Ed Joaquin is the Director of Sponsorships and Business Development for Canada Philippine Fashion Week. He brings to his position a wealth of experience. Ed Joaquin organizes Canada’s Largest Asian festival, Taste of Asia in Markham, Ontario.
The festival was founded in the summer of 2003 as a band-aid solution to the SARS crisis in Canada, which helped revive the downturn in the local economies in Markham and York Region. In June 2013, the CIBC Taste of Asia festival will be celebrating its 11th annual event and attracts over 100,000 people annually.
Ed Joaquin was inspired to join the events industry as a student at St. Elizabeth high school in Thornhill, Ontario in 1991 organizing comic book and sports collectable conventions as a hobby. The hobby grew to one of the largest networks of memorabilia touring shows in Ontario. The opportunities continued during the charity casino industry expansion in Ontario in 1993 when Ed began helping charities organize charity casinos and fundraising campaigns.
In the mid 1990′s, Ed was attracted to the tiger economies of Asia, developing club culture events and programs for Maxi Media International, Sony Music, MTV, San Miguel Brewery, Levi’s, Bacardi, Asia Brewery, Lucky Strike, Marlboro and was awarded consulting projects with many high profile entertainment venues; Fashion Café, Mars Disco, Siete Pecados, Euphoria, Wherelse and Warehouse Disco.
After 6 years, Ed moved back to Canada to pursue his passion for community advocacy and political outreach working for a Member of Parliament and Canadian Parliament for 5 years and has served as an advisor, volunteer, board member or fundraising specialist to over three dozen community events or organizations in Canada including the Canada Philippines Inter-Parliamentary Committee (assistant to MP Lui Temelkovski and Senator Ed Angara), Markham Arts Council, Toronto Association of BIA’s, Ontario BIA’s, Rotary Clubs, Forest Hill Lions Club, Philippine Heritage Band, NAAAP-Toronto, Federation of Chinese Canadians in Markham, Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Markham, Philippine Chamber of Commerce-Toronto, Philippine Trade Council-Vancouver, Canada-Philippines Association, the Centre for Dreams, Fiesta Canada, York Regional Police’s Annual MulticulturalDay Festival, Helping Homeless Pets, Barkham Dog Show, Markham African Caribbean Association, St. Clements Church, Mabuhay Philippines Festival, Spider Jones’ Believe to Achieve, Social Services Network, Durham Chinese Cultural Centre. Ed is currently chair of the historic Markham Village Festival, advocacy chair at Festivals and Events Ontario, the World Potluck Fiesta, National Soup Month and DiversityJobFair.ca.