How It Works

In Gathering is a twelve-month, closed cohort for business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders who want to connect, learn, share, and work with a trusted group of folks who just “get it.”

It’s not a networking event. It’s not a workshop series. It’s a collective, built on purpose.

Starting January 21st, 2027 this cohort will gather ten times over twelve months. Each gathering is designed to foster trust, connection, and collaboration. Entrepreneurship can be isolating; here, we get to work on it together. Every member’s voice matters as much as the next, and each person will take a turn as a teacher, a student, and a mirror, depending on the session, the topic, and their own experience and expertise.

Every gathering begins with two facilitated conversations, led by me, each featuring a fellow cohort member. This is how we lift one another up. One person’s experience becomes the material we all learn from, ask about, and use to grow our own businesses. These conversations are planned ahead of time and well organized, so no one feels put on the spot and everyone has time to think about what they want to bring.

From there, each gathering takes its shape from where the group is. I plan the year in advance, and I stay flexible, because reading a room is something I do well. Depending on the month, we might break into smaller groups, hear from a guest speaker, or give the discussion more room to run. Other formats will appear when the moment calls for them. All of it is built around one question: what will you take back to your business?

Ten gatherings. Two facilitated conversations at each one, and the rest of the afternoon shaped around what your cohort needs.

The people in the room are, collectively, the curriculum.

A Cohort

A cohort is a group of people who share something in common and move through the same stretch of time together. The word is old. In Gathering is new.

As an entrepreneur myself, I’ve always craved other people who understood what this means. Regardless of the industry, size, or structure of your business, the question that keeps you up at night is the same: why did I do this to myself?

Most of the networking events I’ve attended are open. They draw different faces, you have good conversations, and you go home. They’ve been good experiences, but I found myself craving something deeper.

In Gathering was born from that. It’s closed on purpose, so that by the third time we come together, no one is explaining the basics. By the sixth meeting, people know how your year has gone. By the end, you’ve built relationships that can outlive the experience.

What You Get

Twelve months. One group. Ongoing conversations. Here’s what that adds up to:

• Ten in-person gatherings, three hours each, with people who will support and challenge you in your business.
• Thirty hours of peer support.
• Between 12 and 20 people per cohort, each from different industries, backgrounds, and stages of business: small enough that every voice is heard, varied enough that what comes back to you isn’t an echo of your own thinking.
• Your own turn in the spotlight: a chance to have what you’ve learned witnessed by a room that understands what it cost you to learn it.
• A closed, confidential room, so you can say the true thing instead of the polished one.
• A full year with a cohort of your peers, giving you time to build relationships and foster deep connections that outlive the program itself. 
• A hand in growing Ottawa’s business community, one relationship at a time. 

Your Host

I bring 25+ years of experience, half of it in the corporate world and half as an entrepreneur. I’ve built a business, scaled a business, closed a business, and sold a business (twice, actually). I’ve run a business with a partner and on my own. Whatever you’re in the middle of, there’s a good chance I’ve lived some version of it.

I also coach business owners, leaders, and people in transition who are looking for insight and a clearer path forward. And I host The Other Side podcast, where I’ve recorded over 65 episodes, interviewing business owners, mothers, grievers, artists, and humans just like you. This is where I’ve learned the importance of pulling out the real story – not the scripted, polished one. It’s a platform that I use to help people feel seen, heard, and understood.

I also ran a series called The Guild with other local business owners between 2017-2018. Together we held eight in-person, sold-out events. Each one was different, but two stayed with me most: the interviews with singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards and Diane Hodgins, CFO of Shorefast, the social enterprise behind the Fogo Island Inn in my home province of Newfoundland. Having the opportunity to interview those two women helped me learn to really listen – for nuance, for tone, and for the thread that connects one story to another.

Who This Is For

This is for the person running something: a founder, a co-owner, anyone building a business of any kind. It doesn’t have to be your full-time job. A solo freelancer, someone six months in, a side business: all of it counts. Whether you started a design business from your home office or you’ve been running a retail store with two locations for over a decade, this is for you. The more varied the room, the better.

There is no business size or annual revenue requirement.

Why an Application, Not a Sign-Up

A room works or doesn’t depending on who’s in it, and at most events that’s left to chance. In Gathering works the other way around: the room is built on purpose, so everyone in it is there for a reason.

Applications aren’t here to keep anyone out. They help me build each cohort with a good mix of industries and levels of experience. If more people apply than one room can hold, I’ll open a second cohort.

The Room

We’ll meet, in person, in a bright, open, loft-style room in Centretown, with tall windows and natural light that moves across the floor through the afternoon. There’s a table for long conversations, a sofa corner for the looser ones, and a kitchen counter with stools. The space is set up so we can break into smaller groups without ever leaving it. Coffee, tea, and water are always there. It’s comfortable, and it’s meant to be.

The Practical Details

Where: Centretown, Ottawa (all in person – no virtual sessions).

When: Ten Thursday afternoons from 2:00pm – 5:00pm throughout 2027, (no sessions in December or June):

January 21st; February 18th; March 18th; April 22nd; May 20th; July 22nd; August 19th; September 23rd; October 21st; November 18th

Cost: $2,400 + HST ($2,712 total) for the year, paid in two parts:

• $1,200 + HST due by November 30th, 2026
• $1,200 + HST due by March 15th, 2027

The fee is split to make it easier to carry, not to make the year optional. Accepting your seat commits you to the full year and the full cost of the program.

Payments are non-refundable, with one exception: if the cohort doesn’t run, you will receive a full refund.

Apply using the link below.

Applications for the January 2027 cohort will close on November 16th, 2026.