Live venue owner and operator Oak View Group has made big moves in Canada, where Chairman/CEO Tim Leiweke spent years as head of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. The company is moving quickly on its ambitious $290 million renovation of the Hamilton Arena, formerly known as FirstOntario Centre. It's a key to its strategy in the country: investing in music-first premium live venues, building private-public partnerships and investing in secondary markets throughout the country where the company can truly stake its ground. OVG is rapidly expanding its Toronto office, which is headed by Tom Pistore, the President of Oak View Group Canada. As it readies the new arena, which is poised to operate on a scale you'd more often see in Toronto, OVG is hiring new staffers and investing in new ventures, like Departure (formerly Canadian Music Week), and partnering with venues like Rogers Place in Edmonton, Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg and Scotiabank Arena in Toronto as part of its Canadian Alliance.