tropoly, neel singh, web summit, portfolioyvr, vancouver, bc, yvr, helen siwak, bc business

Tropoly: Accelerating Growth Through Strategic Advisory and Creative Insight

August 17, 2025

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Tropoly is a strategic brand and marketing advisory that helps ambitious companies move faster, grow smarter, and stand out where it counts. Neither a traditional consultancy nor a typical agency, Tropoly is something different: a team of seasoned executives, entrepreneurs, and creative instigators who embed directly into businesses to deliver clarity, momentum, and measurable results....

Tropoly is a strategic brand and marketing advisory that helps ambitious companies move faster, grow smarter, and stand out where it counts.

Neither a traditional consultancy nor a typical agency, Tropoly is something different: a team of seasoned executives, entrepreneurs, and creative instigators who embed directly into businesses to deliver clarity, momentum, and measurable results.

Through its three divisions, Advisory, Brand Studio, and Impact Labs, Tropoly partners with clients to build brands that matter, teams that perform, and strategies that win. From fractional leadership and go-to-market planning to brand storytelling and organizational change, the firm integrates seamlessly with in-house teams to unlock meaningful growth.

Tropoly has worked with startups, scale-ups, and global enterprises to help them break out of stagnation, sharpen their vision, and lead their markets. Above all, Tropoly exists for companies ready to stop playing it safe, and start making an impact.

tropoly, neel singh, web summit, portfolioyvr, vancouver, bc, yvr, helen siwak, bc business

Neel Singh – Partner, Strategy and Operations

Neel is a business builder with a deep background in strategic growth, marketing leadership and brand development. Over two decades, he has scaled GTM and marketing functions, driven M&A and venture capital outcomes, and built high-performing teams across sectors and geographies. Neel thrives on finding clarity in complexity, designing data-driven growth frameworks, integrating AI and automation into operations, and being a force-multiplier to leadership teams to drive real results.

tropoly, neel singh, web summit, portfolioyvr, vancouver, bc, yvr, helen siwak, bc business

Brady Dahmer – Partner, Brand Strategy and Creative

Brady is a brand strategist and creative director known for transforming businesses into unforgettable brands. He has developed and launched award-winning identities, campaigns, and experiences for a roster of global brands and brings a unique ability to distill vision into visual and verbal systems that resonate both inside and outside the company. Brady leads the creative heart of Tropoly, ensuring every brand is built to move markets, shift mindsets, and scale with purpose.

tropoly, neel singh, web summit, portfolioyvr, vancouver, bc, yvr, helen siwak, bc business

Mark Funston – Partner, Marketing and Communications

Mark is a marketing leader and storyteller with a knack for translating strategy into action. With a career spanning agencies, startups, and corporate roles, he has helped companies craft narratives, execute go-to-market strategies, and generate measurable demand. Mark also brings expertise in AI integration, helping businesses automate operations, personalize customer journeys, and scale intelligently. At Tropoly, he champions clarity, culture, and commercial results through powerful communication.

tropoly, neel singh, web summit, portfolioyvr, vancouver, bc, yvr, helen siwak, bc business

Ruby Sandhu – Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem Growth

Ruby is a connector, strategist, and operator who turns relationships into revenue, and ideas into action. Her career spans industries including tech, sustainability, education, and media, where she’s led cross-sector initiatives, built high-impact partnerships, and opened new markets for startups and institutions alike.

From driving multi-stakeholder coalitions to shaping media strategies for emerging founders, Ruby brings rigor, insight, and unshakable follow-through to every engagement. Her work is rooted in trust and driven by outcomes, whether she’s navigating the needs of city governments, VCs, or grassroots communities.

IN THEIR WORDS.

“For each of us, it began with noticing the gap between what business could be and what it too often settled for. We started young, from running hustles in our neighbourhoods and organizing small ventures to make money and learning how to create value from nothing. In our late teens and early twenties, we had all taken paths that diverged from the “norm.” From founding our first companies in our late teens, to building successful agencies, and even owning a restaurant, we learned fast and early what it takes to make something from scratch.

We also realized quickly that we did not fit in the usual corporate box, and it was restlessness that connected us, an unwillingness to just “do the job” without asking why, and how it could be done better. Over time, that restlessness turned into confidence and conviction, and then into our calling.

Tropoly was born out of that combined calling and the ability to help businesses and leaders scale more, and do it faster. The big idea was to build something better than a consultancy or an agency: a model where companies could access the strategic depth of executives, the creativity of a studio, and the hands-on presence of embedded partners.

We kept seeing companies get stuck: paying too much for mediocre advice or surface-level campaigns, and we knew there was a smarter, sharper way to help them grow. Tropoly became our rebellion against the status quo: lean, fearless, fully integrated, and unapologetically different. We designed it to close the gap between vision and execution, and we have never looked back.

During one of our very first pitches, we told a founder their brand was forgettable, and they laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was true, and no one else had dared to say it out loud. That moment broke the ice and ultimately won us the account.

It was a powerful lesson: people do not want to be coddled, they want the truth, delivered with clarity and a path forward. Another early experience that stuck with us was when a client came to us in crisis, their growth had stalled, their team was disillusioned, and their investors were losing patience. We helped them stabilize, reframe their story, rebuild their pipeline, and within months they were back on track. It proved the model worked.

We have evolved from outsiders with everything to prove to trusted insiders who clients bring into their most critical conversations. We learned early on that growth is not about saying “yes” to everything; it is about choosing the right challenges and saying “no” to the wrong ones.

Over time, we have refined our frameworks, expanded our capabilities, and leaned harder into what makes us different. Every obstacle, from economic downturns to sleepless nights and stretched resources, taught us to stay close to our values and trust our instincts. That resilience has shaped not just how we work, but who we work with.

All three of us came into Tropoly with scars and successes from previous ventures as founders, executives, and builders. We have led and scaled marketing teams from handfuls to multi-faceted departments, founded award-winning agencies and consultancies, and even opened a restaurant. As leaders and advisors, we have taken companies public and private, been involved in over half a billion in funding throughout our careers.

Tropoly has become the synthesis of all those experiences: the lessons, the wrong turns, the wins, and the wisdom, consolidated into a sharper, more effective approach. We are good at it because we have done most of it before. We have made the mistakes before. We have built from scratch and from messy foundations. In the end, though, we win almost every battle we take on.

Scaling for us did not mean hiring dozens of employees or chasing volume. Scaling meant keeping it tight; being smarter and more deliberate. We invested in building flexible frameworks that can adapt and apply to businesses in dozens of industries, and sought to attract not only big clients, but ones that really align with our progressive mindset. We also heavily invested in building our networks – our greatest relationships formed through direct conversation, not templated email messages.

Scaling to us means building without compromising principles, whether that is our own or those of our clients. That means we have had to make tough calls: walking away from clients, projects, and partnerships that did not fit our mission so we could focus our energy where it mattered most. The growth of our business has come from the value that our clients place not only in our expertise, but the real foundations of how and why we do things.

Entrepreneurship demands sacrifice: predictability, weekends, steady paychecks, and a thousand small comforts. We have each had to let go of the illusion of balance at times to build something meaningful.

That said, we have also learned to fiercely protect our personal lives, because when your business is about clarity and courage, you have to model that for yourself too. The sacrifices made us sharper, but they also taught us what not to give up.

When we signed our first retainer client, someone who specifically sought us out because we were not corporate and because we would challenge them, we knew we had found our market. That early validation proved there were leaders out there hungry for more than what agencies and consultants offered.

More recently, the work that we have been doing in AI and automation to help companies add practical, high-impact efficiencies to their business has been game-changing. Tropoly has always stood on innovation, and now is as much a precipice for success as any in our history.

Over the years, we have been lucky to have mentors and peers who challenged us, shared hard-won wisdom, and kept us honest. Some of the most meaningful support came not from the “big names” but from colleagues, clients, family, and even competitors who showed us what leadership and integrity look like under pressure.

We stand on the shoulders of people who remind us that success without soul is not worth much. Most of the time, this comes from each of us challenging each other to think better, do better, and be better.

Over time, we learned to fully embrace what makes us different: radical honesty, deep integration, and a relentless focus on real outcomes, even when those qualities made conversations uncomfortable. We stopped trying to fit into the expectations of what a “consultant” or “agency” should be and leaned into our role as true partners: the ones willing to say the hard things and stay in the trenches to help fix them. That evolution did not just sharpen our work; it also attracted the right kind of clients who value clarity over comfort and results over appearances.

For us, that shift unlocked another truth: leadership is not about being liked; it is about being trusted. It is about showing up consistently, making the hard calls, and putting the mission above personal ego. Once we stopped chasing approval and focused instead on earning trust through courage, candor, and execution, everything aligned. Our confidence as a team grew, our conviction deepened, and the impact of our work multiplied.

Our advice? Stop waiting to feel ready, because you never will. Readiness is a myth we tell ourselves to delay taking the first step. The truth is, you figure it out by doing, not by planning forever. Take imperfect action, make mistakes, and adjust as you go. It is a messy journey, but momentum beats perfection every time.

When you start building your team, hire for hunger first and skills second. You can teach someone a craft, but you cannot teach them character. Surround yourself with people who care about the mission, not just the paycheque, and who will tell you the truth when it matters most.

Finally, do not equate “bigger” with “better.” Growth is only meaningful if it serves your purpose and improves your impact. Focus on being better first – sharper, clearer, more intentional – and let scale follow naturally. Success is not just about how much you build; it is about how much of it actually matters.

Too often, visionary founders with groundbreaking ideas or inventions get so focused on chasing growth that they lose sight of what made them special in the first place. Their vision gets diluted, their story gets lost, and they risk blending into the noise of their industry. We exist to make sure that does not happen.

We work with founders and leadership teams who are building something that deserves to be seen, businesses with the potential to transform their category, disrupt conventions, and create real impact. Our role is to help proliferate that vision; to unlock its full commercial, operational, and cultural potential, and in doing so, not just transform the business but shift the industry around it.

Our mission is to deliver meaningful growth on every front: strategically, by clarifying the vision and building a plan that actually works in the real world; operationally, by embedding in the team and optimizing how execution happens; and creatively, by crafting brands and stories that resonate deeply and move markets. We help visionary companies grow without compromise, staying true to what sets them apart while pushing them further than they thought possible.

By 2026, Tropoly aims to be the partner companies call when they are ready to stop playing it safe and start leading with conviction. We want to set a new standard for what brand and marketing leadership can look like: sharper, more integrated, and more impactful. Our legacy is a trail of braver, more resilient businesses, proving that you do not have to sell your soul to succeed.We are also leaning heavily into helping companies cut through the noise around AI and automation to unlock their real, practical impact, especially within go-to-market strategy, marketing execution, and brand operations. Done well, these technologies can transform how a business engages customers, scales campaigns, and sustains growth. But done poorly, they become little more than expensive distractions, chasing shiny objects with no real ROI.

Tropoly has already helped clients implement custom AI and automation solutions that improve lead generation, personalize customer journeys, optimize creative workflows, and streamline sales and marketing processes, all aligned to their GTM plans and brand vision. We are looking forward to continuing that work in the year ahead, ensuring AI and automation become tools of strategic advantage, not noise.”

Author Profile

Helen Siwak: Helen Siwak is the founder of EcoLuxLuv Marketing & Communications Inc and publisher of Folio.YVR Luxury Lifestyle Magazine and PORTFOLIOY.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine. She is a prolific content creator, consultant, and marketing and media strategist within the ecoluxury lifestyle niche. Post-pandemic, she has worked with many small to mid-sized plant-based/vegan brands to build their digital foundations and strategize content creation and business development. Helen is the west coast correspondent to Canada’s top-read industry magazine Retail-Insider, holds a vast freelance portfolio, and consults with many of the world’s luxury heritage brands. Always seeking new opportunities and challenges, you can email her at helen@ecoluxluv.com.