The Ignite Team

Firecircle Ignite Mentor

Val Pleym

Valerie comes to Firecircle’s Ignite team with true entrepreneurial credibility. Marketing, content creation and the customer journey are where Val's passion lives. Val loves getting involved in the 'nuts & bolts' of how customers discover, explore, purchase, experience and then share these experiences with others. Her passion for the outdoors & adventure was inspired by guiding wilderness canoe trips and hiking trips to Algonquin Park and the Adirondack Mountains in her early teens.

Val is our Golden girl. Literally. Following her completion of a BA in Geography at Lakehead University, Parks Canada brought Val to Golden, British Columbia and the Mountain National Parks, and she’s never left. She’s a certified commercial bear viewing guide and has sat on the board for Tourism Golden. It’s no surprise that with mountains, lakes and rivers as her daily backdrop and her love of watersports and wilderness, that Val soon became the owner/operator of Alpine White Water Rafting company and a 25 acre campground. So committed is Val to the guest experience, that one of the tours that she developed & launched in Yoho National Park was selected as a Canadian Signature Experience.

Most recently, Val has worked as an e-commerce advisor and customer marketing specialist, helping dozens of small businesses across Canada with their tourism marketing strategies and is currently assisting Golden’s Economic Development Officer as a Workforce Development Manager.

Val is a keen member of Firecircle’s Ignite mentor team and in her spare time also runs several of her own short-term rental properties. Also (yes, there’s more), Val does professional voiceovers and is a published content creator. If you’re lucky enough to have Val as your mentor, you also know that she is warm, funny, very energetic and has your back.