The Team

Debbie Gordon – Director, kidsmediacentre

Debbie spent the first twenty years of her life working in the television, advertising and marketing industries with a number of large multi-national agencies. She worked on child and adult directed brands and across a multitude of media disciplines with companies like Unilever, Hershey, Heinz, Kraft, Levis, YTV, Much Music, CTV and Global.

One day, when Debbie was wiping SpaghettiO’s off the floor, her daughter began espousing the virtues of Mr Clean. According to her daughter, the nice white man in the bottle would take care of all her house-cleaning woes and leave her floors clean and shiny. Years of TVO and PBS co-viewing and mediating her children’s media diet, could not have prepared her for this.

This epiphanous moment resulted in the 2001 birth of Debbie’s media literacy consulting practice, Mediacs. Debbie has spent ten years on the front lines, traveling to schools – talking to kids, teachers and parents, analyzing the world through the lens of the media. Over the years, she has tracked the incredible trajectory of kids’ passion for the online space, all the while helping them make smart, safe, cyber choices. Debbie’s work in the area of body image, gender representation, digital media, healthy eating, and youth marketing attracted the attention of organizations and media across the country. Debbie has coordinated several conferences on gaming and digital literacy for school boards. She has guided corporations and government agencies on important corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives including writing the digital literacy column for Microsoft, creating game-safety messaging for X-box and developing web strategies and activities for the Dove Self Esteem fund.

Debbie has written on children and media for CBC Radio, canadianparents.com, Today’s Parent Magazine, Scholastic, Canadian Living, Reader’s Digest, Owl, American Dietician and has been a regular guest speaker at many public health, marketing and education conferences.

Suzanne Wilson – Program Co-ordinator, Children’s Entertainment Program: Writing, Production and Management.

Suzanne Wilson brings over fifteen years of experience in children’s entertainment to the post of Program Coordinator, Children’s Entertainment: Writing, Production and Management.

Suzanne began her career with a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson University. Since then, she has worked for Playback magazine, BBC Worldwide, Portfolio Entertainment, The itsy bitsy Entertainment Company, Lambur & Associates, Lenz Entertainment and the Chocolate Liberation Front in many aspects of the production and marketing of children’s entertainment properties.

Her work spans curriculum development to international distribution to licensing and merchandising to cross-platform project management, and has been involved with properties including the Teletubbies, It’s itsy bitsy Time!, Miffy, Domo-Kun and many others.

During this time, Wilson also earned her MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business. Currently, she is the Senior Administrator of Business Affairs for the busy Toronto-based production company Breakthrough Entertainment and Mom to a very busy six-year-old.

Wilson brings a passion for the art of entertaining and engaging children to her role at Centennial College. In addition to coordinating duties, she teaches the two “Business of Children’s Entertainment” courses.