Canada Now

Sparking bold ideas to help shape what’s next — through an unapologetically Canadian lens.

Canada Now is a business podcast hosted by Ashley Smith, with 19 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Ashley Smith hosts Canada Now, a business show with 19 episodes published.

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  Episode #18

  What 16 Conversations Revealed About Business & Innovation in Canada | Season 1 Reflection (Part 2)

  Mar 9, 202619 minS1

  <p>Send a text to Canada Now! 💬</p><p><b>What do AI, housing, and startup ecosystems reveal about Canada’s future economy?</b></p><p>After 16 conversations across business, technology, real estate innovation, governance, media, and entrepreneurship, a deeper pattern began to emerge.</p><p>Not just how Canadian founders build —<br/>but <b>what actually allows innovation to grow.</b></p><p>In this Season 1 reflection, host Ashley Smith steps back to connect the threads that surfaced again and again throughout the first season of Canada Now.</p><p>Across industries, leaders kept returning to the same themes:</p><p><b...

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  Episode #17

  Canada’s Quiet Advantage: Maturity Over Noise | Season 1 Reflection (Part 1)

  Feb 27, 202615 minS1

  <p>Send a text to Canada Now! 💬</p><p><b>After 16 conversations</b> across housing, governance, technology, business, entrepreneurship, and media, a pattern began to emerge.</p><p>Not just innovation. Not just disruption.<br/>But a tone.</p><p>In this solo <b>Season 1 reflection</b>, host Ashley Smith steps back to examine what Canadian leaders — across real estate, board governance, technology, and startups — are revealing in this moment of economic pressure, technological acceleration, and global uncertainty.</p><p>From institutional modernization and board-level foresight…<br/>to factory-built housing and real estate innovation…<br/>to founders rejecting growth-at-all-costs in favour of s...

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  Episode #16

  Community Is the Moat: Vancouver Tech, Canadian Media, and the Offline Reset — with William Johnson

  Feb 13, 202643 minS1

  <p>Send a text to Canada Now! 💬</p><p>In this episode of <b>Canada Now</b>, I’m joined by <b>William Johnson</b> — Vice President of Strategy & Operations at <b>Overstory Media Group</b> and founder of <b>Vancouver Tech Journal</b> — for a wide-ranging conversation on what’s really shifting in Canada’s innovation ecosystem in 2026.</p><p>We unpack the current pragmatic reset in venture and startups, why Vancouver’s tech community feels both exciting and precarious, and why the next era of innovation may be defined less by hype… and more by <b>trust, niche communities, and...

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  Episode #15

  Loyalty Beyond Points: Building Community-Led Brands — with Matias Marquez

  Feb 7, 202654 minS1

  <p>Send a text to Canada Now! 💬</p><p>In this episode of Canada Now, I’m joined by <b>Matias Marquez</b>, founder and CEO of <b>ethos</b> — a modern loyalty and membership platform helping brands move beyond transactional points and discounts toward something far more powerful: <b>community, participation, and real customer connection</b>.</p><p>Built for Shopify merchants and modern e-commerce brands, ethos is part of a new wave of tools helping online retailers turn customers into engaged communities — not just repeat buyers.</p><p>Matias previously founded Buyatab, a global digital gift card company acquired...

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  Episode #14

  Leading Without a Map: Governance, Risk & Decision-Making in Uncertain Times — with Darlene Hyde

  Jan 29, 202646 minS1

  <p>Send a text to Canada Now! 💬</p><p>We’re living through a moment of real uncertainty — geopolitically, economically, and technologically. The old playbooks are breaking down. The rules are shifting. And leaders are being asked to make high-stakes decisions without a clear map.</p><p>In this episode, I sit down with veteran executive and board leader <b>Darlene Hyde</b> to explore how governance, leadership, and decision-making must evolve in times of disruption.</p><p>Drawing on decades of experience across major institutions and sectors — including housing, finance, transit, telecommunications, and public interest governance — Darlene shares practical insight on...

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