Chona Canlas: A Journey Through Creativity, Strategy, and Business Modernization
Chona Canlas is the Founder & CEO of Blox Communications, a creative-technical consultancy helping established legacy, growth-stage, and non-profit organizations modernize their brands, marketing systems, and customer experiences.
With nearly two decades of training spanning creative direction, corporate account management, marketing strategy, and digital transformation, Chona has built her career around one central belief: meaningful business growth happens when creativity, strategy, and execution work together.
Her experience across manufacturing, distribution, architecture, agriculture, IT, and technology has given her a unique perspective on the challenges businesses face as they evolve. From strengthening brand identities and modernizing digital systems to developing marketing programs that generate measurable sales opportunities, her work focuses on building lasting brand equity and sustainable growth.
But her journey began long before Blox Communications.
From Fine Arts to Entrepreneurship
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Chona earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) degree in Printmaking, Painting, and Art Theory from the University of Calgary in 2002. Following graduation, she began establishing herself as an independent commercial artist, exploring the intersection of art, design, and culture.
Between 2002 and 2005, Chona ventured into entrepreneurship, launching a creative business partnership with a friend called Bubbles + Blocks. During this period, she also operated an art gallery from her home while collaborating with local businesses, including The Hi-Fi Club and snowboarding apparel company Snowspeeders (now Somewon Collective).
These early experiences helped shape her understanding of how creativity could extend beyond artistic expression to influence identity, communication, and commercial success.
In 2006, Chona relocated to British Columbia to study Foundational Graphic Design at The Art Institute of Vancouver. This experience further developed her technical design skills and strengthened her interest in connecting visual storytelling with practical business applications.
Building a Foundation in Business, Sales, and Technology
By 2008, Chona had taken a significant step in a different direction, joining Bell Mobility and beginning a decade-long career in telecommunications, customer relationship management, and enterprise sales.
As a Corporate Account Manager, she managed medium and enterprise business accounts, supporting major organizations such as Enbridge Inc., Aritzia, and TC Energy.
Working closely with businesses across retail, energy, infrastructure, and other industries gave Chona firsthand experience in understanding complex organizations, identifying business needs, managing stakeholder relationships, and delivering technology-driven solutions.
This period proved instrumental in shaping her approach to marketing. She learned that strong customer relationships, clear communication, operational accountability, and measurable results were just as important as creativity.
During her time at Bell, Chona also proudly represented the company’s Let’s Talk mental health initiative, promoting workplace health and well-being.
After ten years in telecommunications, she was ready to bring her business experience back into the creative world.
Bridging Creativity, Technology, and Marketing
In 2018, Chona returned to her creative roots, joining VanWhistle Media, where she helped develop the startup’s brand identity and marketing strategies.
From 2019 to 2022, she expanded her expertise across geospatial technology, agriculture, and IT services through roles at i-Open Technologies Group of Companies and Clearbridge Business Solutions.
At i-Open, Chona helped launch a direct-to-consumer loyalty program for Directfood.store, contributing to a 30% increase in sales. As Brand Manager for the Group’s agtech platform, Agrilyze, she focused on building its educational positioning and market presence, collaborating with organizations such as the BC Agriculture Council and BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation.
Her work demonstrated the importance of connecting technology and innovation with clear, accessible messaging that audiences could understand and trust.
At Clearbridge Business Solutions, Chona further developed her expertise in B2B marketing, customer outreach, and retention. She led strategic marketing initiatives, including educational campaigns and an organizational playbook to strengthen internal alignment and inspire team engagement.
These experiences reinforced an important lesson: effective marketing is not simply about creating campaigns. It requires understanding how a business operates, what its customers value, and how to build systems that connect the two.
Turning Marketing Strategy Into Measurable Growth
In 2022, Chona joined Longboard Architectural Products as Marketing Coordinator and Team Lead, bringing her creative and technical experience into the manufacturing and architectural products industry.
There, she developed and implemented her 9-Point Channel Strategy, a comprehensive approach that connects traditional and digital marketing channels to build brand awareness, strengthen customer engagement, and support business growth.
Within four months, her initiatives contributed to a 600% increase in social media engagement and email open rates reaching 60%.
Beyond campaign performance, Chona led market research, brand development, and account-based marketing (ABM) initiatives that supported the successful launch of a new sustainable residential product line.
Her work helped Longboard expand its market segmentation, improve sales enablement, and strengthen its competitive position within the architectural industry.
In 2024, Chona joined Delta Water Products as Marketing Manager, taking on one of her most complex brand transformation projects.
Following a series of mergers and acquisitions, the organization needed to bring seven distinct business entities together under one cohesive brand identity. This required more than a visual rebrand. It called for a unified marketing system, stronger internal alignment, clearer customer communication, and a coordinated approach to introducing the new brand to the marketplace.
Chona led the company’s rebranding efforts, including consolidating its digital presence, developing brand assets, and once again implementing her 9-Point Channel Strategy.
The strategy integrated digital marketing, content, public relations, trade shows, branded materials, and customer relationship management into a coordinated system designed to strengthen the organization’s market presence.
The results included a 35% increase in customer engagement across multiple channels and $25 million in new sales opportunities within the agriculture sector.
Through cross-functional collaboration, strategic partnerships, and consistent brand execution, Chona helped demonstrate how a unified marketing strategy could support both organizational transformation and measurable commercial growth.
The Thinking Behind the 9-Point Channel Strategy
Throughout her career, Chona has developed a practical philosophy around what makes marketing effective.
She explains:
“Marketing is a three-step process.
First, you need to understand your audience, your marketplace, and the challenges your business is trying to solve.
Second, you need to bring creativity and technical expertise together, applying both purposefully and in a targeted way.
And finally, you must focus on data-driven, agile methods that can be measured, analyzed, and continuously improved to deliver greater return on investment.”
Still, for Chona, the goal has always been about more than generating impressions, clicks, or leads.
It is about building trust, strengthening relationships, and creating meaningful connections between businesses and the people they serve.
When marketing is grounded in an organization’s mission, vision, and values, every initiative has the opportunity to contribute to something greater: a stronger brand, a more connected organization, and sustainable business growth.
The Next Chapter: Building Blox Communications
After years of helping organizations navigate growth, change, and transformation, Chona recognized a recurring challenge.
Many established legacy businesses had built strong reputations, loyal customer relationships, and valuable expertise over decades. Yet their brands, marketing systems, and digital experiences had not always evolved at the same pace as their businesses or the markets around them.
At the same time, growth-stage companies often faced similar challenges, needing strategic expertise, creative resources, and technical capabilities without the overhead of building large internal teams.
These observations inspired the creation of Blox Communications, a creative-technical consultancy founded on the idea that modernization should be purposeful, practical, and accessible.
As Founder & CEO, Chona leads the company’s strategic direction, creative vision, client relationships, and business modernization programs.
Blox brings together creativity, strategy, execution, technology, and AI to help organizations modernize their brands, strengthen marketing foundations, and build systems that support long-term growth.
Its approach goes beyond traditional marketing services. By combining brand strategy, creative development, digital transformation, and measurable execution, Blox helps businesses become easier to understand, easier to trust, and easier to choose.
Chona also leads the development of the company’s proprietary consulting frameworks, intellectual property, and education initiatives, designed to make strategic marketing knowledge more accessible, repeatable, and scalable.
Drawing on her background in Fine Arts, enterprise sales, and nearly two decades of marketing and business experience, she continues to explore how emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, can support more effective business operations while keeping human creativity, judgment, and relationships at the centre.
Modernization With Purpose
For Chona, the journey from independent artist to corporate account manager, marketing leader, and entrepreneur has never been a series of unrelated career changes.
Each chapter has contributed something essential.
Fine Arts taught her to think creatively, challenge conventions, and communicate through visual expression.
Corporate account management taught her to understand business challenges, build relationships, and take accountability for results.
Marketing leadership taught her how to connect strategy with execution, align teams, and translate complex business objectives into measurable outcomes.
And entrepreneurship has brought those experiences together into a single purpose: helping businesses evolve without losing sight of what makes them valuable in the first place.
Today, through Blox Communications, Chona continues to champion a more integrated approach to business modernization, one that respects an organization’s history while preparing it for the opportunities ahead.
Her belief is simple: modernization is not about changing for the sake of change. It is about understanding where you have been, recognizing where you need to go, and building the right foundation to get there.
Thank You for Reading!
I have always believed that creativity is more than what we make. It is how we think, solve problems, connect with people, and find new ways forward.
Looking back, every chapter of my career has taught me something about perseverance, accountability, adaptability, and the importance of staying curious.
My values remain rooted in humanity, environmental responsibility, and innovation. I believe businesses have an opportunity to create meaningful change, not only through what they sell or the services they provide, but through the relationships they build and the impact they leave behind.
Today, I am fortunate to bring these experiences together through Blox Communications, working alongside talented people and purposeful organizations that believe in building something better.
And I am still creating something different every day.
Thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about my journey. I would love to hear about yours.
