“When I saw that a portion of this job would be working on a magazine I thought, this is exactly the role I was looking for, and I was lucky enough to get it.”
You may know him as the man behind the camera or our regular communications, Jeff Toth plays a big role at the IBAO as Marketing & Communications Specialist. But you’d never guess the path he took to get here.
“I went to the University of Calgary where I earned a degree in communications. While I was a student, I started performing stand–up comedy which quickly turned into performing professionally with Yuk Yuks. When I finished my degree, like many fresh grads, I struggled to find a job I was passionate about. But I was getting a lot of interesting opportunities through comedy. I wrote a couple articles for Vice and produced my own radio show. I used those experiences to apply to go back to school for journalism in Halifax.”
Armed with a stacked education, it was time to decide where he wanted to take his career and whether comedy would continue to be part of his journey.
“My goal was to use communications and journalism to land a job in marketing. While in school I retired from stand–up to focus on my new career path. I moved to Toronto after I finished my program and shortly thereafter I found what I was looking for here at the IBAO. In August I’ll have been here three years.”
Jeff had no idea how much his experiences would come into play in his new role at the IBAO and how his role would evolve based on those experiences. “When I was in journalism school, my final project was to come up with an original idea for a magazine and produce the first issue from scratch in six weeks with a group of five people. I didn’t realize how perfectly that experience would set me up to work on TOB. When I saw that a portion of this job would be working on a magazine I thought, this is exactly the role I was looking for, and I was lucky enough to get it. “I’ve been working on the weekly newsletter, which we just rebranded IBAO Update, since I first started and I’m really proud of how it’s evolved.
“My video work at IBAO has also been very rewarding. My experience in comedy has come in handy writing and producing videos. It’s an area I didn’t expect to get into, but I love doing—it’s one of my favourite parts of the job.”
Outside work, Jeff divides his free time between absorbing pop culture and physical activity.
“I’m obsessed with film, podcasts, graphic novels—really any pop culture. To offset how much sitting all those interests require, I try to stay pretty active. I enjoy running, biking, swimming, working out and I recently got into wall–climbing. I never have a shortage of things to keep me busy.”