinking and reactionary decisions will have fatal results

EACH SITUATION IS UNIQUE AND REQUIRES THE SAME DUE DILIGENCE & HANDS ON APPROACH

There is no cookie cutter model and even small decisions need to be carefully analyzed

Who is KD?

Kris was born and raised in London, ON. He took four years off to attend University in Wisconsin receiving a Business degree prior to returning to London where he resides with his wife and four children.

Kris has always been a leader. Whether captaining a AAA minor hockey team or his University team to leading a Sales team, event team or 400+ people to run a 10 day, 200,000 person event. His leadership qualities are supported by his strategic, creative and analytical approach to business.

His skill set and experience is diverse spending 17 years with the Western Fair Association and the past 2 with 100 Kellogg and Med-On-Site Inc. where he gained experience in:

Our Team is Strong

Angela Hawkins

Marketing & Communications

Angela has over 8 years of digital marketing leadership, with experience in family entertainment, tourism and finance. She has worked within an agency setting and on the client side so she is well equipped to work directly with your marketing agency to ensure you get the most value for your marketing objectives.

Angela's experience in event marketing and tourism stems from working for Western Fair District on a variety of family entertainment and tradeshows as well as her experience in launching The Factory Adventure Park brand from its inception in 2018. Her passion for digital marketing and creating unique social media content and promotions to get people talking has earned her local and international marketing awards in her career. With 3 brand launches under her belt, she is no stranger to understanding what it takes to launch a new brand or event to the public.

Jenny Von-Ruczicki

Event Consulting

Jennifer comes from an extensive background in Event Management which includes a 13 year career with Western Fair District where she managed their owned and operated shows and events in London, Ontario. This extensive experience prepared her to work within an organization’s structure to interact strategically at the various corporate levels.

Jennifer successfully completed her CEM designation in 2011 with courses in; Security, Risk and Crisis Management, Conference and Meeting Management, as well as Budget and Contract Negotiations, Event Management and more.
Jennifer worked with London Health Sciences Centre in their Strategy and Project Leadership department as a Project Consultant managing projects on the Corporate Matrix which allowed her to work with a structured methodology to incorporate a positive change in the life of patients.
Jennifer is a loving wife of 14+ years to her sweetheart William and a mother to her two sons Kurtis and Kasey. She is involved in her community as a volunteer soccer and basketball coach as well as a proud parent of an 862 Lambeth Lightning Air Cadet.

Kelly Marshall

Business Development & Sales

Kelly has over 15 years of sales and leadership experience. He spent 13 years at Western Fair District as the Sales Manager, Sales Director and Event Manager with two years and counting as a Real Estate Agent for Peak Professional Realty. In his early years, he spent 11 years as a performer for Disney on ice so saw first-hand how to manage large consumer events.

In his free time, he is a figure skating coach of 25 years and enjoys playing golf and fishing.
He studied Business Administration at Wilfred Laurier University.

Andrew Kitt

Event Management

Andrew has an extensive background in event and facility management spanning over 15 years that began with the opening of the Budweiser Gardens (then John Labatt Centre) in 2003. During that time Andrew helped usher in some of the biggest events ever to come to the region. Coordinating concerts for the biggest names in music and everything from Monster Trucks to World Figure Skating Championships.

Andrew has been a consultant for the construction and operation of new venues including the WFCU Centre in Windsor and has developed consumer events for the Western Fair District such as the Beer & BBQ show.
Currently Andrew is the owner and President of London Comic Con as well as several other fandom inspired consumer shows including Rock’n’Con, Shock Stock and Heatwave Hot Sauce Expo.
When it comes to events Andrew has a saying that he lives by; ‘there are no problems, only creative solutions’

“Your issue or opportunity no matter the size or scope will be treated with the same importance and rigour as one of our own. We will become your team member and partner on your path to success”

Our Process

Discovery & Needs Assessment

You will meet with KD for a no obligation discovery meeting. Based on the findings and assumed alignment between us, we will move on to the next phase

Program & Scope Development

KD will begin work on the agreed upon area of focus. Scope of the project will be mutually agreed upon prior to engagement

Report Card

Parallel to phase 2, KD will identify goals and objectives for the project along with clear and achievable metrics which will provide you a “scorecard” once completed