Sprott Alumni Award Winners Celebrated for Their Impact
Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business is proud to announce the recipients of the 2023 Sprott Alumni Awards. These awards honour the exceptional achievements of Sprott alumni for the impact they have made in their careers, professions and/or communities.
Congratulations to the 2023 Sprott Alumni Award Recipients:
- Early Achievement Award – Chris Bailey, BCom/13
- Professional Achievement Award – Pierce Ujjainwalla, BIB/07
- Good Business Award – Marissa Parker, BIB/21
Sprott Alumni Award: Early Achievement
This award recognizes a Carleton University graduate of a bachelor degree in business who has received their degree within the last 10 years and has achieved significant professional accomplishments since graduation.
Chris Bailey, BCom/13, is a productivity expert, public speaker and bestselling author of three books — The Productivity Project, Hyperfocus, and How to Calm Your Mind.
After graduating from Sprott, Chris dedicated a year to learning everything he could about productivity. He started a blog called A Year of Productivity, where he wrote about his productivity experiments. These experiments—which ranged from living in total isolation for 10 days, to meditating for 35 hours a week—led to book deals and public speaking engagements.
His books have been translated into over 30 languages been named books of the year by The Globe and Mail, Fortune, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Chris has spoken at Google, Microsoft, and RBC, and his TEDx talk on the subject of Hyperfocus has received over 37 million views. As well, he writes a biweekly column on his website, produces a podcast, and is the author of an audible original book titled How to Train Your Mind.
Through his work, Chris makes productivity practical and exciting in order to help people accomplish what they set out to do.
Sprott Alumni Award: Professional Excellence
This award recognizes a Carleton University graduate of any business degree who has demonstrated outstanding achievement within their career or community service initiatives.
Pierce Ujjainwalla, BIB/07, is the co-founder and CEO of Knak, the first codeless email and landing page creation platform.
Pierce began Knak in 2015 in order to make life easier for marketing teams. Knack empowers enterprise marketing teams to design their own email campaigns without the hassle of coding. After years of steady, self-funded growth, in 2021, Knak raised $31 million CAD in financing from the venture capital firm Insight Partners. Knak is a 2023 winner of Canada’s Top Growing Companies from Report on Business.
After graduating from Sprott, Pierce worked at Cognos, IBM, TITUS, and 360pi in marketing roles before launching his own consultancy, Revenue Pulse.
In 2022, the Ottawa Business Journal named Pierce as one of their Forty Under 40 award recipients.
Sprott Alumni Award: Good Business
This award recognizes a Carleton University graduate of a degree program in business who has made a positive impact in local, regional or global communities through their professional, voluntary or philanthropic endeavours.
In 2020, Marissa Parker, BIB/21, co-founded Sending Sunshine, a registered charity that sends handwritten cards to seniors in care facilities.
Marissa began the initiative with four friends during the pandemic, when many Canadian were isolated in care facilities due to lockdowns. The organization aims to provide companionship to seniors through handwritten cards.
Since 2020, Sending Sunshine has delivered over 177,000 cards to over 650 care facilities. They have volunteer card writers in 24 countries, including over 17,000 student volunteers. Another service they provide is connecting pen pals—and have successfully matched over 150 pen pals.
In 2022, the Ontario Government recognized Sending Sunshine with the June Callwood Outstanding Achievement Award for Voluntarism.
Learn more about the Sprott Alumni Awards and past recipients.