Frank Leffelaar - Principal consultant, has over 15 years of international experience in marketing, communications and business development. Born in the Netherlands, Frank moved to The UK to study at the European Business School in London. During his study, which included terms in France and Germany, he developed a keen interest in foreign culture, food and wine. It also made him fluent in German and French. In his spare time he enjoys being involved in wine and food related marketing projects.

Marketing Services & Internet Marketing -After his graduation he developed a career as an international marketing manager for Fortune 500 companies that include Shell, Prime Computer, Intergraph, and Ericsson. In 1998 Frank immigrated to Vancouver, BC, Canada. He started as the Marketing Manager for Cadex Electronics and later joined Crystal Decisions. In 2002, Frank founded his own marketing consultancy company, Crush Marketing, and started an internet marketing company to sell a new brand of natural health products. In 2003 he was recruited by Mustang Survival and became their marketing services manager, leading product management, marketing and corporate branding. While at Mustang Survival he developed their new web site that served the company's diverse customer groups by industry. The web site's data driven and SEO optimized architecture, strong in-house content development, digital photography and video production helped establish the site as dominant in the industry.
Today Frank enjoys working with companies and their marketing and IT teams to develop online marketing strategies, increase online presence, and optimize user experience and customer engagement.

Wine Marketing - Frank's interest for wine started at a young age. One of his fondest house duties was to unpack new arrivals for the wine cellar and to select the wine that would pair well with dinner. During internships in France and Switzerland to practice his languages and earn some money by working in manufacturing companies, he grew ever more intrigued by the tremendous regional diversity of wine and further experimented with food and wine pairing. When at university Frank spent semesters in Paris, France and between the vineyards in the German Rheingau. Jazz Fruhshoppen at the local vineyards followed by some wine tastings were a great way to spend the Sunday. Back in the Netherlands he followed several wine courses and deepened his knowledge of wines from around the world. During his long summer holidays he visited the many wine regions of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy and returned home with a car loaded with wine.
After he arrived in Canada, just in time for the Okanagan Wine Festival, Frank joined the WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Trust) Higher Certificate Program at Dubrulle, to ease into his new live. He is a founding member of the South Word Wine Society has been actively involved on the board, enjoyed the many events and tastings Vancouver has to offer. It isn't hard to imagine that he couldn't resist the itch to combine his marketing expertise with his passion for wine and he started Crush Marketing in 2002, and organized prominent events for consumer and trade on behalf of foreign trade commissions, and other organizations. He enjoys visiting the wine regions of the world, including South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Australia.