Meet Our Mentors
Heather Renney
Heather Renney has 25+ years of experience in animation production and currently is a Supervising Producer at Atomic Cartoons. She has worked on many award-winning productions, most notably the Peabody Award-winning (2019) and Emmy nominated Molly of Denali for PBS/GBH.
Heather is passionate about advocating for the advancement of women and BIPOC people within the industry, and does this by creating internship opportunities for underrepresented groups at Atomic. In addition to her role at Atomic, Heather serves on the Board of Directors at VIVO Media Arts and volunteers for the Women in Animation Vancouver ACE Program as Associate Producer.
Nadine Westerbarkey
Nadine has been working in the Animation industry for over 25 years, with vast experience in film and television working with well-respected studios such as Walt Disney, Dreamworks, Universal, DHX, Bardel and Atomic Cartoons where she currently holds the responsibility of Studio Creative Director. In her current role Nadine oversees all productions and is very involved in setting up all upcoming shows, supporting the creative teams during development and production.
In 2021 Nadine was awarded the YWCA Women of Distinction award for her work in the animation community with the focus on authentic storytelling, diversity and inclusion. Through WIA and Atomic Nadine dedicates a lot of volunteer and mentorship work towards support for artists to enter into the industry and growth towards creative leadership roles.
Rose-Ann Tisserand
Rose-Ann Tisserand is co-founder of Flying Kraken Creative Studios, a boutique, Canadian-based studio that creates original animation content and specializes in award-winning animation design services. She is also Founder and Co-Executive Producer of WIA Vancouver’s award-winning Animation CareerEXCELerator Program(ACE) which advances the careers of those who identify as women into key creative roles by providing mentorship, training, and hands-on experience as they make a short film. Over 5 years, ACE has grown from 5 initial key creative roles in BC to 8 roles from across Canada. ACE is currently sponsored by Netflix Canada, Telefilm and Creative BC. She has worked as a production executive for 22 years over seeing 300+ hours of film and television production. She was supervising producer at Bardel Entertainment, Consulting Producer with the NFB, and is currently Executive Producer/Co-Creator of a series in development with Silvergate Media. She also sits on the Spark Animation Leadership Board and is Executive Advisor on the WIA Vancouver board.
Tracey Mack
Tracey is honoured to Executive Produce the ACE program with Women in Animation. She is an award-winning Producer with twenty years of experience, producing over 120 hours of television in both live action & animated film, television and digital media. She is currently COO / Head of Production for Imagine Create Media, where she is a Producer on Scout & The Gumboot Kids for CBC, nominated for both a Prix Jeunesse and NHK Japan Prize.Through her own company, Urban Safari Entertainment, she has just finished development on the animated feature, A Christmas Crisis, with Hollywood Suite, which she also wrote, and has produced The Adventures of Little Jake & Many Skies for APTN, the award-winning Kids’ Cookhouse, and the web series PARKED.