We welcome you to Executives on Auction, a networking venue where participants share quality time together to help the bottom line of worthy charities.

Who are we?

John Ernst is the organiser and founder of the Auction, and is President of FrontierStrategies, an Ottawa based marketing consulting service with strong expertise in planning, e-business, and virtual world use.

Many thanks must always go to all the executive and bidder participants, our many media friends, the venue sponsors, and, the business associations. All donated.

The Ottawa auction took a break as one of the charities lured the auction's founder into full-time involvement in their cause. Since then, the auction was revived with the latest edition featuring John Roese, the then new CTO of Nortel.

Today's multi-charity, multi-venue auction, Executives on Auction, is still organised by John Ernst volunteering in this way to continue to both help good causes and facilitate business networking.

History?

The prequel to Executives on Auction was the 'Executive Golf Auction' first launched in the summer of 2000.

Mr. Ernst encouraged the media, several well connected business organisations, and nearly 50 executives to participate, creating the first Executive Golf Auction. Nearly $20,000 was raised in the first event, all given to FM-CFS Canada.

Ottawa has been the site of 10 editions of the Executive Auction, involving more than 100 executives and many others. In addition, there have been two deluxe Business-Media only Auctions where six bidders met with eight members of the business press for dinner and then a Senators game in a centre ice suite, donated by ARAMARK Premium Services.

Outside of Ottawa three parallel Executives on Auctions were operating under license, in the same manner and to success. (Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle).

The auctions raised more than $60,000 dollars for a wide variety of charities. The value of the knowledge shared in the meetings? Probably priceless.

The premise?

Executives on Auction creates enjoyable, useful, convenient, networking opportunities, with the quid pro quo being a donation to the executive's favourite cause.

The executive nominates a charity, and the winning bid for the executive goes directly to the charity. At a mutually convenient time the winning bidder and the executive meet at one of the donated venues, usually a game of golf, or a dinner, hockey game, or NAC performance.

All Proceeds to Charity

From the beginning we've worked with a variety of generous sponsors. 100% of the winning bids go directly to the charities, thanks to everyone involved.

Bill Turner, currently in Enterprise Sales with CryptoCard, helped organise the inaugeral events and hosted some of the meetings.

The Auction's Ottawa sponsors have included: The Ottawa Senators Foundation, Brymark Productions, The Canadian Golf and Country Club, Magma Communications, The National Arts Centre, Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP, Guardian Capital Advisors, Eagle Professional Resources, HBS, The Paper Sign Man, and Merrill Lynch.

Restaurant venues included the Market's Restaurant e18hteen, Bell's Corners' The West End Station, Preston Street's La Vecchia Trattoria and Il Piccolino Restaurant, and last but not least, the NAC's Le Cafe.   ARAMARK Premium Services provided free dinners for the Business Media Auctions. The Haven Spa participated in a special event with massages, as did Les Suites Hotel with group events for all the Auction's participants.

Business Association support has come since the inception from the CATA Alliance, OCRI, the Ottawa Life Sciences Council, the Innovators Alliance, the Greater Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, Regroupement des gens d'affaires, Wired Women Ottawa, DigitalEve Ottawa, and through Keith Langille's TEXEC.

Similarly, the Ottawa area media have been equally integral to the EOA process, providing editorial and advertising support, with many media personalities volunteering to join the auction. Involved over the years have been CTV, the A-Channel, and Rogers. The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, and Ottawa Business Journal participated and promoted the auction. Radio has been a big part of it, including 580 CFRA, Chez 106.1, the Bear 106.9, Magic 105, even the former 101XFM's Mauler and Rush.