Until recently, a black-and-white photo of a woman holding her face in her hands was used to depict Mary Ellen Steinam — also known as Ellen Steinam — across social media and on the website of a marketing company founded by Toronto Police Service Board member Nadine Spencer. Steinam worked as chief operating officer of Spencer's company BrandEQ for more than a decade, according to her LinkedIn page. Her profile said she was based in New York and had previously held other prominent marketing jobs at Nestle and Saatchi & Saatchi as far back as 1994.
On Facebook and X, she shared posts and photos of Spencer — cheering on her boss and BrandEQ. But despite Steinam's online presence, it's unclear if she actually exists. A search of the LexisNexis database, which combs through 84 billion public records, found no record of anyone with either variation of Steinam's name living and working in New York state — or anywhere else in the United States.
Reverse image searches also revealed that Steinam's supposed headshot appears on dozens of unrelated websites as a stock image — as do two other purported photos of her shared on Facebook. A CBC Toronto investigation discovered Steinam is one of three seemingly fabricated or misrepresented employees who have appeared on the websites of BrandEQ and BrandEQ Black over the past decade. The other two involve the photos of identifiable but unaffiliated people being used to represent staff under a different name.
WATCH | Investigating Bra.
