Meet Stride’s leadership team

Marina Avisar brings new direction and leadership to Stride in her role as President. Marina has a proven track record and more than 20 years’ experience in senior leadership roles, with beginnings in the product development and product management space. More recently, she has served in the role of CEO for several technology businesses, and is currently on the board for APX Data and Spark Centre.

Jason’s responsibilities include developing lottery sales strategies, ensuring regulatory compliance, and designing new lottery products. Jason brings to Stride a deep understanding of lottery management and customer behaviour from his extensive background in marketing research and 10 years of experience in running lotteries as a Stride client. His qualifications include degrees in Commerce and Political Science, as well as experience in policy analysis and gambling research. Jason enjoys the opportunity to innovate lotteries to enhance their appeal to the customer and create positive outcomes for the community.

Laurie’s responsibilities include strategizing, planning, and executing lotteries on behalf of clients. This entails tasks such as acquiring prizes, designing the lottery, obtaining licenses, determining marketing tactics, ensuring regulatory compliance, and maximizing client profit. With a background in volunteer work and almost 12 years of experience in the lottery industry, Laurie’s qualifications, including her knowledge of lotteries, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving abilities, greatly benefit customers. She enjoys making an impact on the non-profits they work with and witnessing the positive life changes experienced by lottery winners.

Patrick oversees all operations, manages Stride’s call centre and customer service, ensuring everything is functioning at an optimal level for all of our Stride Employees. He works closely with the team to ensure tickets sales are maximized and exceptional client care is delivered. Patrick’s greatest enjoyment comes from interacting with his team and building a strong work culture. With over 30 years of experience in creating high-performance teams and customer service, and qualifications in human resources, operations and sales, his background benefits our customers greatly.

Tanya’s primary responsibility is leading the Finance Team and ensuring the delivery of financial reporting activities in accordance with organizational policies and legislative requirements. With a tenure of four years at Stride, Tanya brings a wealth of experience to her role. Prior to joining Stride, she worked as a Tax Accountant in public practice, where she actively participated in audit engagements for Lottery draws conducted at Stride. Tanya holds a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Accounting from Mount Royal University. Her eight years of experience in public practice further enhance her qualifications and expertise in financial management.

Mark has been at Stride for 5.5 years. His daily responsibilities include overseeing database administration, computer network operations, corporate data security, user management, process improvements, POS kits preparation and deployment, documentation compilation, training, remote technical support, and staff management. He helps customers achieve their goals by ensuring systems are functional 24/7 for selling tickets and raising funds. Mark enjoys the consistent unique challenges of his job. His 30+ years of experience and background in customer service, sales, application development, telecommunications, computer hardware and networking, and written and oral communication benefit customers.