Company Background

The Mezzanine Group evolved from its roots as the Ivey Business Consulting Group (IBCG), the summer-only, student consulting program at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario.

Lisa Shepherd was hired as a student consultant at IBCG while completing her MBA in 2001. IBCG received training from global strategy consultancies including AT Kearney, Bain Consulting, Monitor Consulting and Accenture. The group served primarily small businesses and non-profits in and around London with business plans, marketing plans and organizational assessments. Following graduation, Lisa recommended to Ivey that the group be developed into a full-time, year round consultancy to better serve client needs and provide work experience for students. At this time, Lisa became Managing Director of IBCG and began the process of turning IBCG into a full time, year-round consultancy to serve growth-oriented businesses and executives. Under Lisa’s leadership the business grew significantly, at one point hiring more MBAs into the consulting industry than any other recruiter at Ivey.

IBCG opened its second office, in Toronto in 2003 and gained numerous corporate clients like Bell Mobility and Capital One. In 2004 IBCG began its first national project, for the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. At this time the scale of projects merited an evolution of IBCG – and Mezzanine was born. It launched initially as Mezzanine Business Consulting, which was shortened to Mezzanine Consulting, and finally to The Mezzanine Group. Mezzanine grew rapidly, and received its first public recognition in 2005, being named to the ‘Profit Hot 50’ – Profit Magazine’s definitive list of fast growing young companies in Canada. In 2006 Mezzanine was again named to the Profit Hot 50 and began its first US project. In 2007 Mezzanine extended further and began its first international project, in the United Arab Emirates. The company was named to the Profit 100 in 2007 (the Profit list for companies over 5 year of age) and again in 2008. Lisa was nominated for the Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award and the Top 40 Under 40.

In recognition of the need for better marketing services for its small and mid-sized client base, Mezzanine acquired Hinge Marketing Management in 2008, a company that provided outsourced marketing management for companies $2M - $20M in revenue. Mezzanine now provides outsourced marketing management to this segment, a business that is growing rapidly as the marketing industry evolves quickly and access to marketing expertise becomes more difficult for small companies to obtain.

In 2009 Lisa was named to the Board of Directors of Innovators Alliance, a peer group for CEOs of innovative Ontario companies with $2M to $100M in revenue. She was also named Chair of the Companies Selection Committee for the Ivey Venture Forum.