🕸️Building My Marketing Network in Toronto

When I began my Digital Media Marketing program at George Brown, I thought I understood networking. I knew it mattered. What I did not know was how completely it shapes a career in this city, and how little I had actually been doing it. Over this semester, that understanding shifted. I stopped thinking about networking as collecting contacts and started seeing it as something closer to building trust, earning reputation, and investing in human relationships that take time to grow into something real.

A lot of that shift came from the people I met through the program. Professor Jennifer Branco stands out to me not only for organizing our guest sessions, but for the way she consistently brought real industry voices into the room and made the learning feel immediate and connected to the Toronto job market. Through her facilitation, I had the chance to learn from professionals like Kev Lawler, Kwame Boison, and Martin Rubio. Each of them gave me something different to carry forward.

Kev Lawler was the first to challenge how I had been approaching the job search. His analogy about doing only cardio at the gym stuck with me because it described exactly what I had been doing: applying online repeatedly and expecting different results. When I arrived in Toronto from Dhaka, I had over five years of digital marketing experience, an MBA, and certifications across HubSpot, Google Ads, and Meta Blueprint. The profile was strong. The responses were not. Kev explained why. Without local context and without human connection, even a solid background gets lost in the noise. He also reframed how I think about my international experience. It is not enough to have done the work. You have to be able to explain what you did, with what measurable result, and in language that someone outside your industry can follow and remember.

Kwame Boison and Martin Rubio added to that foundation in ways I did not expect. Kwame spoke about relationships as the real algorithm, not as a motivational phrase, but as a working principle for how the creative industry actually operates. He reminded me that no pitch lands in an inbox without a relationship behind it to open the door. Martin Rubio reinforced that same idea from a completely different world. He described how a five-year working relationship with one person at Appleton Rum eventually became a 15-year global agency partnership with Jose Cuervo, simply because he showed up, did good work, and became the obvious person to call. What I admired in both of them was not their success. It was their clarity about how that success was built.

My classmates and peers have also become a genuine part of my network this semester. Joining a WhatsApp group with my cohort turned out to be more meaningful than I expected. All of them are domestic students who are well connected in this market, and the conversations we have in that space feel more personal and grounded than a standard LinkedIn connection. Those exchanges have helped me feel more rooted in Toronto, and they have shown me that community often starts with something as simple as staying in consistent contact with the people already around you.

Outside the classroom, I have been intentional about finding resources that actually move the needle. Career fairs and recruitment firms felt more like information booths than real support. I recently discovered Krista Kelly, a former Senior Manager in Brand Strategy & Product Marketing at HelloFresh, who now runs a weekly newsletter aggregating digital marketing opportunities across the GTA and hosts free biweekly Zoom coaching sessions. That kind of direct, practical support has been far more valuable to me than a booth at a job fair.

I have also tried to build relationships the right way, which means being a friend first and not rushing toward an ask. I reconnected with a Bangladeshi professional I met through the ACCES Employment mentorship program. She now works at the City of Toronto, and although she told me the organization does not accept referrals, she still shared her best practices for interviews and spent part of a weekend phone call talking with me about our shared roots back home. I also spoke with an alumnus from my university in Bangladesh who now works as an Agile Marketing Manager at Scotiabank. He offered to be listed as a referrer on any Scotiabank application I submit. These conversations remind me that the most useful outcomes from networking are rarely immediate job leads. They are trust, access, and the quiet support of people who want to see you succeed.

Volunteering as a Social Media Manager at INKspire, a youth-run publishing platform funded by the City of Toronto, has added another layer to all of this. It gave me local credibility and a sense of belonging in the Toronto marketing community while also reinforcing the kind of work I genuinely want to do. I have also invested in LinkedIn Premium, which has given me direct access to contacts I would not otherwise be able to reach, and I have started using the platform not just to connect, but to contribute.

Writing and publishing my e-journals this semester taught me something I did not expect. Thoughtful content creates real conversation. My post on Kev Lawler’s session reached 1,058 impressions. My post on Kwame Boison’s session reached 635 impressions, generated a comment, and earned a repost. Kwame himself commented on the article. It stopped being an assignment and started feeling like participation in an actual professional dialogue.

I am still building. But I am building with more intention and more clarity than I had at the start of this program. I have a growing circle of classmates, mentors, speakers, alumni, and industry resources that I plan to keep investing in long after this course ends. The biggest lesson I am taking from this semester is a simple one: relationships work best when they are built with patience, sincerity, and a genuine interest in the other person. Everything else tends to follow from that.