Ion Valis

Ion is a strategic advisor to individuals and organizations, where he helps both employees and executives accelerate their development, reinvent themselves periodically and transform their errors into magnificent mistakes.

Drawing on his two decades of experience managing people, projects, brands and budgets, as well as leading-edge thinking on peak performance from around the world, Ion has created an innovative professional development philosophy and program that is distilled in his first book, The Magnificent Mistake: How You Can Earn More from Failure Than You Learn from Success. He also serves as Vice-President of the New School of Athens, an emerging geopolitical think tank that is focused on managing our modern world through systematic Reinvention.

Prior to starting his own practice, Ion was Senior Vice-President of Business Development at the Montreal-based media company Airborne Mobile. In his 4 years there, he served as part of the executive management team, oversaw the sales, legal, business development and brand licensing groups and negotiated mobile content agreements with News Corporation, the National Hockey League, the National Football League and Maxim Magazine, among others.

Ion came to Airborne after spending 4 years in London with Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company. There he had global responsibility for all Media and Entertainment content strategy and acquisition, and personally negotiated Vodafone's pioneering international mobile content partnerships with Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Sony Pictures and their multi-year agreement with the James Bond film franchise.

Before moving to England, Ion lived in Washington, DC and worked for 6 years in American politics. He served as the Communications Director to two Congressmen in the United States House of Representatives and then moved to Europe to pursue a business degree.

Ion holds an MBA from London Business School, where he was elected president of the student council and played on the 1999 World MBA Rugby Championship-winning team. He also has a Master's Degree in political science from the University of Western Ontario and a bachelor's degree from McGill University.

Ion has spoken on politics, media and professional development in front of audiences in Canada, the US and Europe. He writes about personal leadership and how to make magnificent mistakes at www.IonValis.com and also provides social commentary on his blog Pop Philosophy.