A media all-star with journalism roots in Ontario will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 Ink and Beyond conference, to be held May 13-14 in Toronto.

John Paton was the co-founder and innovative CEO of impreMedia, the number one Hispanic news and information company in the U.S. The company has just announced the launch of Community E-Journalism Media Labs in its newsrooms in New York and Los Angeles to assist local bloggers in covering the community.

A graduate of Ryerson University’s journalism program, Paton joined the Toronto Sun in 1977, holding a variety of titles before being appointed publisher and CEO of the Ottawa Sun in 1994. In 1997, he became publisher and CEO of the London Free Press. Paton was later CEO of www.canoe.ca and he played a senior management role in the 1996 management-led leveraged buyout of Sun Media Corp.