Brain Trust was founded in 2000 and is located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Their customer-centric strategic thinking keeps the big picture front and centre while delivering solutions that contribute to the bottom-line growth of private and public organizations in the travel, tourism, and hospitality sectors.

Founder, Richard Innes has a marketing background having worked for many years at some of the country's largest advertising agencies. He also played crucial roles in Canada's largest tourism destination marketing organization, Destination Toronto (formerly Tourism Toronto). For nine years he served as VP, Account Director at DT's advertising agency and then as DT's Vice President of Marketing.

As an experienced tourism industry strategist, Richard blends the creativity of his marketing background with the discipline of visitor-centric tourism destination development, bringing valuable insight and wisdom to his clients. He excels working in multi-stakeholder environments and relishes opportunities to work with tourism owner-operators. As an accomplished facilitator, he can rally tourism stakeholders in collaborative dialogue that generates relevant and realistic business solutions contributing to visitor economy growth.

Richard's passion for tourism destination management and development through the lens of the customer is widely valued. He is a Certified Trainer for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, which includes their STAR (Strategic Tourism for Areas and Regions), STEP (Strategic Tourism Expansion Program), and AMR (Accelerated Market Readiness) programs.

In 2012 he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Medal for contributions to Canada's tourism industry.

Richard is on the Board of Advisors of Global Management Consultants, a Dubai-based ideas and business design firm. He serves as a subject matter expert, mentor and influencer to this international firm.

Brain Trust regularly partners with respected professionals such as Dr. Nancy Arsenault, and Lesley Anderson from The Tourism Café Canada, and the team at LORD Cultural Resources. Brain Trust retains the services of other specialists who, as needed deliver a variety of other services.