Ron Newell

Business adviser, Business mentor, Change Agent, Foodie, Sales specialist, Social entrepreneur, World traveler

After a successful career in Foodservice Distribution as a Sales Manager and Business Development Director for SYSCO Corporation I was searching for another challenge. I became involved in Toastmasters International where I began my new journey in Public Speaking and Leadership Development. I earned my Distinguished Toastmasters designation and held many leadership positions in the Toastmasters District 21 area. I am passionate about life, friends, travel, but most of all I am a active parent of 3 and grandparent to six wonderful Grandchildren. I became involved as a leader and worked hard to grow a small TEDx event in Surrey to become the premiere TEDx event in Western Canada TEDxSurrey working with a group of diverse people with the same common goal of growing our event into a major venue in Surrey BC.

I am passionate about family, always trying to find new ways for self improvement, taking time to sail on the beautiful coastline of British Columbia.

I would like to see the the world find the light to happiness. If everyone could only use the power from within for spiritual growth and spread that light to others.

Building Relationships, Coaching, Event Management, Mentoring, Partnership Development, Sales, Speech Development, Training

I began my journey into the world of TED through Toastmasters. A group of Toastmasters applied for and were granted to present an event in 2018, TEDxWhiteRock. The following year we re-applied under a new name TEDxBearCreekPark and were granted that license for 100 attendees in 2019. The fire was lit, Alan Warburton attended the main TED event in Vancouver and we were then granted a license for a wide open TEDx in Surrey BC. We held our first TEDxBearCreekPark full event at the beautiful Bell Centre for Performing Arts in Surrey on January 25th 2020 and sold out the house of 1056 seats. In 2021 because of the Pandemic we held a virtual event and had over 3,000 attendees online in 32 Countries for our TEDxBearCreekPark event. In 2022 we applied for a name change and were granted a license for TEDxSurrey and again sold out an event, albeit at only 50% capacity because of the pandemic. Five of our 12 speakers were recognized by TED and have gone on to gather millions of views. In 2023 we again were able to present at the BELL Centre once again and we are now recognized as the premiere TEDx event in Western Canada. It has been an amazing journey so far, and we are always looking at ways to improve our event by continuing to pick and coach our speakers and bring attention to Ideas Worth Spreading and to fulfill our event theme, "A Shift in Thinking" and to involve our community more and more. We have gained support now from the City of Surrey, Surrey Board of Trade as well as our wonderful higher education community of the University of British Columbia, (UBC) Simon Fraser University (SFU) Kwantlen University (KPU) and the Surrey School District. Our last event featured 2 students from the Surrey Secondary School District and both speakers were incredible! We currently are presenting 3 TEDxSurrey Salons throughout the community annually and gaining momentum in our Community. Thank you for your support and assisting all of our great leadership team and volunteers to keep TED alive and well in Surrey British Columbia. I