2025 Star Women in Convenience winner: Amanda Newell

Amanda Newell            

Chief Revenue Officer               

Adapt Media Inc.    

How did you get into this business?

Advertising offered the ideal opportunity to copywrite and sell—two of my true passions! After a career spent at various corporate behemoths—Rogers, Torstar, and the CBC—Adapt Media tantalized me with the promise of being able to work with a smaller and hungrier team that was able to leap nimbly from one challenge to the next.

What work-related accomplishment are you most proud of during the last 12-18 months?

I love that we've now tripled our revenue since I arrived, that we've forged the first ever media partnership with Canada Post, and that we've doubled our operational footprint in the last 18 months to include thousands of screens at convenience store standouts like Circle K, Hasty Market, INS, and Rabba Fine Foods. In 2025, Adapt is now the largest Out-of-Home advertising provider in the Canadian convenience and gas channel and I am infinitely proud to deliver revenues back into that channel through our media sales efforts.

What do you like most about your job?

I'm constantly overjoyed to watch a team that celebrates each other and collaborates to genius effect. We just held the Great Canadian Road Trip advertising agency event, a literal road show to illustrate our prowess in reaching Canadians avoiding the US and looking to staycation this summer, mapping the convenience and gas stations that will follow their travel routes across the country. Every idea to make the event a memorable success in the eyes of our clients came from Adapt's team. Even the gourmet catering of the day's picnic in High Park (showcasing road trip snacks from Adapt's convenience store screen partners) was lovingly created by our own Director of Digital AdOperations!

What was the biggest challenge of your career?

When I first arrived in this industry, there were very few seats at the boardroom table, so women fought each other for the honour. Happily, that world is changing and I consider it my duty to lift the women in my professional orbit, instead of dragging them down.

What's the best advice you ever received?

About three years into my sales career, I had lunch with an advertising agency contact who told me a story of a salesperson at my company who'd professionally abused him when he was a media assistant; he'd never forgotten that cruelty and it made him relentless in treating people beneath him with undying respect. Twenty years later, that man became the global CEO of one of the world's largest ad agency consortiums. I learned at that lunch to treat every colleague, regardless of title, with consideration and decency, not because they may eventually transform into an industry luminary but because that mistreatment would be remembered for a lifetime.

What's your career highlight/biggest achievement?

Becoming the President of the Advertising Club of Toronto was the very best of times in that I got to work with a tireless Board of Directors to generate millions of dollars to benefit the advertising industry's very own charity, along with funding a series of advertising scholarships at colleges and universities across the province. It was a genuine honour to learn from the scholarship recipients, many of whom were new Canadians, how much those monies had helped to make their lives and entry into the industry a little easier.

What excites you most about the future of this channel?

Watching almost 5,000 convenience stores in Ontario adapt and grow as a result of their now being able to sell beverage alcohol has been a joy to behold. Yes, the introduction has not been without its logistical challenges, but it's been wonderful to watch the reinvigoration of c-stores in this province and see their revenues increase by 20+%. I'll look forward to Nova Scotia and Alberta (perhaps) following Ontario's lead.

What trends or innovations are you keeping an eye on right now. Is there anything you think will shape the business in the next five years?

I'm excited to see convenience stores create alluring loyalty programs through which they're learning more about who their consumers are, what they buy and why. I'm also pleased to see the rise of the retail media trend of monetizing purchasing data to retain their customers and elevate the entire c-store shopping experience. The more convenience store owners know about the people shopping in their stores, the more they'll be able to market to them, increasing basket size and revenue.

How do you define yourself as a leader?

Adapt Media's credo allows for the free exchange of ideas from any level and any department. As a leader of a team with vastly different experiences in differing industries and from different countries, I applaud the fact that we can always learn so much from each other. It's an honour to stand at the side of Adapt's talented team to guide, mentor, uplift, and celebrate each one of them.