Speakers

Biography

Vijay Advani is Chief Executive Officer of Nuveen, the investment management arm of TIAA. He is responsible for Nuveen’s strategy, distribution and operations, as well as the investment affiliates that comprise Nuveen's multi-boutique structure. Before joining the firm in 2017, Vijay was Co-President of Franklin Templeton Investments, where in a career of more than 20 years he was responsible for long-term strategic initiatives and the firm’s investment management, trading and global retail and institutional channels. Prior to joining Franklin Templeton, Vijay spent 11 years at the World Bank advising governments on developing their financial markets and arranging equity, quasi-equity and debt financing. He worked in several emerging economies in the former Soviet Union, Asia, Middle East and Africa. Vijay is a board member at Jumpstart, the U.S. - India Business Council (USIBC) and the U.S. - India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). He is also an advisory board member for The Hive Incubator in Palo Alto, advisory council member of DocuSign in San Francisco, charter member of TiE Silicon Valley and past board member at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania.Vijay is a committee member of the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative, member of the India Advisory Committee and Investment Committee at the Santa Clara University (SCU) and former board member of Lok Foundation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Biography

Professor SARAH MBI ENOW ANYANG AGBOR is currently the African Union Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology (elected in July 2017) which consists of: Education, Youth and Capacity Development and Science and Technology. She received her Educational training from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.  Before joining the African Union, she was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Business World (DVC-RCB), University of Bamenda -North West Region of Cameroon.

She previously served as Inspector of Academic Affairs No 1. at the Ministry of Higher Education, Cameroon during which she was responsible for evaluation and monitoring of Higher Education Institutions in Cameroon in strategic leadership, academic planning and quality, teaching and learning. She was the Focal Point for Pan African University; Conference of Ministers of Education in Africa (COMEDAF); Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers and most of all UNESCO. Moreover, she represented the Cameroon Minister of Higher Education in several capacities.

Prof. Sarah ANYANG AGBOR is a Cameroonian and Professor of African and Commonwealth Literatures. She has authored three text books and over thirty peer reviewed book chapters and scientific publications. She was also a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in residence at the University of Scranton, PA in 2004-2005 where she taught Modern African Drama and Prose respectively.

Biography

Mr. d’Aquino is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, corporate director, educator and author. He served as Chief Executive of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives from 1981 to 2009, as a Director of several of Canada’s largest global enterprises, as Senior Counsel to two leading law firms, as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada, and as an Adjunct Professor of International Trade Law at the University of Ottawa. He holds B.A, J.D. and LL.M. degrees and Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Queen’s, Wilfrid Laurier and Western Universities. Mr. d’Aquino is Honorary Professor at the Ivey Business School, Western University, Canada Chair of the North American Forum, Chair of the Foundation of the National Gallery of Canada, and a Distinguished Lifetime Member of the Business Council of Canada.

Biography

Ibukun Awosika is the Chairman, Board of Directors, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Nigeria's premier and most valuable banking brand. She is also the founder and CEO of The Chair Centre Group. The companies in the group include: The Chair Centre Limited, Sokoa Chair Centre Limited, Furniture Manufacturers Mart, TCC Security Systems and Cubes and Boxes Limited. These companies are involved in manufacturing, retail and bank-way security systems services.

Ibukun chairs a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards amongst which are: GEMS Africa, House of Tara International and Afterschool Graduate Development Centre (AGDC), a facility which she promoted to help address youth employability and enterprise issues in Nigeria. She sits on the boards of Cadbury Nigeria Plc., Digital Jewel Limited, Convention on Business Integrity (CBI),  International Women's Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC), Imperial Gate School and Peniel Apartments Limited. She was Chairman, FBN Life Assurance Limited, FBN Capital Limited and Kakawa Discount House Limited. She also served on the board of Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).

Ibukun is a graduate of Chemistry from University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria; an alumna of the Chief Executive Programme of Lagos Business School; the Global Executive MBA of IESE Business School, Barcelona-Spain; and Global CEO Programme of Wharton, IESE and China European International Business School (CEIBS).

With high interest in social issues, including women, Ibukun is a co-founder and past chairperson of Women in Business, Management and Public Service (WIMBIZ). An ordained Pastor and founder of the Christian Missionary Fund, Ibukun, through this faith-based organization works with hundreds of missionaries spread across Nigeria to change lives  with the provision of medical, educational, and other supplies.

As a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative, Aspen Global Leadership Network, Institute of Directors and Society for Corporate Governance Nigeria, Ibukun, through her projects aspires to use her opportunities in life to further the greatness of her dear country by raising entrepreneurs to create jobs for the large unemployed youthful population. She is a member of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), served on National Job Creation Committee (NJCC), and sits on the International Advisory Board of IESE Business School, Barcelona-Spain.

Ibukun is a multiple award-winning entrepreneur and the first Nigerian recipient of the prestigious International Women Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) Award as a nominee of the US Department of State in 2008. She loves to watch investigative and legal series in her leisure time. She is happily married to Abiodun Awosika and they are blessed with three wonderful sons.

Biography

Bertrand Badré is CEO and Founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital. Previously, Bertrand was Managing Director of the World Bank and World Bank Group Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Bertrand was the group chief financial officer at Société Générale and Crédit Agricole. He represented these institutions at the FSB, G7 and G20.

Bertrand also served as a member of President Jacques Chirac's diplomatic team where he was the President's deputy personal representative for Africa and as spokesman for the working group on new international financial contributions to fight poverty and fund development. Bertrand spent a total of seven years at Lazard, half as a partner in New York, and London, and then in Paris as managing director where he co-led the restructuring of Eurotunnel and focused on financial initiatives.

He started his career in Paris as an inspector, then deputy head, of the auditing service of the French Ministry of Finance. Bertrand has served as director on a number of boards, including the Haulotte Group, a leading global manufacturer of aerial work platforms, and on the supervisory board of the leading European PE firm Eurazéo. He currently serves on the board of Wealth Simple, a Canadian Fintech in asset management and on the advisory board of the International Water Bank. He is the co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on International Governance, Public-Private Cooperation and Sustainable Development.

Bertrand recently authored the book “Money Honnie, si la finance sauvait le monde?” published in English in 2017 under the title “Can Finance Save the World?” and translated into multiple languages. He has led the publication of several articles; namely “From Billions to Trillons: MDBs contributions to financing for development” and in 2004, wrote “Water” with Michel Camdessus, on finance and access to water, translated into Spanish and Portuguese.

Bertrand is a graduate of ENA (Ecole Nationale d'Administration), SciencesPo (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris), La Sorbonne and HEC business school (Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris.  He is a regular speaker and teacher at these institutions as well as at the universities of Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Oxford.

Biography

Actuaire et Fellow de la Society of Actuaries, Francis Baillet a été Vice-Président Ressources humaines de 2007 à 2013 pour Ubisoft Divertissements. Depuis avril 2013, Francis se voit confier un nouveau mandat Groupe à titre de Vice-Président Affaires corporatives. Au Canada, l’entreprise emploie actuellement près de 4 500 employés dans ses studios de Montréal, Québec, Saguenay, Piedmont, Halifax, Toronto et Winnipeg.

Francis cumule vingt ans d’expérience en direction des ressources humaines. Avant de se joindre à Ubisoft, il occupait le poste de vice-président, ressources humaines et services corporatifs chez Bell Solutions d’affaires (anciennement Technologies Nexxlink). Il a auparavant été directeur, rémunération globale pour l’Amérique du Nord chez Rexel, directeur, avantages sociaux chez Westburne et consultant chez Towers Perrin.

Francis est également administrateur du Conseil du patronat du Québec, de Montréal International, de KnowledgeOne, de l'Association canadienne du logiciel de divertissement, de l'Alliance numérique ainsi que de la Fondation Les 7 doigts de la main.

Biography

As Executive Vice-President and Head of CDPQ Global, Mr. Blanchard is responsible for CDPQ’s three main regional operations outside of Canada: United States/Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. As such, he is responsible for CDPQ’s international offices, with the objective of diversifying the portfolio by taking a holistic view in approaching the various markets. In addition to representing CDPQ with key stakeholders in global organizations, his mandate includes ensuring visibility as a partner of choice in targeted geographies. He sits on the Executive and Investment-Risk Committees.

Mr. Blanchard has a solid track record as a lawyer, as well as in business and international affairs. Before joining CDPQ in September 2020, he was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York from 2016 to 2020. In that role, he demonstrated exceptional leadership in promoting better alignment of capital with sustainable development. From 2017 to 2020, he sat on Canada’s North American Free Trade Agreement Council. Prior to that, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of McCarthy Tétrault, one of Canada’s leading law firms. In the 20 years he worked there, he also served as Managing Partner for Québec, litigator and strategic advisor for companies.

In addition to a Bachelor of Laws from Université de Montréal, Mr. Blanchard holds an LLM in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also holds a Master’s in Public Administration and a Master’s in International Affairs, both from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He was called to the Québec Bar in 1992.

Biography

Ban Ki-moon was the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, serving two consecutive terms, from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2016.

As Secretary-General, he focused on mobilizing world leaders around a set of new global challenges, from climate change and economic upheaval to pandemics and increasing pressures involving food, energy and water. He also galvanized partners from non-governmental organizations, faith groups, the business community and others active on the international stage, endeavouring to build bridges, give voice to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, and strengthen the United Nations.

Born in the Republic of Korea, Mr. Ban’s childhood was scarred by war. Fighting forced his family to flee to the mountains. When they returned, Mr. Ban learned, first-hand, the value of the UN’s life-saving relief aid. “That experience was a big part of what led me to pursue a career in public service,” he once said, pledging to enable the United Nations to provide tangible, meaningful results that advance peace, development and human rights.

One of the Secretary-General’s first major initiatives was the 2007 Climate Change Summit, followed by extensive diplomatic efforts that have helped put the issue at the forefront of the global agenda. His visits to hard-hit areas around the world, persistent advocacy on the issue and even a march through the streets of New York for climate action helped to push the world to act. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change, adopted in December, 2015, was signed by a record number of leaders the following April 22nd – Mother Earth Day – and entered into force on 4 November.

He also worked to advance the world’s main anti-poverty targets, the Millennium Development Goals, with a special emphasis on Africa and women’s and children’s health. At the height of the food, energy and economic crises in 2008, the Secretary-General successfully appealed to the G20 for a $1 trillion financing package for developing countries and took other steps to guide the international response and protect the vulnerable and poor.

Mr. Ban oversaw the widest global consultation in history as the United Nations canvassed governments, partners and individuals in drafting a successor agenda to the Millennium Development Goals. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in September, 2015, is a bold and universal plan with 17 Sustainable Development Goals for people, peace, prosperity and the planet through partnerships.

Mr. Ban pressed successfully for the creation of UN Women, a major new agency that consolidates the UN’s work in this area. His advocacy for women’s rights and gender equality has also included the UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, the "Stop Rape Now" initiative, the creation of a Network of Men Leaders and the establishment of a new Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Within the UN itself, he increased the number of women in senior management positions to their highest level in the Organization’s history.

Ban Ki-moon has sought to strengthen UN peace efforts, including through the New Horizons peacekeeping initiative, the Global Field Support Strategy and the Civilian Capacity Review, a package of steps to improve the impact of the 120,000 United Nations "blue helmets" operating in the world’s conflict zones. A mediation support unit, along with new capacity to carry out the Secretary-General’s good offices, have been set up to help prevent, manage and resolve tensions, conflicts and crises. Accountability for violations of human rights has received high-level attention through inquiries related to Gaza, Guinea, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, legal processes in Lebanon and Cambodia, and advocacy for the "responsibility to protect," the new United Nations norm aimed at prevent and halt genocide and other grave crimes. A critical self-examination of United Nations failures led to the creation of the Human Rights Up Front initiative. It aims seeks to bring the UN System together in a way that is mutually supportive, helps prevention, and prioritizes human rights. He has also sought to strengthen humanitarian response in the aftermath of mega-disasters.

Mr. Ban has sought to rejuvenate the disarmament agenda through a five-point plan, efforts to break the deadlock at the Conference on Disarmament and renewed attention to nuclear safety and security in the aftermath of the tragedy at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. He also joined others in a successful push for the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty, regulating the international trade in conventional arms – from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships.

The Secretary-General has introduced new measures aimed at making the United Nations more transparent, effective and efficient. These include heightened financial disclosure requirements, compacts with senior managers, harmonization of business practices and conditions of service, the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards, and continued investments in information technology and staff development.

The Secretary-General was born in the Republic of Korea on 13 June 1944. He received a bachelor's degree in international relations from Seoul National University in 1970. In 1985, he earned a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

At the time of his election as Secretary-General, Mr. Ban was his country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. His 37 years of service with the Ministry included postings in New Delhi, Washington D.C. and Vienna, and responsibility for a variety of portfolios, including Foreign Policy Adviser to the President, Chief National Security Adviser to the President, Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and Director-General of American Affairs.

Mr. Ban’s ties to the United Nations date back to 1975, when he worked for the Foreign Ministry's United Nations Division. That work expanded over the years, with assignments that included service as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization and Chef de Cabinet during the Republic of Korea's 2001-2002 presidency of the UN General Assembly. Mr. Ban has also been actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relations.

Ban Ki-moon and his wife, Madam Yoo (Ban) Soon-taek, whom he met in high school in 1962, have one son, two daughters and three grandchildren.

Since 2007, Mrs. Ban has devoted her attention to women’s and children’s health, including autism, the elimination of violence against women, and the campaign to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Biography

Helle Bank Jorgensen is a sustainability, climate change, and ESG advisor with close to 30 years of experience helping global companies and investors turn sustainability into strong financial results. She has worked with hundreds of world-leading companies including IKEA, Nike, Shell, Unilever, Novo Nordisk and Vestas.

She developed the Competent Boards Certificate Program to help board members, executives and advisors to confidently identify, articulate and act upon the most material environmental, social and governance aspects of their business. The program has engaged several world-class business leaders like Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO, who calls it an “Incredible initiative.”

She serves on His Royal Highness Prince of Wales A4S Global Expert Panel, the Cornerstone Capital Global Advisory Council, the WBCSD Governance & Internal Oversight High-Level Advisory Group and is a judge for Ethical Corporation awards. Helle is a Board Facilitator for the UN Global Compact Board Program, a regular keynote speaker and author of many thought-leading articles and books.

Helle was the creator of the world’s first Green Account as well as the world’s first Integrated Report. She also developed the first holistic supply chain program and was the principal organizer for the CEO/Investor-network for Business Ethics and Non-Financial Reporting. She has received the 2019 Clean50 award. Helle has extensive experience providing strategic and operational guidance to all organizational functions, including advising at the C-suite and board level.

She is a State Authorized Accountant and Business Lawyer. She also holds a Master’s in Business Administration and Auditing. 

Biography

John M. Beck is Founder and Chairman of Aecon Group Inc. (TSX: ARE), Canada’s premier construction and infrastructure development company.   A leader in providing services to private and public sector clients throughout Canada and internationally, Aecon primarily serves the Infrastructure, Energy and Mining sectors.

A graduate in Civil Engineering from McGill University, Mr. Beck has more than 50 years of experience in the construction industry in Canada and internationally. His background includes corporate leadership in numerous construction activities including heavy civil projects and public-private partnerships for the development of infrastructure, such as airports, toll roads and transit systems.

Mr. Beck is currently a member of the Board of Directors of PPP Canada, the Ontario Financing Authority, the Royal Conservatory of Music as well as Co-Chair of the Infrastructure & Urban Development Industries at the World Economic Forum.  He is a member of the Advisory Council for the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary and is also a member of the Business Council of Canada. He was previously Chairman of the Board of the Ontario Power Authority, a government agency with responsibility for planning and procuring all of the province’s power needs for the next 20 years.  He was named P3 Champion of the Year by the Canadian Council of Public Private Partnerships in 2013. In recognition of his distinguished achievements and career-long service to the engineering profession, Mr. Beck was inducted as a Fellow into the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Biography

Yoshua Bengio (computer science PhD, 1991, McGill U; post-docs at MIT and Bell Labs, computer science professor at U. Montréal since 1993): he authored three books, over 300 publications (h-index over 108, over 112,000 citations), mostly in deep learning, holds a Canada Research Chair in Statistical Learning Algorithms, is Officer of the Order of Canada, recipient of the Marie-Victorin Quebec Prize 2017, he is a CIFAR Senior Fellow and co-directs its Learning in Machines and Brains program. He is scientific director of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA), currently the largest academic research group on deep learning. He is on the NIPS foundation board (previously program chair and general chair) and co-created the ICLR conference (specialized in deep learning) and scientific co-director of IVADO. He pioneered deep learning and his goal is to uncover the principles giving rise to intelligence through learning, as well as contribute to the development of AI for the benefit of all.

Biography

Mark A. G Brantley has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of St. Kitts and Nevis since 2015. He has been active in electoral politics since 2006 and has served as a Senator in the Nevis Island Assembly and as Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in the Federal Parliament. He is also leader of the Concerned Citizens Movement which is currently governing the affairs of St. Kitts and Nevis under a tri-party Unity coalition government.  Brantley is a lawyer by profession and is a graduate of the University of the West Indies and Oxford University. He is a member of the bar in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Dominica and holds membership in several international professional associations such as the commercial Bar Associations and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Throughout his tenure as the Federation’s chief diplomat he has been a strong advocate for small island states, green investments and clean energy as a means of attaining resilience in the Caribbean.  He has addressed several high-level fora including the Organization of American States and United Nations General Assembly.  He has also lead efforts to expand the diplomatic footprint of St. Kitts and Nevis across the world.

Biography

Jane is currently the Chief Executive Officer at PAAMCO.  As CEO, Jane is responsible for overall business strategy and firm direction.

She began her career at J.P. Morgan Investment Management in the Capital Markets Group.  She has also been an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

She is currently serving as Director and Chairwoman of the Board for the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA).  She also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Torchmark Corporation (NYSE: TMK) and AGF Management Limited (TSX: AGF-B-T).

Jane is a guest on CNBC and Bloomberg television as well as a regular contributor to both the business and investment press.  She participates in many industry conferences as a moderator, panelist and keynote speaker.

Jane holds both a PhD and an MA in Business Economics (Finance) from Harvard University. She earned a BA in Economics from Yale University.

Jane and her husband, Jim Driscoll, reside in Newport Coast, California.

PAAMCO is a leading institutional investment firm dedicated to offering alternative investment solutions to the world's preeminent investors. Since its founding in 2000, PAAMCO has focused on investing on behalf of its clients while striving to raise the standard for industry-wide best practices. 

Biography

The Honourable Lawrence Cannon was appointed Canadian Ambassador to the French Republic and the Principality of Monaco by the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, on May 20th, 2012, and was reappointed to the position by the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau. He presented his letters of credence to the President of the French Republic, François Hollande on October 26th, 2012, and to H.S.H Prince Albert II of Monaco on October 30th. He completed his term as Canadian ambassador to France in September 2017.
Prior to his ambassadorial appointment, Mr. Cannon was an influential member of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, serving from 2008 to 2011 as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
After taking office in Paris, Ambassador Cannon actively promoted Canada’s economic interests including the adoption by the European Union of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). He deployed major efforts to increase Canada-France cross-investments resulting in the Program for Enhanced Cooperation, that was ratified on the occasion of President François Hollande’s state visit to Canada in November 2014, the first such visit of a French Head of State in over 25 years, followed by official visits to Canada of French Prime Ministers Jean-Marc Ayrault and Manuel Valls.
As a key player in the Canada-France bilateral relationship, Ambassador Cannon supervised the organization of the commemorative ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the capture of Vimy Ridge by Canadian troops toward the end of World War I, the 70th anniversary of the Allied Landings on the beaches of Normandy and Canada’s contribution to the liberation of France and Europe. Opening a new chapter of Canada’s presence in France, Mr. Cannon was also instrumental in the renewal
of Canada’s chancery in Paris.
Prior to his appointment in Paris, and in his capacity as head of the Canadian diplomatic corps and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Cannon represented Canada’s interests on the world stage. During his tenure, he led the coordination of Canada’s emergency assistance measures to the people of Haiti following the disastrous earthquake of 2010, the warming of diplomatic relations between Canada and China, the preparation of the 2010 G8 and G20 summit meetings hosted by Canada in the wake of the economic crisis that shook the world and the improvement of diplomatic and trade relations with the United States of America. He also participated in the transition of the Canadian Forces’ combat mission in Afghanistan to
a training mission of the Afghan troops and contributed to the implementation of Canada’s new Arctic foreign policy.
From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Cannon served as Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and Minister responsible for Québec in the Government of Canada. As member of the Caucus of the Conservative Party of Canada, he sat in the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the riding of Pontiac (Québec), and as Chair, Vice-Chair and Member of several committees (Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs and Defence, Priorities and Planning, Foreign Affairs and Security, Economic Growth and Long-term Prosperity, Environment and Energy Security and Economic Affairs and Operations).
Before running for office in the 2006 federal election, Lawrence Cannon had already made his mark, both as a Municipal Councillor, and Member of the Québec National Assembly. He was appointed Executive Assistant to Premier Robert Bourassa in 1971, serving in this position until 1976. He first served as Municipal Councillor for the Town of Cap-Rouge, a suburb of Québec City, from 1979 to 1985, when he ran for office as a Liberal candidate in the provincial riding of La Peltrie and was elected to the National Assembly of Québec. He was successively appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of External Trade and Technological Development (1985-1988), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism (1988-1989), and Deputy House Leader and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly (1989-1990). He also served as Minister of Communications of Québec from 1990 to 1994.
He resigned as Member of the National Assembly in 1994 and became Vice President of Government Affairs with Unitel, a telecommunications company and long distance telephone provider later known as AT&T Canada and Allstream, following which he formed Groupe Cannon & Associates and worked as a consultant in communications and public affairs.
Returning to public life in 2001, Lawrence Cannon was elected Municipal Councillor for the new City of Gatineau. Serving until 2005, he was Chair of the Board of Directors of the Outaouais Regional Transit Commission (Société de transport de l’Outaouais) and served as President of the Québec Association of Urban Transit (Association du transport urbain du Québec). In 2005, he became Deputy Chief of Staff of the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and Assistant Chief Executive Officer of the Conservative Party of Canada. He was then elected Member of Parliament for the riding of Pontiac (Québec) in 2006, a position he held until the federal election of May 2nd, 2011.
In early October 2011, he was appointed Chair and Senior Member of the Gowlings Government Affairs Group in Ottawa. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Oceanic Iron Ore Corporation. Mr. Cannon resigned from both these positions when he was appointed Ambassador of Canada to France.
In recognition of his services to the community, he was honoured as Personality of the Year 2011 by Tourisme Outaouais and awarded the Prix des Grands diplômés de l’Université Laval by the university’s Alumni Association in Québec City in 2012. In 2013, he was named to the Order of of Gatineau by the city’s Municipal Council. In 2016, the American Graduate School in Paris bestowed on him an honorary degree in International Relations and he was recently made Commandeur dans l’Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur at an official ceremony hosted by the Government of France at the French Embassy in Ottawa on September 29, 2017. He was also awarded the rank of Commandeur de l’Ordre de la Pléiade in March 2018.
Mr. Cannon holds an M.B.A. from the Université Laval (Québec City) and a Bachelor’s Degree from Loyola College in Montréal. Born December 6, 1947, in Québec City, he is married to Mrs. Christine Donoghue and the father of four children.

Biography

Named one of Ottawa’s Forty Under 40 by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, Catherine Clark is a nationally respected broadcaster, emcee, writer and the President of Catherine Clark Communications Inc.

Through her work in television and radio, Catherine has interviewed Canada’s most influential people, and is currently co-host of Before the Bell, a live journalism series featuring Canada’s top decision makers discussing major issues of the day.

She has hosted and co-produced The Residences, a documentary series offering an unprecedented look behind the scenes at Rideau Hall and 24 Sussex Drive, and is currently working on a documentary about the Canadian Parliament’s Centre Block.

Catherine is the Giving Back columnist for Ottawa at Home Magazine, authored the #150GreatPeople blog, has written for the Toronto Star and The Ottawa Citizen, and been published in The Globe and Mail and Canadian Living.

Biography

Anne-Marie Croteau is the first female dean of the John Molson School of Business at Montreal’s Concordia University. A professor in Concordia’s Department of Supply Chain and Business Technology Management, she is a highly respected academic leader with 25 years of teaching and research experience, including 10 years as an administrator.

Croteau is a certified chartered director and serves on the board of directors for leading organizations, including the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) and Hydro-Québec.

She has held several academic leadership positions at JMSB, including director of the Graduate Certificate in e-Business Program, the John Molson Executive MBA Program and the Global Aviation MBA Program, and associate dean of External Relations and Business Development. Most recently, she was associate dean of Professional Graduate Programs and External Relations at the JMSB.

In addition to her service to JMSB, she was associate dean at the School of Graduate Studies and participated on many university-wide committees where she demonstrated her capacity as a strong leader with a solid grasp of international issues and emerging opportunities, and expressed a strong appetite for innovation.

Highly cited, Croteau’s academic research focuses on the strategic management of information technology. She is a recipient of the JMSB Dean’s mid-career award for distinguished scholarship and for seven consecutive years, and was ranked as one of the most popular professors at Concordia by Maclean’s magazine.

Biography

Guy Cormier has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Desjardins Group since April 2016. Desjardins is the leading cooperative financial group in Canada and sixth in the world, with assets of over $248 billion. It is one of the 20 largest employers in the country, supported by the skills of its 47,000 employees and the commitment of more than 5,000 elected officers. Drawing on the strength of its caisse network in Quebec and Ontario and its subsidiaries across Canada, Desjardins Group offers a full range of financial products and services to its millions of members and clients. Desjardins specializes in wealth management, life and health insurance, property and casualty insurance, personal services, and business and institutional services.

Mr. Cormier has been with Desjardins since 1992, and was General Manager of several caisses in the network. He was Vice-President of Cooperative Network Finance from 2009 to 2012, before being appointed Vice-President of Cooperative Network, in 2012, and then Senior Vice-President of Cooperative Network and Personal Services in 2013.

Mr. Cormier has always encouraged audacity, agility and innovation to improve the experience of members and clients. Under his leadership, the organization's AccèsD Services earned their 11th Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC) certification, making Desjardins the only financial institution in the world to hold the certification that long. It was also under Mr. Cormier that new innovative technology-focused service centres were launched, earning several awards internationally.

In 2014, he was invited to give lectures and take part in round tables for events organized by the World Health Organization and the International Summit of Cooperative.

In 2013, the Quebec MBA Association recognized Mr. Cormier as one of 40 Quebecers with a major influence on business in the province.

Biography

Mr. Côté was appointed President and CEO of Investissement Québec in December, 2014.

A management consultant since 2012, he has experience running large North American and international companies. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Fibrek from 2008 to 2012, President of Bombardier Aerospace’s Business Aircraft division from 2006 to 2008 and President and Chief Executive Officer of Lantic Sugar from 2001 to 2005. In addition, he held a variety of management positions in the forestry industry for nearly 20 years.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Côté has served on numerous boards of directors. Until recently, he was a director of D-Box, Dessau, Centre for Commercialization of Innovation for Manufacturers and Fondation de la Maison Michel-Sarrazin. He has also supported the Grand défi Pierre Lavoie since 2010.

Mr. Côté has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Université Laval and completed a training program at the McGill Executive Institute.

Biography

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2003, Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin has been President and Chief Executive Officer of CIRANO since 2016, has been leading the Baromètre CIRANO project on risk perception in Quebec, which annually collects data on Quebecers' concerns on 47 social issues since 2011, is responsible of the CIRANO Pole on the Socio-economic Impacts of Digital Intelligence and Main Researcher of the theme Innovation and Digital Transformation. Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin is Full Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal. She is also a Visiting Scientist at Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health and an associate researcher at the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO).

Holding a Ph.D. in Management Science (in risks and insurance management) from École normale supérieure de Cachan, her research interests focus on risk management and decision-making in different risks and uncertainty contexts as well as public policies. Her research combines economic analysis, cost-benefit analysis, survey data analysis, and more recently massive unstructured data analysis.

In 2008 she created the RISQH network to raise awareness and share experiences on risks management, and patient safety and quality of care in health care facilities.

She participated in the creation of the Montreal Declaration for a Responsible Development of AI.

She is also co-PI of the "Monitoring and Surveys" function at the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology.

She has published numerous scientific articles, several books and more than 30 reports for government and other organizations. She has given more than a hundred conferences and is regularly solicited to speak in the media.

Biography

Tara Denham is the Director of the Democracy Unit at Global Affairs Canada, which includes the Digital Inclusion Lab. Her team is responsible for supporting the department in defining and advancing democracy through various policies and programming initiatives, including looking at how technology can be used in innovative ways to advance foreign policy priorities. The Digital Inclusion Lab focuses on engagement, research, analysis, and testing of tools in order to understand the rapidly evolving intersection of technology and foreign policy. Currently, areas of focus for the Democracy unit include reinforcing democracy from foreign interference (and the role of technology in this phenomenon); the defining and addressing the impact of artificial intelligence on human rights; and addressing technology facilitated violence against women. Previously, she managed programming teams within the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force, including the portfolios of the Middle East, Afghanistan, democracy and human rights, and peace support operations. She has also been deployed to Afghanistan as the Chief of Staff to the Representative of Canada to Kandahar (2009-2010). She has worked with the Department for 14 years, and previously worked in the non-governmental sector. Ms Denham has a Masters degree from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, with a focus on conflict studies.

Biography

Passionate about social and environmental issues, Etienne is equally as comfortable addressing small stakeholders as he is in a corporate boardroom.
His search for a solution to respond to the growing issues faced by small producers and the planet, led to the creation of ECOTIERRA, a developer of forestry and agroforestry projects which bring considerable socio-economic and environmental benefits to the participating communities.

Biography

He joined Power in 1981 and assumed the position of Vice-President the following year. In 1984, he led the creation of Power Financial to consolidate Power’s major financial holdings, as well as Pargesa Holding SA, under a single corporate entity. Mr. Desmarais served as Vice-President of Power Financial from 1984 to 1986, as President and Chief Operating Officer from 1986 to 1989, as Executive Vice-Chairman from 1989 to 1990, as Executive Chairman from 1990 to 2005 and as Chairman of the Executive Committee from 2006 to 2008. He also served as Vice-Chairman of Power Corporation from 1991 to 1996.

After Power Financial and the Frère Group of Belgium took control of Pargesa in 1990, Mr. Desmarais moved to Europe from 1991 to 1994, to develop the partnership with the Frère Group and to restructure the Pargesa group. From 1982 to 1990, he was a member of the Management Committee of Pargesa, in 1991, Executive Vice-Chairman and then Executive Chairman of the Committee; from 2003 to 2019, he was Co-Chief Executive Officer and he was named Chairman of the Board in 2013. He has been a director of Pargesa since 1992.

He also serves as Chairman of Power Financial and is a director of many Power Corporation group companies in North America, including Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life, Empower Retirement, Putnam Investments, IGM Financial, IG Wealth Management and Mackenzie. In Europe, he is Chairman of the Board of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert and a director of SGS. He was a director of LafargeHolcim until 2020 and of Total until 2017.

Mr. Desmarais is Chairman of the Board of Governors of The International Economic Forum of the Americas (Canada), a Trustee of The Brookings Institution, Co-Chair of the Brookings International Advisory Council and a member of the Brookings Executive Committee (Washington), a member of the Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations (United States), a member of the Global Advisory Council of Harvard (United States), a member of The Business Council (United States) and of The Business Council of Canada. He is also active on a number of philanthropic advisory councils.

In 1994, he received the Insigne d’Officier de l’Ordre de la Couronne of Belgium. In 2005, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada and he received the Executive of the Year Award from the Academy of International Business. In 2009, he was named an Officer of the Ordre national du Québec and in 2012, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in France. He holds a number of honorary doctorates.

He obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University and an MBA from the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD), France.

Biography

Unity Dow is a judge, human rights activist, and writer from Botswana. She came from a rural background that tended toward traditional values of the African kind. Her mother could not read English and in most cases decision-making was done by men.

Dow earned her acclaim as a lawyer particularly through her stances on women's rights. She was the plaintiff in a case that allowed the children of women with Botswana citizenship by foreign national fathers to be considered citizens of Batswana (Attorney General of Botswana v Unity Dow (1992). Before this case, according to tradition and prior precedent, nationality only descended from the father. She later became Botswana's first female High Court judge. She was also co-founder of the first all-female law practice Dow, Malakaila, and was one of the founding members of the women's organization Emang Basadi.

As a novelist, Dow has published five books. These books often deal with issues concerning the struggle between Western and traditional values. They also involve her interest in gender issues and her nation's poverty. Unity Dow contributed to the book "Schicksal Afrika" (Destiny Africa) by the former German President Horst Koehler in 2009. In May 2010, Harvard Press published her latest book, "Saturday is for Funerals," which describes the AIDS problem in Africa.

Since 2005, Unity Dow has been a member of a UN mission to Sierra Leone to review domestic application of international women's human rights norms. On 13 December 2006, she was one of three judges who ruled on the now internationally acclaimed Kgalagadi (San, Bushmen or Basarwa) court decision, concerning the rights of the San to return to their ancestral lands.

Unity Dow has been a Member of Special mission at the invitation of the Rwandan Government and UN special court for Rwanda since 2007. The purpose of this mission is to review the Rwandan Judiciaries preparedness to take over the hearing of the 1994 genocide cases.

Dow was a visiting professor of Law at the School of Law, Columbia University, New York, during the fall semester 2009, and further at Washington and Lee, Lexington USA, 2009, and University of Cincinnati, Ohio USA, 2009.

After retiring from the High Court Botswana in 2009, after 11 years of service, she opened the Legal Firm "Dow & Associates" in Botswana February 2010. Dow was also sworn in as Justice of the IICDRC (Interim Independent Constitutional Dispute Resolution Court) of Kenya by the Kenyan President to serve implementing the new constitution in Kenya.

Unity Dow served as Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. She was first elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. In 2006 she was also elected to the Executive Committee and subsequently re-elected in 2008. In March 2011 she was elected the Chairperson of the Executive Committee succeeding Dr. Rajeev Dhavan, India, effective June 2011 to June 2012.

Unity Dow is the only motswana listed under the world recognised feminists for her advocation in women rights from the period of 1940 to present.

On 6 July 2012 Unity Dow was appointed by The United Nations Human Rights Council as one of three independent experts to conduct a fact-finding mission on how Israel's West Bank settlements affect Palestinians. A preliminary version of the report published 31 January 2013 aroused much discussion.

In 2013, Dow decided to enter politics and to serve her country the extensive expertise she has gained in a variety of fields.

On 28 October 2014 Unity Dow was nominated by former President Ian Khama of Botswana as 'special elected member of parliament' and confirmed by the new 11th Parliament of Botswana. Unity Dow was also appointed Assistant Minister of Education in the Government of Botswana, responsible for Higher / Tertiary Education and Skills Development. On 1 March 2015 former President Ian Khama of Botswana appointed Unity Dow as Minister of Education and Skills Development in the Government of Botswana.

On 14 November 2014 Unity Dow was successful in representing LEGABIBO, the Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals of Botswana in a trial versus the State of Botswana to register LEGABIBO as an organization in Botswana. Previously the State has refused the registration on arguments it would be unconstitutional.

After election of the 5th President of Botswana M.E. Masisi on April 4th, 2018, and a reshuffle of his cabinet, Unity Dow took over as Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development in the Government of Botswana.

Biography

Born in Reykjavik 1951. He finished his MSc in Engineering physics in 1976, his PhD thesis on thermal models for buildings in 1981 and was appointed as an associate professor at Lund University in 1982. He was awarded the title of doctor honoris causae from the University of Debrecen in 2008, the Swedish Concrete Award in 2011 and the gold medal of the The Association of Chartered Engineers in Iceland in 2016.  Professor in Building Technology at KTH in Stockholm 1990-2008. His research has mainly covered building physics and energy conservation and energy quality management in the built environment. Since the beginning of 2008 he is the Director General of Orkustofnun, the Icelandic National Energy Authority which is responsible for public adminstration of energy research, energy utilisation, regulation and oil and gas exploration. Steering group member and former chair of the International Partnership for Geothermal Technologies, steering group member of the EU SET-Plan Steering Group and presently the coordinator of the Geothermal ERANET, a European project on cooperation on research funding and knowledge base for geothermal utilisation.

Biography

Sylvain is the Global Leader of BCG Advanced Analytics & Data Science business (GAMMA).

GAMMA’s purpose is to make AI real for businesses. We build solutions to radically transform the business performance of the world's most iconic companies in nine to twelve months; unleashing the power of large and complex data sets and fostering a culture of innovation and radical change. Our agile, self-funded, and AI-powered solutions ensure continuous improvement for our clients. We focus on enablement from day one, co-creating solutions while building assets and capabilities. We are a team of passionate and inventive top-notch data scientists and technologists with sharp business minds. It’s business with data science and technology built in - an analytics powerhouse with a business backbone.

Sylvain personally led several data centric transformations, notably across the insurance, retail and industrial goods industries. For example, he developed and rolled-out a pricing engine for a B2B retailer delivering individualized discount targets for 1 000 000 SKUs and 250 000 customers, using machine learning predictive models. After 6 months, the impact exceeds + 1 ppt in EBITDA margin for the SKUs covered (60% of sales).

Sylvain holds an MBA from INSEAD and an Engineering degree (math major) from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris.

Biography

Ed Dybka is the President of QIV Capital Management providing consulting and advisory services for the biopharmaceutical industry, academia and government on matters related to pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Previous to his current role, he was President & CEO of AstraZeneca Canada Inc., part of AstraZeneca PLC, one of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies.
Mr. Dybka has worked in the Canadian pharmaceutical industry for over 30 years. In 2012, he led the Canadian establishment of Almirall Canada Inc., a start-up biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of respiratory diseases.
Prior to establishing Almirall in Canada, Mr. Dybka held a number of executive roles at GlaxoSmithKline Canada including Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Public Affairs & Reimbursement. During this time, he was accountable for the marketing and sales of all GSK pharmaceutical products, including specialty care, oncology and vaccines, achieving strong commercial performance and employee engagement. Earlier in his career, Mr. Dybka held progressively senior roles in marketing and product development, as well as sales, at Glaxo Wellcome Canada Inc. and Zeneca Pharma Inc.
Mr. Dybka is currently Vice-Chair of Life Sciences Ontario, a Director of Clinical Trials Ontario and he is also the past Chair of the Acute Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation. He is a current member of the Life Science Working Group advising the Ministry of Research & Innovation for the Province of Ontario on it’s Life Sciences Economic Strategy. He is also a member of the Health/Biosciences Economic Strategy Table for the Federal Ministry of Health and Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
He has served on a number of other Boards including Innovative Medicines Canada, the Pharmaceutical Advertising and Advisory Board, the Canadian Pharmaceutical Distribution Network, The Mississauga Board of Trade and The George Hull Centre for Children and Family.

Biography

Bart W. Édes has served as the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB’s) Representative in North America since October 2017. In this capacity, he mobilizes financing for ADB’s developing member countries; shares development knowledge and experience; establishes and deepens partnerships with public, private and nonprofit organizations in North America; and raises public awareness of ADB in Canada and the United States.

His earlier ADB experience includes leading teams responsible for knowledge management, social development, gender equity, the social sectors, civil society engagement, ICT for Development, inclusive business, governance, and public sector management. He guided the formulation of ADB’s Public Communications Policy, which set a new global benchmark for transparency and information sharing among the international financial institutions. Mr. Édes has also served as Alternate Chairperson of ADB’s Appeals Committee, and Member of the ADB Integrity Oversight Committee.

Between 1994 and 2000, Mr. Édes managed communications at SIGMA, a joint initiative of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development providing support to public governance reform in Central and Eastern European countries. Mr. Édes has also worked as a journalist, researcher, policy analyst, and specialist on international trade and foreign direct investment.

He has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Government (cum laude) from Georgetown University. Mr. Édes is a dual national of Canada and the United States.

Biography

Mohamed A. El-Erian is Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he formerly served as chief executive and co-chief investment officer. He chaired President Obama’s Global Development Council from 2007 to 2014, is a columnist for Bloomberg View and a contributing editor at the Financial Times.

 Dr. El-Erian first joined PIMCO in 1999 and was a senior member of PIMCO's portfolio management and investment strategy group. He rejoined the company at the end of 2007 after serving for two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment and related accounts. Before coming to PIMCO, Dr. El-Erian was a managing director at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in London and before that, he spent 15 years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.

 Dr. El-Erian has published widely on international economic and finance topics. His 2008 book, When Markets Collide, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year and was named a book of the year by The Economist and one of the best business books of all time by the Independent (UK). He was named to Foreign Policy’s list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers” for four years in a row. He served on the 2014 and the 2015 juries for the Financial Times/McKenzie Book of the Year award. His book The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability and Avoiding the Next Collapse was published on January 26, 2016.

Dr. El-Erian has served on several boards and committees, including the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, the International Center for Research on Women, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the IMF's Committee of Eminent Persons and the New York Fed’ Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. He is currently a board member of the NBER, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New America, and Cambridge in America. Since 2007, he has been chair of Microsoft’s Investment Advisory Board. He holds a master's degree and doctorate in economics from Oxford University and received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge University.

Biography

A highly-recognized Canadian life sciences leader with broad global experience, Karimah Es Sabar has had a successful career spanning multi-national pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies, start-up companies, not-for-profit organizations and venture investment firm. She has provided leadership in marketing, business development, strategic alliances, global collaborations, public private partnerships, developing and executing innovation and translation strategies in the life science sector, building innovation ecosystems, entrepreneurship in startups, and in biotech investment.

In July 2016 Ms. Es Sabar accepted the position of CEO & Partner at Quark Venture Inc., a venture investment firm focused on life sciences, to expand and lead their health sciences enterprise. In partnership with GF Securities, a leading investment bank in China, one of the largest global health sciences venture funds was established in 2016 and headquartered in Vancouver, Canada with offices in Boston, Berkley, Hong Kong and Chengdu, and she is a Director of this GHS Fund. The fund is diversified to invest globally in disruptive pre-clinical and clinical stage companies, IPOs and publicly traded companies in therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics, medical devices, health IT, health AI and novel emerging convergent technologies.

In 2009 Ms. Es Sabar joined The Centre for Drug Research and Development, Canada’s national drug development and commercialization centre, as Senior Vice-President, Business and Strategic Affairs, leading its business functions, and successfully building an array of national and international alliances and strategic industry partnerships. In 2012, she took on the role of President and CEO responsible for developing and executing on the overall strategic direction of the organization. Since Ms. Es Sabar joined CDRD, she enabled new public and private sector funding in excess of $180M, multiple commercial transactions including 6 spin out companies and a M&A, and grew the organization with expanded national and international reach to include partnerships right across Canada, and in 12 countries on five continents – firmly establishing its reputation as one of the world’s leading pre-clinical translational research and commercialization centres. Ms. Es Sabar was also appointed Founding Chair of the Global Alliance of Leading Drug Discovery and Development Centres in 2013, an association of international peer organizations dedicated to translating health research into new medicines, the formation of which she spearheaded.

Ms. Es Sabar took on the role of leading BC Biotech in 2005, re-engineering and rebranding the organization to LifeSciences BC. As President, she led the organization to its greatest levels of success as a strong business development organization for the life science industry and the scientific research community. Ms. Es Sabar has also held senior management positions with multinational pharmaceutical companies, most notably as Director International Division, and later Head Marketing and Business Development at Pasteur Merieux Connaught [Sanofi Pasteur] based in Toronto, when she championed and successfully launched two major first in class and first to market vaccine and biotherapeutic products. Ms. Es Sabar also served as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for a Vancouver medical devices company, Medsurge Medical Inc., and was the founder of two start-up companies in Kenya, both became leading organizations setting new standards in the marketing and distribution of biopharmaceutical products in the region.

Biography

Dr. Alan Evans is a James McGill Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering at McGill University since 2009, and a researcher in the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre (BIC) of the Montreal Neurological Institute.
He is co-director of the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health and is Principal Investigator of CBRAIN, a pan-Canadian project to integrate Canadian brain research with the Compute Canada high-performance computing grid. He is the sole Canadian participant in the $1.1 billion European Human Brain Project, and is a co-principal investigator of the Big Brain project. He is Scientific Director of McGill’s $84 million CFREF project, “Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives.”
Dr. Evans heads the Data Coordinating Center for a large NIH multi-centre MRI study of normal pediatric development. This provides a web-accessible reference database of neuroanatomical and behavioral maturation. Methodologies including (i) web-based imaging/behavioral database, LORIS (ii) automated image analysis pipelines, and (iii) brain-behaviour correlation analysis. These methodologies are used in a many network collaborations on abnormal pediatric development (MAVAN, IBIS, NeuroDevNet, GUSTO) and multi-centre initiatives to investigate Alzheimer’s Disease (AddNeuroMed and NeuGrid).
Dr. Evans was principal investigator in the Montreal Consortium for Brain Imaging Research (MCBIR), which was founded in 2000 with a $35 million award from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
He was a co-founder of the International Consortium for Brain Mapping (ICBM), a multinational effort funded by the U.S. Human Brain Project to create a computational atlas of the adult human brain. He was one of the founders of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), serving in numerous positions on the OHBM Council since 1995.
Dr. Evans obtained his B.Sc. (1974) in Physics at Liverpool University and his M.Sc. (1975) in Medical Physics at Surrey University. Dr. Evans completed his Ph.D. (1979) and post-doctoral fellowship studying structure-function interaction of proteins at the Department of Biophysics at Leeds University in the U.K. Subsequently he worked for five years as a PET physicist at Atomic Energy of Canada in Ottawa.
In 1984, he joined the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University, where he became a full professor in 1995 with appointments in Neurology and Neurosurgery and Biomedical Engineering.
Dr. Evans' research interests include cognitive neuroimaging, neuroanatomical variability, and image-processing methodologies for PET and MRI. He pioneered the technique of multi-modal 3D brain imaging with PET and MRI, which provides detailed 3D images of brain anatomy.
As BIC Coordinator from 1992 to 2000, Dr. Evans fostered the development of brain “activation” studies in which specific brain regions show subtle changes in blood flow in response to cognitive and sensorimotor stimuli. This so-called brain-mapping technique is widely used to map human brain functions. Dr. Evans extended these techniques to large-scale studies of brain anatomy.
This work has spun off a new company, Biospective Inc., which performs fully automated analysis of neuroimaging databases collected as part of pharmaceutical clinical trials.
Dr. Evans was awarded a Computerworld-Smithsonian Award for achievements in information science and medicine. In 2014, he was awarded the Vezina Prize for Quebec Neuroradiology, and the Margolese National Brain Disorders Prize from the University of British Columbia. In 2015, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and elected OHBM Chair. In 2016, he was awarded Quebec’s highest honour for scientific research, the Prix du Québec (Wilder Penfield), and the magazine Science ranked him #6 in a list of the most influential brain scientists of the modern era.
Dr. Evans has published over 550 peer-reviewed papers, and is a member of numerous international advisory boards, review panels and research collaborations. He was acknowledged as a Thompson-Reuters Highly Cited Scientist for 2014 and 2015 (top 1% in Neuroscience and Behaviour).

Biography

Myriam LeBlanc holds an MBA from Laval University in Québec, Canada, and has more than 17 years of experience in international development. For nearly 10 years, she is Development Director at Econoler, an international consulting firm specialized in the design, implementation, evaluation and financing of energy efficiency projects and programs. Econoler is known by the international donor and development community for its long-term experience and expertise in implementing assignments all around the world. Therefore, Myriam is very familiar with project implementation and procurement procedures of a wide range of international institutions,  including multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies, international NGOs, and bilateral development banks.

Biography

Patrick Latour is Senior Vice President, Growth & Transition Capital, based in our head office in Montreal. Patrick has nearly 20 years’ experience in the financial services sector and has worked around the country helping entrepreneurs in a variety of sectors grow and mature their businesses. A financial specialist with a particular enthusiasm for management buy‑outs and acquisitions, Patrick oversees a team that dedicates enormous energy to understanding the specific business plans of their individual clients in order to tailor solutions perfectly. Patrick teaches his teams to both work harder and work smarter, keeping in mind that entrepreneurs respond best to those who show the same commitment to success as they do themselves.

Biography

Naser Faruqui, is the Director of Technology and Innovation at IDRC where he leads a global team that helps developing countries use science, technology, and innovation for sustainable and equitable development. Naser holds an Executive MBA from Queen’s University, a Master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Ottawa, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. His areas of expertise include water management, urban development and climate change, science and innovation systems in developing countries, science diplomacy, open science, and digital innovations for improving education, entrepreneurship, and governance. Naser oversees projects such as the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Next Einstein Initiative, the science granting council initiative for Africa, the Open Data for Development Program, a big data research network, and an emerging network on artificial intelligence and development. He is the chief architect of IDRC’s Open Access to Research Outputs Policy and Chairs IDRC’s Open Data Working Group.  He has published widely, most recently on science and innovation.

Biography

Éric Filion was appointed Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Customer Experience Officer in 2022, as part of a major restructuring initiative at Hydro-Québec. In this capacity, he manages electricity supply, the operation and maintenance of all generation, transmission and distribution assets, as well as technical services and customer interactions. He also oversees shared services, including the management of materials, real estate and the vehicle fleet, as well as food, lodging and air transportation services. He is also in charge of operations-related health, safety and environment activities.

Mr. Filion joined Hydro-Québec in 2016 as Vice President – Customers and was promoted to President of Hydro-Québec Distribution in 2018. He also assumed responsibility for Hydro-Québec’s shared services in 2020 and for strategic procurement in 2021, at which time his division was replaced by a group and he became Executive Vice President – Distribution, Procurement and Shared Services.

Previously, Mr. Filion spent 20 years in the aeronautics industry. He worked at CAE Électronique, Pratt & Whitney Canada and Bombardier, where he was Vice President and General Manager for Challenger business aircraft.

Mr. Filion earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada and a master’s in aerospace engineering from Polytechnique Montréal. He is a member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec and has completed the ICD-Rotman Directors Education Program. Deeply involved in the community, he sits on the boards of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal and the Institut du cancer de Montréal. He has chaired the fundraising campaign of Maison Tangente, a hostel for young adults in difficult circumstances, since 2017. He is co-chair of the 2021 fundraising campaign “Together…healing homelessness” at La rue des Femmes and has been the division co-chair for the Industry/Transportation sector of Centraide of Greater Montreal’s campaign since 2020.

Biography

Former President and Chief Executive Officer of Desjardins Group from 2008 to 2016, Monique F. Leroux is the President of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) and the founder and Chair of the International Summit of Cooperatives.

She is also Chair of the Board of Investissement Québec, Chair of the Quebec Economic and Innovation Council, appointed by the Quebec Government in 2016 and a member of The Canada-U.S. Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders, created in February 2017.

She is also chair of the Board of Governors of the Society for the Celebrations of Montreal’s 375th anniversary and Metropolis 2017. She serves as an independent Board member of global companies such as Bell (BCE), Couche-tard (ATD), Michelin (ML-France), Crédit Mutuel/CIC as well as S&P Global.

Ms. Leroux is a Member of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Ordre national du Québec and a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. She also holds honorary doctorates and awards from eight Canadian universities.

Biography

Since June 2002, Lady de Rothschild has been the Chief Executive of E.L. Rothschild LLC, a private investment company with investments in media, information technology, agriculture and real estate. Holdings include The Economist Group (U.K.), Weather Central LP (U.S.), real estate and financial instruments. Lady de Rothschild has been a director of The Estee Lauder Companies since December 2000 and The Economist Newspaper Limited (member of the Audit Committee) since October 2002-2017. She is a director of the Peterson Institute of International Economics and an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations (U.S.), Chatham House (U.K.) and the Institute for Strategic Studies (U.K.). She is a graduate of Pomona College and has her J.D from the Columbia University School of Law.

Biography

Mindy S. Lubber is the CEO, President, and early board member of Ceres, a non-profit organization that is mobilizing many of the world’s largest investors and companies to take stronger action on climate change, water scarcity and other global sustainability challenges. She directs Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk and Sustainability, a group of 146 institutional investors managing over $22.3 trillion in assets focused on the business risks and opportunities of climate change. Mindy also oversees engagements with 100-plus companies, many of them Fortune 500 firms, working towards improving their commitments to sustainable business practices and the urgency for strong climate and clean energy policies.

Under Mindy’s leadership, Ceres launched The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability and The 21st Century Investor: Ceres Blueprint for Sustainable Investing, visionary guides highlighting environmental and social performance improvements companies and investors must achieve to succeed in the resource-constrained 21st century global economy.

In 2016, Mindy received the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network, and the William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from the Center for Environmental Policy at American University. The December 2015 online edition of Vogue Magazine featured Mindy as one of their “Climate Warriors”, one of the top 13 women advancing the Paris Climate Agreement at the UN Conference at COP21. In 2010, Mindy was honored by the United Nations and the Foundation for Social Change as one of the “World’s Top Leaders of Change” for her work in mobilizing leading companies to integrate environmental challenges into core business strategies. She is a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was named one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Corporate Governance” by Directorship magazine.

Biography

Anne Gaboury is the current President and Chief Executive Officer at Développement international Desjardins (DID), a position she has held since 2002.

• Développement international Desjardins (DID) is a Canadian institution specializing in the development of inclusive finance in emerging or developing countries. Its main levers for development include consulting services, investment and management contracts for financial institution operations.
• DID has more than a hundred employees, thirty of whom are based outside the country carrying out assignments on three different continents, and it works in association with major microfinance investors and maintains financial and technical partnerships with over twenty financial institutions operating around the world.

Ms. Gaboury holds a Master’s degree in psychology (M.Ps.), and a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA). In 2009, she earned an ASC (administrateur de société certifié) chartered corporate director professional designation.

In addition to her responsibilities as President and Chief Executive Officer of DID, she is President of the Strategic Orientation Committee for AUF (Agence universitaire de la Francophonie) and a member of the board of directors of the Institut québécois des Hautes études internationales at Laval University. She has also been a board member of the Canadian Council on Africa (CCAfrique) and chaired the development committee of the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF). It should also be noted that DID, in its capacity as an investor, has representation on the boards and committees of numerous financial institutions and investment funds.

Biography

Ms. Orit Gadiesh has been the Chairman of the Board of Bain & Company, Inc., since 1993. She is a world-renowned expert on management and corporate strategy. She has advised a multiplicity of Chief Executive Officers and Senior Executives of major international companies on strategy development and the implementation of change. She has counseled top level management on structuring and managing portfolios, developing and implementing global strategy, executing turnarounds, improving organizational effectiveness, and designing both cost reduction and growth programs.

She is on the Board of Trustees and on the International Business Council (IBC) of the World Economic Forum. She is an Advisory  Board Member at Harvard Kennedy School, a member of HEC Int'l Advisory Board, and Governor of the Tel Aviv University. She is a member for life, former vice chairman and former chairman of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council to the Mayor of Shanghai (IBLAC). She is a Member of the Council of Foreign Relations and sits on the International Advisory Board, Atlantic Council of US.  Since 2014, Ms. Gadiesh is also a Member of Supervisory Board at Koninklijke Philips N.V. She serves as a Board Member of Renova Management AG, and served as a Non-Executive Director of WPP plc from 2004 to 2014.

She volunteers her experience as a Pragmatic Strategist to academic, business and civic communities. She is a regular contributor to business publications and a sought-after public speaker, at events such as the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Her achievements and outstanding leadership have been publicly recognized, in the USA and beyond. Recipient of awards: named one of Fortune Magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Business”, and Forbes Magazine’s “The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World”. She has received the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award for outstanding achievement, the Distinguished Leadership Award from IDC University, the Leadership Award from Ben Gurion University, the International Institute of Boston’s 25th Annual Golden Door Award for outstanding contribution to the community, and Le Trophée de l’INSEAD by the French Minister of Finance, Economy and Industry.

Ms. Gadiesh holds an MBA (Hons) from Harvard Business School and was a Baker Scholar; she also holds a BA (Hons) in Psychology from Hebrew University.

Biography

Education and training

• 1989: Faculty of Petrochemical Technology – Petroleum-Gas Ploieşti University;
• 1992: Postgraduates studies in industrial marketing– The Management Institute of Bucharest;
• 1994: Training on occupational health problems – The Institute of Medicine, Bucharest;
• 2007: Postgraduates studies on the management of local public administration – The National Institute of Administration Bucharest.Professional activity

• 1996 – 2004: Director General – SC ARPAROM SA Bucov;
• 1994 – 1996: Responsible for toxicology and environmental protection – SC ARPACOR SA Bucov;
• 1990 – 1994: Chemical Engineer - rubber processing technology – SC ARPACOR SA Bucov.Political activity

• 2015-Vice-President of ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Party) and President of ALDE Prahova
• 2014 – Vice-President of Liberal Reformist Party  (LRP) and President of LRP Prahova
• 2011 – 2014:Vice-President of the National Organization of the Liberal Women;
• 2006 – 2011: President of the liberal women –National Liberal Party (NLP) Prahova;
• 2004 – 2014: Member of the NLP Prahova;
• 2003 – 2004: President of the Romanian Humanist Party – Ploiești subsidiarity.Trade union, employers group activity etc.

• 2000-2004: Member of the Boarding Council of AJOFM Prahova and Vice-President of CNIMM Ploieşti.Central and local public administration activity

• April 2017-present –Deputy Prime-Minister, Minister of environment
• January-March 2017-Minister for the relation with the Parliament
• December 2014- November 2015: Minister of environment, waters and forests;
• 2004-2007: Deputy Mayor of Ploieşti Municipality.Previous parliamentary activity

• June 2014 – present: ALDE Deputy
• December 2007 – June 2014: NLP Deputy

Biography

Jürgen Gerke serves as CEO and chairman of the board of management at Allianz Capital Partners since 2015. Jürgen oversees the Renewables investment business, Legal and Compliance as well as Communications.

Prior to becoming CEO he was CFO at Allianz Worldwide Partners from 2013 to 2014, and CFO of Allianz France from 2007 to 2013. Jürgen has among others held roles in Dresdner Bank, Euler Hermes and the European Commission.

Jürgen holds a degree in law from the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, and participated in executive programs at INSEAD, Harvard and IMD.

Biography

A graduate of Supélec, David Giblas began his career at Axa in France and South East Asia. He then joined PwC, then IBM as the Insurance Manager for Western Europe. After having created a tech start-up, he joined Capgemini Consulting in 2006 as vice-president and head of financial services activities in Asia. In 2013, he became a partner in the Insurance Practice of Oliver Wyman.

He joined Malakoff Médéric in 2017 as Chief Digital Officer, where he is in charge of Innovation, Health, Digital and Data Partnerships.

Biography

Gordon Hanson holds the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego, and has faculty positions in the Department of Economics and GPS, where he also is director of the Center on Global Transformation. He is a professor at the School and is presently a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and co-editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. He is a past co-editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Development Economics.

Hanson received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and his B.A. from Occidental College in 1986. Prior to joining UC San Diego in 2001, he served on the economics faculty of the University of Michigan and the University of Texas. Hanson specializes in the economics of international trade, international migration and foreign direct investment. He has published extensively in the top academic journals of the economics discipline, is widely cited for his research by scholars from across the social sciences and is frequently quoted in major media outlets. Hanson’s current research addresses how trade with China has affected the U.S. labor market, the consequences of skilled immigration for the U.S. economy and the long-run determinants of comparative advantage.

Biography

Amy Harder is one of the top national energy and climate change reporters in the U.S., considered to be a uniquely balanced and influential journalist with respect across the spectrum. She covers these issues in a regular column at Axios, called Harder Line. In her column and elsewhere on Axios.com, Harder reports on trends and exclusive scoops, while also distilling into understandable formats complex energy and climate issues relevant to people outside the industry. Harder interviews some of the biggest CEOs in the energy industry, and at the same time bridges the gap between what CEOs say and what everyday people care about. Previously, she covered the same issues for The Wall Street Journal, based out of its Washington, D.C., bureau, and before that at National Journal. She has appeared on PBS NewsHour, MSNBC, CBS and NPR, among many other media outlets. She is regularly sought out to speak and participate in events, including moderating and participating in panel discussions and giving speeches in Washington and throughout North America. She is originally from Washington State and received a B.A. in journalism with honors from Western Washington University.

Biography

Jean-François Harel is a lawyer and a member of the Quebec Bar. He has a law degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal, and a graduate degree in management from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales.

After working for a few years in private practice, Mr. Harel joined La Coop fédérée in 1989 as Assistant to the Secretary General. Since then, Mr. Harel has served as Corporate Secretary and, over the years, various functions in the fields of communications and public relations have been added to his mandate.

Notably, he has worked to obtain provincial tax measures beneficial to the capitalization of agricultural cooperatives, the introduction of television programs promoting the agricultural profession, the overhaul of the trademark and corporate identification framework for the agricultural cooperatives in La Coop’s network, and the establishment of the Fonds coopératif d'aide à la relève agricole (cooperative fund to assist young farmers).

Mr. Harel’s recent appointment to the position of Secretary General at La Coop fédérée completes the management team for the cooperative. His more than 20 years of experience within the decision-making bodies of the La Coop network and his knowledge of the cooperative world and its challenges is an asset for La Coop fédérée.

Biography

Pierre Heilbronn is responsible for the Bank’s country and sector strategies, policy engagement, TC and initiatives upholding and supporting the Bank’s transition mandate.

Before joining the EBRD in November 2016, he was deputy chief of staff for France’s Minister of Economy and Finance. Before that, he served as the European advisor of the French Prime Minister and for six years. Earlier in his career, he assisted in the creation of the European External Action Service. As head of Cabinet of the European Commissioner for External Relations and Management of Development Aid, he worked on the Neighbourhood policy and on the management of EU development aid at the programming cycle.

Pierre Heilbronn started his career in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Department of European cooperation) and the Ministry of Finance.

He graduated from the Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris and the Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA). He holds a Master of Economics from Cambridge University and a Master of European studies from the College of Europe of Bruges. He also studied in Yale University and Georgetown University.

Biography

Danièle Henkel is caring and capable businesswoman that managed to position her personal and entrepreneurial brand in Quebec. Her eponymous brands have helped pave the way to well-being and position "beauty in truth" as a new social norm in the business world.
Danièle Henkel is a genuine person of influence who lends her voice to many causes that are dear to her. She focuses, among other things, to mold a stronger and outward-looking Quebec. A strong advocate for the promotion of women entrepreneurship in Quebec, she does not hesitate to finance,
support, mentor and invest in businesses in which she believes in, as demonstrated during her five seasons on Quebec’s "Dans l’oeil du Dragon".
In hopes of a solid and well-trained succession — on human and economic levels — Danièle Henkel capitalizes on education. In addition to establishing her own medical cosmetic academy, she shares her knowledge by giving impactful conferences at home and abroad, notably in Europe and Africa.
Daniele Henkel is a woman who transforms every challenge into professional and personal achievements. Resettlement, immigration, emancipation… her best-selling autobiography has empowered several generations of proud and strong women. A mother of four and a family woman, Daniele Henkel manages her companies with the help of her children. While life has not always been
easy for the intuitive entrepreneur, her obsession to create a softer, more caring world remains.

Biography

Michael Polsky is a leading energy industry entrepreneur and innovator. In 2001, Polsky founded Invenergy, which provides innovative power generation and storage solutions around the world that are creating a cleaner energy future.  With nearly a thousand employees on four continents, Invenergy develops, owns and operates wind, solar, natural gas and advanced energy storage projects. It is North America’s largest independent, privately-held renewables company. Between 1985 and 2000, Polsky founded and led two predecessor companies to Invenergy – Indeck Energy Services and SkyGen Energy – that helped pioneer the independent power generation and cogeneration industries.

Polsky’s philanthropic efforts also reflect his passions for entrepreneurship and energy innovation. He endowed and is the Chair of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and co-founded the nonprofit startup accelerator Clean Energy Trust. He also serves on the boards of World Resources Institute, University of Chicago and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Polsky holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Kiev Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Biography

Glenn Hutchins is Chairman of North Island and North Island Ventures and a co-founder of Silver Lake. He is a director of AT&T, Virtu Financial and Digital Currency Group; Co-Chair of the Brookings Institution and CARE; Vice Chair of  the Obama Foundation; on the Executive Committee of the Boston Celtics Basketball Team; and a board member of the New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of GIC Private Limited, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore.

He was a Director and Chair of Audit and Risk Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2011- 2020.  Mr. Hutchins also served President Clinton in both the transition and the White House as a special advisor on economic and health-care policy.

He was previously chairman of the board of SunGard Data Systems, Inc. and Instinet, Inc. and a long-time director of Nasdaq, Inc.  He was also a director of the Harvard Management Company for a decade and co-chairman of Harvard University’s capital campaign.

Mr. Hutchins and his wife, Debbie, founded the Hutchins Family Foundation which, among other projects, is supporting the construction of the Obama Presidential Center and has created the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University; the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at The Brookings Institution; and the Chronic Fatigue Initiative, which conducted basic research into the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Mr. Hutchins has published essays on economic and public policy in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Fortune and Foreign Affairs. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Hutchins holds an A.B. from Harvard College, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Biography

Huda is the Founder and CEO of Dot Health, a real-time personal health data platform. With a background in engineering from the University of Toronto and a prolific career at some of Toronto's best known startups including Wattpad, Wave, and Wealthsimple, her latest venture is transforming the way people access and control their own health information for good. Huda's work has been featured in The Globe and Mail, Metro News, CNBC, and Metro Morning. She has been recognized amongst the Top 5 CEOs in Toronto Life and as a Top 25 Women of Influence in 2017. Huda serves on the Business Innovation and Development committee at Sinai Health System and on the Canadian Federal Economic Strategy Table for Health and Biosciences.

Biography

Josu Jon Imaz San Miguel was born in Zumárraga (Gipuzkoa) on 6 September 1963. He is married and has three children.

Doctorate in Chemical Sciences from the University of the Basque Country. He graduated from the Faculty of Chemical Sciences in San Sebastián. He received the End of Degree Extraordinary Prize.

In 2008, Josu Jon Imaz joined the Repsol Group as Chairman of its Petronor unit, where he successfully managed the challenges surrounding modernization, sustainability and community relations.

In 2012 he joined Repsol’s Management Committee and, as General Director of the Industrial and New Energy unit, completed two of the company’s most important projects in recent years: The modernization of the Cartagena refinery--Spain’s largest-ever industrial investment at over 3.1 billion euros-- and the construction of a new fuel-oil coking plant at Petronor’s Muskiz refinery, with an investment of over 1 billion euros.

These two projects have had a significant effect on employment in the areas where they have been developed. The increases in production and efficiency resulting from these projects have placed both facilities amongst the most efficient in Europe and ensured their viability in an especially difficult European refining environment. These projects also generate significant resources to finance the expansion of the Group’s other businesses, especially oil and gas exploration.

Under his stewardship, Repsol has increased its activity in new types of energy and energy sustainability, identifying new business opportunities, developing projects and initiatives in advanced technology, including bioenergy, renewable power and sustainable mobility. These pioneering projects are key to meet challenges that the energy industry faces in the 21st century.

Before joining Repsol, Imaz San Miguel undertook an intense professional career from technological investigation- he was sent by the INASMET Technology Centre to the French CETIM Centre in Nantes-to the development of industrial projects (Grupo Mondragón) related to the energy industry. He was also a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School in the United States.

As well as his industrial activity, Josu Jon Imaz also held political posts, including Regional Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism of the Regional Government of the Basque Country in 1999 and Chairman of the executive committee of EAJ-PNV party between 2004 and 2007.

His professional activities outside Repsol include his post as Chairman of the Spanish Association of Petroleum Products Operators (AOP) which he has held since 2011.

In 2014 he was named Chief Executive Officer of the company and member of the Delegate Committee

Biography

Dr. George Jabbour is the Associate Dean for Executive Programs and Professor of Finance at The George Washington University School of Business. He has been a consultant and conducting professional training for the World Bank Group in Washington DC (USA), Vienna (Austria) and Islamabad (Pakistan), for The International Training Banking Center in Budapest (Hungary), the Center of Excellence in Management in Kuwait, and for Kipco Asset Management Group (KAMCO) in Kuwait.  He was a Visiting Professor at Franklin College in Lugano (Switzerland), Dongseo University (South Korea), Holy Spirit University-Kaslik (Lebanon), Renmin University in Beijing (China), and Sorbonne University in Paris (France).  He has been instrumental in developing partnerships with institutions engaged in training, research and higher education. He has several publications in professional refereed journals. He co-authored “The Option Trader Handbook” for trade adjustments. His research papers were presented in the US and around the world. He is a member of several leading professional finance organizations He is a member of the editorial advisory board of four journals. Four of his co-authored papers won the best paper award. He has received several Teaching Excellence Awards. In addition to his academic career, Dr. Jabbour is active in equity and derivatives trading. He was Senior Financial Analyst at Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and a consultant to several American corporations and international organizations. He has a Ph.D. in International Finance, an MBA in Finance, a BBA in Marketing, and BS in Mathematics.

Biography

Malavika is the inaugural Executive Director of Digital Asia Hub, a Hong Kong-based independent research think-tank incubated by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where she is also a Fellow. A technology lawyer for over 15 years, she practised law at Allen & Overy, London, and was Vice President and Technology Counsel at Citigroup. She was featured in the International Who’s Who of Internet e-Commerce & Data Protection Lawyers, and voted one of India’s leading lawyers. She taught India’s first course on Information Technology & Law in 1997, and is adjunct faculty at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law in Chicago. She is on the Advisory Boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Mozilla’s Tech Policy Fellowship, and on the Executive Committee of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. Malavika is an Associate Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), as part of its Asia-Pacific Programme. She is also a member of the High-level Expert Advisory Group to the OECD project, “Going Digital: Making the Transformation Work for Growth and Well-being”.

Biography

Michael W. Johnson is the President of Parsons Corporation Business Unit.
Parsons is a digitally enabled solution provider in the Infrastructure, Defense
& Security Markets with over 14,500 employees and top line revenues exceeding $3 billion. Parsons Infrastructure is a globally recognized design build integrated delivery firm that deploys solution oriented technology in all aspects of infrastructure delivery from design to construction to asset
management.
Mike has more than 28 years of experience in the engineering progressive and
construction industry. Parsons Infrastructure is one of Parsons Corporation’s
primary business units, providing customers worldwide with full-service engineering, management, and technical services in the aviation, road, highway, bridge, tunnel, and rail and transit systems markets.
In his tenure at Parsons, Mike has progressed from the management of
multimodal projects and infrastructure development for complex transportation projects to his current position. In his career, he has served as a project and program manager, vice president, business development director, and division manager. He led Parsons’ global expansion of the bridge and tunnel division, providing clients state-of-the-art technical design and management services. As the executive vice president of business development for Parsons Transportation Group, now known as Infrastructure, Mike directed global sales to three record years and led alternative project delivery strategies for transportation infrastructure projects. He also led the relationship, deal development, and due diligence for Parsons’ acquisition of Delcan, in 2014. Now, as president, he is responsible for overseeing the entirety of Parsons' global business activity in aviation, rail and transit, transportation-related systems, long-span bridges, and tunnels, as well as the North American infrastructure market.
During his career, Mike has contributed to some of Parsons’ most recognizable successes, including the project development of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Autoroute A-25, the development of specialized expertise in Canada-U.S. border crossings, securing complex projects through alternative delivery strategies worldwide, and the development of and implementation of technologies that are now commonplace on Parsons’ projects.

Biography

As the deputy innovation leader for Financial Services (FS) advisory at EY’s Union Square innovation center, David Kadio-Morokro helps EY FS advisory and its clients develop and industrialize innovation strategies to realize the opportunities offered by digitization and emerging technologies.

Throughout nearly two decades in the Advisory Services Practice at EY and as the risk technology lead for seven years, David has helped our clients implement risk, capital, and regulatory technology solutions and have led large global engagements across the technology system development life cycle. Specifically, he has advised a number of top-tier international and US banks on their regulatory and compliance efforts; his project experience spans across Basel, CCAR, Reg W programs, Data Quality and Governance, Credit Risk architecture, Risk Reporting, Credit Portfolio Management and implementation of third party risk management solutions.

Through his dedicated work in risk and capital management in the post financial crisis regulatory transformation era, David has gained a deep understanding of the challenges the industry faces in innovating under the scrutiny of regulators and stakeholders with little room for error. His teams use this knowledge to help clients safely and profitably transform and pursue their growth and innovation agenda.

David is a member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), and has received my Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification in 2004.

Biography

Michael Katchen is Co-Founder and CEO of Wealthsimple, a leading financial services innovator operating in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K.

Michael cares deeply about entrepreneurship, advancing innovation in Canada, and enabling everyone, regardless of age or net worth, access to the tools and services they need to achieve financial freedom. He is an active member of the Canadian Business Council and is on the Board of the SickKids Hospital Foundation, and the Wealthsimple Foundation, an initiative that helps children from low-income families save for post-secondary education.

Michael has been called an Industry Mover by the Financial Post, a Change Agent by Canadian Business Magazine, and one of Toronto’s 50 most influential people by Toronto Life. Mr. Katchen has received the Entrepreneur of the Year award from Ernst & Young, Canadian Startup Awards, and Techvibes, as well as been named one of Canada's "Top 40 Under 40".

Biography

Julie Insley was appointed Quebec Regional Executive Director, Strategic Policy Sector at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), on December 2, 2013.
Prior to taking up her responsibilities at ISED, Ms. Insley worked for close to 20 years for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development most recently as director of the Quebec Regional Office, in Montréal, and in Ottawa as director of the International Trade Portfolio Division and of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Division.
Ms. Insley joined the federal public service in 1994 and served as Trade Commissioner in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1996 to 1999.  In the course of her career, Ms. Insley has worked on a range of files and initiatives for the Canadian government such as Canada’s bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations and export credit financing support for a number of strategic industries, including the automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding sectors. Ms. Insley holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McMaster University. She sits on various boards of directors including: Aéro Montréal, CEFRIO, Montréal InVivo and TechnoMontréal.

Biography

Mr. Kerin was named Chief Executive Officer and President of the Chicago Stock Exchange in April 2014. Mr. Kerin has been with the Exchange since 1988 and has held many positions, most recently as President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Kerin began at the Exchange in the Application Development group for 12 years and was Vice President of Application Development from 1996 to 2000. Thereafter, he assumed the position of Senior Vice President of Enterprise Development where he helped manage the Exchange’s enterprise wide growth initiative. Mr. Kerin also became the Chief Information Officer where he was responsible for all aspects of IT development and operations. As the operation of the Exchange became increasingly technology centric, in 2003 he was given the added responsibility of Chief Operating Officer.Mr. Kerin was named Chief Executive Officer and President of the Chicago Stock Exchange in April 2014. Mr. Kerin has been with the Exchange since 1988 and has held many positions, most recently as President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Kerin began at the Exchange in the Application Development group for 12 years and was Vice President of Application Development from 1996 to 2000. Thereafter, he assumed the position of Senior Vice President of Enterprise Development where he helped manage the Exchange’s enterprise wide growth initiative. Mr. Kerin also became the Chief Information Officer where he was responsible for all aspects of IT development and operations. As the operation of the Exchange became increasingly technology centric, in 2003 he was given the added responsibility of Chief Operating Officer.Prior to joining the Exchange, Mr. Kerin worked as a software engineer for Northrop Corporation for over four years.Mr. Kerin earned an M.B.A. from the Illinois Institute of Technology Stewart School of Business in 1990 and graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology Armour College of Engineering with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1984.Mr. Kerin served as Alderman for the City of Park Ridge, Illinois and later spent four years on the Board of the Park Ridge Economic Development Corporation to promote the community’s business environment. During that time, Mr. Kerin served a term as Chairman of the Board and spearheaded initiatives to enhance the tax base of the community through zoning and land use strategies. Mr. Kerin also served for nine years on the Board of the Center of Concern which provides housing solutions, support services and counseling for seniors, disabled and others in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Mr. Kerin is a current member of the Securities Traders Association of Chicago.

Biography

David is a Senior Partner in McKinsey & Company's Healthcare Practice and co-leads the Firm’s Center for US Health System Reform.  Over the past three decades, he has worked with many of the leading health insurers, health systems, state health agencies, and large employers. David advises clients on both strategy development as well as transformation programs, including care delivery and payment model re-designs, administrative and medical cost restructuring, future operating visions, organization re-designs, capability building efforts, and M&A integration.

David is passionate about making high quality health care affordable for everyone, particularly the least well off, and led the launch of the Firm’s Medicaid Practice.  He has published on a variety of topics including: Medicaid growth strategies for health insurers, the big data revolution in health care, designing high performance provider networks to enhance affordable quality, and managing US health care costs.  In the past two years, he has presented to the management teams and Boards of over 90 companies on the implications of health care reform and served as a keynote speaker at industry forums including America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Health Datapalooza, World Health Care Congress, National Institute for Health Care Management, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and National Governors Association.

Within McKinsey, David serves on the Partner Review Committee (PRC) and is a leader in Partner training, where he serves as Master Faculty and New Partner Coach.  He is an enthusiastic advocate for advancing the careers of McKinsey’s women professionals, serving as Global Dean of Women and Inclusive Learning, co-leader of the Women's Initiative in the North-East Office, and faculty for the Women’s Pathway to Partner program.  He has built gender balanced leadership teams on all the client service teams that he leads.

In addition to his client commitments, David is an ardent supporter of the arts and serves on the Advisory Boards of the New York Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan School of Music, Glyndebourne Opera (UK), and Improbable Theater Company (UK).  In 2009, he was a David Rockefeller Fellow with the Partnership for New York City.

Prior to joining McKinsey, David completed a Ph.D. and Master's in Political Philosophy from Oxford University as well as a B.A. Honours degree in Canada from Queen's University.  He lives in Manhattan and is married to Françoise Girard, a lawyer and President of the International Women's Health Coalition.  Françoise is also Chair of American Friends of Les Arts Florissants, a baroque orchestra.

Biography

David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms.  Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987.  Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing $174 billion from 31 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa.  Following Duke, Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of The Law Review.

From 1973-1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.  From 1975-1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments.  From 1977-1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.  After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).

Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations; a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a Trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Institute for Advanced Study; and President of the Economic Club of Washington.

Mr. Rubenstein is the Vice Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Business Council, Harvard Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, and Board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community.

Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution.

Biography

From September 2005 to August 2013, Pascal Lamy served for two consecutive terms as General Director- of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  A committed European and member of the French Socialist party, he was Chief of Staff for the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors from 1985 to 1994. He then joined the Credit Lyonnais as CEO until 1999, before returning to Brussels as European Trade Commissioner until 2004. Mr. Lamy holds degrees from HEC School of Management, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (IEP) and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

Pascal Lamy was appointed, in 2015, interministerial delegate for the preparation of the French candidature for the Universal Exhibition 2025, and in 2016 President of the French Committee of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and chair of the European group of experts in charge of evaluating the impact of EU research funding. He shares his other activities between the Jacques Delors Institute (President emeritus), the presidency of the World Committee on Tourism Ethics, as well as various mandates or missions related to international affairs. He is also President of the Board of Directors of the Musiciens du Louvre  (Orchestra of Marc Minkowski), member of the Board of Directors of the Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, Transparency International France and the Center on Regulation in Europe (CERRE), special advisor of TradeMarkEastAfrica (TMEA) and of the World Trade Board, member of the Advisory Board of Transparency International, the Oxford Martin School, of UNITAID, of the Friedland Institute, of Chatham House’s group on EU-Chia partnership and affiliate Professor at HEC. He is currently also member of the Global Future Council on regional Governance at the World Economic Forum.

Pascal Lamy is author of various books and reports on global governance, Europe and international trade. His latest publications are:  Oxford Martin Commission: “Now for the long term” (2013); “The Geneva Consensus” (Cambridge University Press, 2013); “Quand la France s’éveillera” (Odile Jacob, 2014), Où va le monde ? (Odile Jacob, 2017)

Pascal Lamy also lectures to the benefit of Institut Jacques Delors or other non-profit organisations on issues related to globalisation, global governance, international trade, international economics, regional integration, European and French issues.

In a recent poll casted by the British magazine Prospect (April 2014), Pascal Lamy is in the top 50 of the world’s leading thinkers. He is also ranked among the 100 most influential thinkers of the “Thought leader Map 2015” published by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.

Biography

Jean Lebel was appointed president of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) on May 1, 2013. As part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts, IDRC champions and funds research and innovation within and alongside developing regions to drive global change. Dr Lebel leads IDRC’s contributions to Canada’s international priorities. He is responsible for significant funding partnerships with foreign governments, philanthropic organizations, and the private sector.

Dr Lebel previously served as vice-president of the Program and Partnership Branch, overseeing all IDRC programming. Before joining IDRC, he worked in both the academic and private sectors. He holds a PhD in environmental sciences from l’Université du Québec à Montréal and an MScA in occupational health sciences from McGill University.

Dr Lebel has served on boards of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, the Centre for Global Pluralism,‎ the International Economic Forum of the Americas, and the World Economic Forum’s Stewardship Board on Economic Progress. Dr Lebel was also a mentor with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (2016-2017).

Biography

Martin is co-founder, President and CEO of Caprion Biosciences, a leading provider of specialized proteomics and immune monitoring laboratory research services to the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He is also a director of numerous private company and not-for-profit boards. Prior to Caprion, Martin was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company as well as co-owner and senior executive of another successful biotech venture, Advanced Bioconcept. Martin earned his bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Moncton prior to completing an M.A. in Economics and Politics at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Biography

Enrico Letta is the Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po in Paris and also the President of the Jacques Delors Institute.

He was the Prime Minister of Italy from April 2013 to February 2014. Before he served as Minister for EU Affairs (1998-1999), as Minister for Industry, Commerce and Crafts (January-April 2000, during the second D’Alema Government), as Minister for Industry, Commerce and Crafts and Foreign Trade (2000-2001, during the second Amato Government) and as Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister of the centre-left government led by Romano Prodi from 2006 to 2008.

Between 2001 and 2015 he was Member of the Italian Parliament, excluding between 2004 and 2006 when he was Member of the European Parliament. He also served as deputy Secretary of the Democratic Party (PD) from 2009 to 2013.

From 1993 to May 2013 he managed an independent think tank, Arel, founded by the late Beniamino Andreatta. He was also Vice Chairman of Aspen Institute Italia, President of the Italy-Spain Dialogue Forum, and a member of the Trilateral Commission.

He was born in Pisa (Tuscany) in 1966 and he spent the first years of his life in Strasbourg. He graduated in International Law at the University of Pisa and obtained a PhD in European Union Law at the School for Advanced Studies “Sant’Anna” of Pisa.

Biography

Mr. Lévesque began his economist career in 1983 with the Quebec Government, first with the Crop Insurance Board and later with the Department of Finance.  He joined Finance Canada in 1991 and moved up the ranks in economic development, tax policy and federal-provincial relations, leading to his appointment as Associate Deputy Minister of Finance in 2004.

He was promoted to Deputy Minister in 2006 with responsibility for intergovernmental affairs in the Privy Council Office.  He was appointed as Deputy Minister of International Trade in 2008, as Canada’s Sherpa and personal representative of the Prime Minister in 2010, and as Deputy Minister of Transport Canada in 2012.

Mr. Lévesque left the public service in July 2015 and later joined the International Forum of the Americas as Chief of Operations for the Montreal Conference.  In April 2017, he was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Finance Montreal, the cluster of financial institutions in Quebec.

Born and raised in Quebec City, Mr. Lévesque obtained a first degree in Mathematics and a Masters in Economics from Laval University.

Biography

Janet Longmore is the founder and CEO of Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) and a champion for technology-driven, community-owned, and youth-led solutions to global challenges. Under her leadership, DOT has developed a network of thousands of young people who are invested in their communities in Africa, the Middle East and Indigenous Canada as leaders of change and digital social innovators. DOT’s footprint has reached 25 countries, built on a foundation of long-term partnerships across private and public sectors, including with Cisco Systems, IBM, The Mastercard Foundation, and agencies such as Global Affairs Canada (GAC). Janet serves on the steering committee for the World Economic Forum’s Internet for All Initiative and the ITU/UN Women EQUALS in Tech Initiative, is an active Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur and a Senior Ashoka Fellow. In 2016, Janet was decorated with the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Cross, recognizing her strong example of social leadership and innovation bringing honour to Canada.

Biography

Éric Martel was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer, Bombardier Inc. on March 11, 2020 and officially started in the role on April 6, 2020. He is also a member of the Corporation’s Board of Directors.

Prior to his appointment, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Hydro-Québec since July 2015. From 2002 until 2015, he held positions of increasing responsibility within Bombardier, including President of Bombardier Business Aircraft, President Bombardier Aerospace Services, Vice-President and General Manager of the Global and Challenger platforms and he also worked at Bombardier Transportation from 2002 to 2004 as Vice President Operations for North America. Prior to joining Bombardier, Mr. Martel worked for various other high-profile multinational companies, such as Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, Procter & Gamble and Kraft Foods.

Éric Martel holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Laval University and was awarded an honourary doctorate by Concordia University in 2019. He is also a member of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec.

On February 18, 2021, Mr. Martel was appointed to serve on the Board of Directors of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). In addition, he has been actively involved with Centraide of Greater Montreal for over 20 years. He served as co-chair of the organization’s 2019 campaign. Mr. Martel also co-chairs the fundraising campaign of the Fondation de l’Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal. He sits on the board of Robotique FIRST Québec and is a member of the advisory board of Concordia University’s Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science.

Biography

Géraldine Martin has served as editor-in-chief and assistant publisher of Groupe Les Affaires since January 2013. Prior to this, she was managing editor of Les Affaires, Quebec’s business publication, until December 2011.

Géraldine Martin was previously in charge of content for Les Affaires. In addition to overseeing the newspaper’s Investir supplement, she was responsible for the content of the LesAffaires.com website.

She boasts 17 years of experience in the field of communication and finance. After earning her master’s degree in finance from Université Paris II Assas, she delved into the world of communications in 1998 when she joined the Bloomberg news agency in Paris as interview manager for the U.S. company’s French television channel.

Géraldine Martin immigrated to Quebec in 2000 to work as a researcher at Radio-Canada for Capital-Actions, a French-language business and finance program. In 2002 she went on to become a journalist for the show, then hosted by Claude Beauchamp. She then moved to Journal de Montréal in 2004, where she worked in business and economic news as part of the launch of Votre Argent, a business weekly. During Journal de Montréal’s 2009 lockout, Martin was recruited by Transcontinental Group.

Géraldine Martin is the first woman to hold the assistant publisher and editor-in-chief position at Les Affaires since its inception 87 years ago. She was 37 years old when she was appointed to the position in 2013.

In addition to overseeing Quebec’s biggest business publication, she is often asked to speak at and moderate conferences. Last fall the French Embassy in Canada asked her to host a number of meetings with French president François Hollande. At key forums, she has also been asked to interview major figures such as Quebec premier Philippe Couillard and Desjardins Group president Monique Leroux.
In November 2014, Géraldine Martin was celebrated for her achievements in the Notable Awards, where she took top honors in the Journalism category as a remarkable young professional. The Notable Awards pay tribute to young professionals in Ontario, Quebec, and Western Canada who stand out for their professional dedication and commitment to the community, as well as for being a source of inspiration for their teams.
Géraldine Martin volunteers her time in support of three causes: the advancement of women in business, promoting immigrant integration, and helping young people succeed in business. She sits on the board of mentors for Jeune chambre de commerce de Montréal, the city’s youth chamber of commerce.

Biography

Leonardo Martinez-Diaz is the Global Director, Sustainable Finance Center of the World Resources Institute. In this capacity, he leads our engagement with governments, development finance organizations, and private financial institutions to rapidly accelerate the shift to sustainable finance. He also guides and amplifies the Finance Center’s research, analysis and influence strategies, and oversees the technical support that the finance team provides across WRI.

Leonardo joins WRI after six years at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Environment, he was responsible for overseeing multilateral climate and environmental funds, directing Treasury's domestic and international work on climate finance, and leading on climate change elements of international negotiations, including at the G7, G20, UNFCCC COP, and the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. He stands out for his intimate knowledge of relevant institutions—he has worked for the IMF, World Bank and USAID, and served on the board of the Green Climate Fund—as well as his fresh ideas and force of intellect. He brings a wealth of international experience, including time in Indonesia and Mexico, and continues WRI’s tradition of close and trusting working relationships with all stakeholders, especially developing countries.

Biography

Strive Masiyiwa is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Econet Group, a pan-African telecommunications, media and technology company with operations and investments in 29 countries.

 Masiyiwa serves on a number of international boards including Unilever Plc, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Advisory Board, the Africa Progress Group, and the Hilton Foundation's Humanitarian Prize Jury. Masiyiwa also serves as Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a position he took over after Kofi Annan’s term.

 As a philanthropist, Masiyiwa is a member of the Giving Pledge, and his contributions to education, health and development have been widely recognized. Masiyiwa and his wife finance the Higher Life Foundation, which has supported the education of over 250,000 African orphans in 20 years. Their family foundation provides scholarships to over 40,000 orphans every year.

 Masiyiwa has been selected twice, in 2014 and 2017, to Fortune Magazine’s list of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders”.

 Over the last few years, Masiyiwa has devoted his time to mentoring the next generation of African entrepreneurs through his Facebook page, which has a growing followership of over 3-million young people from across the continent. Facebook has identified his platform as having the most engaged following of any business leader in the world.

Biography

Romualdo Massa Bernucci became Permanent Representative of the European Investment Bank Group in Washington, D.C. on May 1st, 2017.
Prior to assuming this role, he served as Director for EIB operations in Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia and Western Balkans and since 2016 in Germany, Poland, Baltic and Scandinavian countries. He was appointed Deputy Director General in 2016.
Mr Massa Bernucci joined EIB in 1985 and built extensive expertise in the financing of projects in infrastructure, energy and corporate sectors. His work also covered projects implemented outside the European Union, namely in various countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and Western Balkans. In the latter, he also contributed to the establishment of the Western Balkans Investment Framework, which allows the blending of resources from the European Union, International Financial Institutions, and bilateral donors as well as the provision of advisory services for projects aimed at fostering economic growth and job creation in the region.
Prior to joining EIB, Mr Massa Bernucci held positions as an economist in the research departments of Fideuram SpA in Rome and the Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano in Milan (both institutions have been subsequently incorporated in the Banca Intesa San Paolo group). From 1983 to 1985, he served as an economist in Addis Ababa for the United Nations Commission for Africa where he contributed to research publications on the social and economic conditions of African countries and also assisted with the coordination of emergency aid during the severe drought which hit the Eastern Africa region in 1984.
Mr Massa Bernucci holds a degree in Economics (cum laude) from the University La Sapienza (Rome) and a MBA from the Luigi Bocconi University (Milan).
During his military service in 1980-81 he served as an officer of the Italian financial police (Guardia di Finanza) in Rome and contributed to the drafting of several manuals for the training of recruits.
He is married to Micaela and they have three children.

Biography

Gérard Mestrallet is a graduate of the French engineering school, École Polytechnique, and of École Nationale d’Administration. Having held various positions at the Treasury Department and on the staff of the Minister of Economy and Finance (Jacques Delors), Gérard Mestrallet joined Compagnie Financière de SUEZ in 1984. In 1986 he was appointed Senior Executive Vice-President in charge of industrial affairs. In 1991 he was named Chairman of the Management Committee of Société Générale de Belgique. In 1995, he became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Compagnie de SUEZ. Gérard Mestrallet was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GDF SUEZ (now ENGIE) when SUEZ merged with Gaz de France on July 2008. Since May 2016, he is Chairman of the Board of SUEZ, and since May 2018, he has also served as Honorary Chairman of ENGIE.

Biography

Over the last 20 years, Jeff Mitelman has built his career by challenging the status quo in financial services. Recognizing the gap between what was needed vs. what was being offered by traditional financial industry participants, Jeff was set on building businesses focused on those who were underserved. In 2001, he co-founded Cardex, focusing on bringing the traditionally American independent bankcard model to Canada. He was responsible for creating the first ISO-Acquirer relationship in Canada and launched the first initiative to bring the white-label bankcard industry to Canada. At Thinking Capital, Jeff is responsible for building and maintaining the numerous industry relationships the Company has, including those with Canada’s largest financial institutions. Jeff is a graduate of McGill University and a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Biography

Dr Joanna Newman is Chief Executive and Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), where she is responsible for fostering and promoting the Association’s aims, as defined by its membership, in developing inter-Commonwealth relations in higher education. Established in 1913, the ACU is the world's first and oldest international university network, with more than 500 member institutions in over 50 countries. With three distinct but interconnected areas of work – member services, programmes, and scholarship administration – supported by robust infrastructure and governance arrangements, the ACU delivers value to its members while achieving impact on the world of higher education and wider society.

Prior to joining the ACU in April 2017, Joanna was Vice-Principal (International) at King’s College London. Her previous positions include Director of the UK Higher Education International Unit (now known as Universities UK International) and Head of Higher Education at the British Library. Joanna is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of History at King’s College London and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. She has also taught history at University College London and the University of Warwick.

Joanna is on the board of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study, the board of trustees for CARA and The Conversation. She is a judge on the Times Higher Education Awards, and regularly speaks on issues relating to higher education and internationalisation at conferences, roundtables, and on international platforms. In 2014, Joanna was awarded an MBE in recognition of her work promoting British higher education internationally.

Biography

Jasandra Nyker is the CEO of BioTherm Energy, a renewable energy investment and project development platform focused on sub‐Saharan Africa. She is on the board of SAWEA (South African Wind Energy Association), and is one of just three South Africans on the World Economic Forum’s 2012 list of Young Global Leaders selected from 59 countries around the world.

Prior to this, Ms. Nyker managed the direct investment portfolio on behalf of the PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund and played an integral role in transaction sourcing, due diligence, investment execution and post‐investment management. At part of this role, she reviewed and evaluated over 700 investment opportunities and invested in 13 companies across multiple sub‐sectors and geographies. Ms. Nyker was previously a board director on four portfolio companies (Brazil, US) and a board observer for three companies and played an active role in business development, fundraising and international market rollout. She also served as an advisor to a Middle Eastern National Oil Company’s Energy Venture Fund.

Prior to joining PCG, Ms. Nyker worked for Booz Allen Hamilton in London, where she focused on alternative energy and private equity related projects. A significant portion of her time was spent establishing an alternative energy fund for one of the leading national oil companies in the Middle East, for which she subsequently led multiple alternative energy investments.

Before that, she worked at Lehman Brothers in London. She also worked for Brait Private Equity and Nedcor Investment Bank in South Africa.

Ms. Nyker holds an MBA from the London Business School, where she was a Merrill Lynch Scholar, and a Business Science degree in Finance from the University of Cape Town.

Biography

President and CEO of Fondaction, Geneviève Morin Has been leading the shift and focus of the financial industry towards sustainability for over 30 years. Recognized as a pioneering and for her expertise in sustainable finance, she actively works to mobilize capital and various stakeholders for the positive transformation of the economy to make it more equitable, inclusive, green and successful.

Biography

Vanmala Subramaniam is a trilingual business journalist with over seven years of storytelling for television, radio and digital. She is currently the Money and Economics editor for VICE News, where she covers trade and economics, Canada's burgeoning cannabis industry, real estate, and issues related to millennials and their spending habits. Prior to VICE, she travelled around the world producing documentaries, news coverage and specials that aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2015, she was on location in Indonesia to produce and direct an hour-long episode about the wrongful conviction of Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman for Canada’s premier investigative current affairs program, the fifth estate. The previous year, she was part of a CBC team that investigated General Motors’ ignition switch cover-up, where we revealed how Transport Canada’s negligence on the matter led to the death of a Canadian man.

Vanmala has an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College, University of Toronto in Economics and Political Science. She also has a graduate diploma in Journalism from Concordia University.

Biography

Laura Tuck assumed the position of World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development on July 1, 2015. In this role, she oversees the work of the Global Practices and thematic groups that bring together the best expertise from across the World Bank Group, and from partners, to help countries tackle their most complex challenges in the area of sustainable development. The practices and thematic group under her responsibility include Agriculture; Climate Change; Energy and Extractives; Environment and Natural Resources; Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience; Transport and Digital Development, and Water.

Before taking this position, Ms. Tuck served for close to two years as Vice President for the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. During this period, ECA’s lending and advisory services increased substantially, stepping up support for programs and projects aligned with the goals of reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity.

Ms. Tuck joined the World Bank in 1987 as a Young Professional, and worked initially as an Economist in the Middle East and North Africa Region (MNA) and, later, in the ECA Region, as a Lead Economist in the Chief Economist’s Office and then as Sector Manager for Agriculture and Rural Development.

Her extensive experience in sustainable development includes a decade leading the Bank’s work in this area in two regions. Between 2002 and 2006 she was the Director for Sustainable Development in ECA and, from 2006 to 2011, she held the same position in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region.   She then became Director of Strategy and Operations supporting the Regional Vice President in the MNA region, followed by a stint in the same position in ECA.

Before joining the World Bank, Ms. Tuck worked for several consulting firms in the areas of agricultural policy, food policy, and food needs assessments.  She also served on the faculty of Princeton University as part of a university research project, and worked and lived in Africa between 1980 and 1987.

Ms. Tuck has an MPA from Princeton University in Economics and Public Policy and a BA from the University of California at Davis in Economics.  She is married and has two grown children.

Biography

First elected as city councillor in Saint-Marie district in 2013, Projet Montréal members chose Valérie Plante to lead the party in 2016. Her contagious passion and energy has helped her rally people around her progressive vision. Deeply concerned about participatory democracy, Valérie Plante has a bold plan for Montreal centered on increased access to public transit, better urban planning and public services, the economy and the environment. Her commitment is to bridge the gap on these issues for all 19 city boroughs.

Before jumping into the political arena in 2013, Valérie Plante studied anthropology, museology, multiethnic intervention, and was actively involved with numerous community groups, such as Fondation Filles d’action.

She became Mayor of Montreal on November 5, 2017.

Biography

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Guy Rouleau and his team have focused on identifying the genes causing several neurological and psychiatric diseases, including autism, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, hereditary neuropathies, epilepsy and schizophrenia, as well as providing a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that lead to these disease symptoms. Among Dr. Rouleau’s main achievements are his contribution to the identification of dozens of disease-causing genes and his discovery of new mutational mechanisms.

Dr. Rouleau has published over 850 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has been quoted more than 81 000 times (Google Scholar). He has supervised more than a hundred students at the Masters, PhD and Post-doctoral levels in addition to receiving numerous awards for his contribution to science and society.

As co-founder of the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute, Dr. Rouleau is pioneering a new way of doing research by transforming The Neuro into the first academic institution to adopt Open Science principles in order to accelerate discovery and benefit patients and society.

Biography

Doina Precup received her B.Sc. from the Computer Science Department, Technical University Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 1994, and the M.S. and PhD from the Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1997 and 2000 respectively. In July 2000 she joined the School of Computer Science at McGill University, as a tenure-track assistant professor.

Doina Precup holds a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning at McGill, where she has worked since getting her PhD in 2000. She also serves as Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science, and Associate Scientific Director of the Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives CFREF grant. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning (especially reinforcement learning) and applications of these methods to many domains, such as medicine, activity recognition etc. Doina Precup is senior fellow of AAAI, and has co-authored more than 100 highly refereed papers and graduate more than 10 PhDs and 50 MSc students.

In September 2017, DeepMind, the AI company famous for its Go-playing AlphaGo program, announced that it was opening a new research lab to be headed by Doina Precup. The Montreal lab will be DeepMind’s second AI lab in Canada.

Biography

Alexandra Scaggs is a correspondent for FT Alphaville, the flagship economics and finance blog of the Financial Times. She writes about financial markets, the US economy, public policy and regulation for the blog and the newspaper.

She is a regular guest on Alphachat, the FT's weekly podcast about economics, and has appeared on Bloomberg Television and radio, as well as the Fox Business Network. Recently, she discussed financial markets and regulation at the Camp Alphaville finance festival in London and Vanderbilt's Annual Conference on Central Banking and Financial Regulation.

Prior to joining the Financial Times, Alexandra was a reporter covering the Treasury market for Bloomberg News, with a focus on regulation, market structure and the role of primary dealers. Before that, she covered the US equity market at the Wall Street Journal, writing about individual investors' return to the market after the financial crisis and regulatory actions against bank equity analysts. She has also covered pension funds and institutional investors.

Alexandra holds a BA in business journalism from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Find her on Twitter at @alexandrascaggs.

Biography

Tim Puko reports on energy policy for the business team at The Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau. He arrived there in August, as the Trump administration was reshaping several federal agencies, rolling back climate policy and trying to fulfill promises to boost the fossil-fuel industry. Tim’s coverage follows all those developments, and tracks the administration’s brewing conflicts as it tries to help coal miners and automakers often at the expense of free markets and free trade.

Tim started his career in energy when he unexpectedly ended up in the middle of a boom town. The Marcellus Shale brought billions of dollars of new investment and a host of new environmental risks to the Pittsburgh region where Tim happened to grow up. He became the energy reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and won regional and national awards for his coverage. By the time he joined The Journal in 2014, the country’s oil and gas boom had become a world changer. He spent three years on the Journal’s markets team in New York writing about the crash in commodity prices, opportunist investors riding coal’s ups and downs, and the poker-star gas trader known as one of the market’s last cowboys.

Tim now lives in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington. He graduated with journalism degrees from both Northwestern and Columbia universities.

Biography

Christine St-Pierre was born in Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies on June 10, 1953. She studied at the Université de Moncton from 1972 to 1976, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in social sciences.

She then launched a career that included journalism and politics. In 1976, she joined Société Radio-Canada and became a journalist and parliamentary columnist both in Québec City and in Ottawa, then a correspondent in Washington from 2001 to 2005.

In the spring of 2007, she decided to transform her solid experience of parliamentary journalism into a political commitment. She was elected MNA for Acadie riding in the March 26, 2007 general election, then re-elected on December 8, 2008, September 4, 2012, and April 7, 2014. During her first two mandates, Premier Jean Charest appointed her Minister of Culture, Communications and the Status of Women. She also sat on the Comité ministériel du développement social, éducatif et culturel.

From September 2013 to April 2014, she acted as official opposition critic on international relations, then on culture and Greater Montréal.

Following the April 7, 2014 general election, Premier Philippe Couillard appointed Ms. St-Pierre Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie. She also sits on the Comité ministériel de l’économie, de la création d’emplois et du développement durable.

Biography

Raymond Paquin is an Associate Professor of Management at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business, Principal of Concordia’s Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability and Interim Director of Loyola Sustainability Research Centre. He researches collaborative economic, social and environmental value creation, in particular through multi-sector collaborations, circular economy networks and business model innovation. Raymond has won several awards for his research, including the Network for Business Sustainability’s Research with Impact on Practice, John Molson School of Business Distinguished Emerging Scholar, oikos Case Writing Competition, and journal and conference awards for best paper. Raymond teaches on corporate strategy and sustainable business topics for undergraduate, graduate and executive audiences.

Biography

A savvy business woman with a great sense of vision, Ms. Ruth Vachon is the President and CEO of the Quebec Women’s Business Network.
She cumulates more than 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, she has traveled the world to give lectures and conduct trade missions in Canada, the United States, Europe and Africa. For her, individual, collective and business prosperity combines with the feminine.
From 2010, when she became the owner of the RFAQ, she brought together, stimulated and engaged her 2,000 members, active in thirteen (13) regions of Quebec, with projects that have mobilized economic development, entrepreneurship and women's management. She has implemented the 50 + one Advisory Committee and the « Table de la relève », which is respectivly at the origin of the Women's Economic Development program (the WEConnect International certification) and the « Réseau des jeunes femmes d'affaires du Québec ».
She believes in the strength of alliances and therefore has established many partnerships in order for the effectiveness of her networking to bear fruits. Contracts for its members have grown, be they small or very large, thanks to the unique initiatives of the RFAQ.
Mutual assistance, collaboration, inclusion and prosperity are the four most appropriate words to represent her deepest values.
Committed to the inclusion of women and minorities in the business community, she is the recipient of many distinctions awarded by WEConnect International:
• Female most committed to women's inclusion in supply chains for large enterprises - 2016
• Champion for the diversity of suppliers - 2014, 2015 and 2016
• RFAQ, Canadian partner of the year - 2014

Biography

BACKGROUND
►Ron Stokes, brings more than twenty five years of professional experience providing advisory and assurance based services in the financial services sector.

►Ron holds a degree in Commerce from University of Toronto.

►Ron is a Canadian Chartered Professional Accountant and a Certified Public Accountant in the U.S. (North Carolina) a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants.

►Ron leads the Canadian Fintech Practice.  He works closely with each of the EY’s service lines (Advisory, Assurance, Tax and Transactions) to assist start-up fintech companies and advise incumbent financial institution on innovation in financial services.

►Ron is a frequent speaker and writer on technology and innovation in Financial Services..

►Ron is also the Canadian Financial Services Transaction Managing Partner.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

►Ron’s transaction experience includes financial services acquisitions in Canada, the US, the Caribbean and South America; Canadian credit card portfolios; retail and commercial loans, consumer finance & specialty finance companies, asset managers and hedge funds.

►Selected recent experience includes:

►i) carve-out of a global fleet financing portfolio,

►ii) financial due diligence related to a Canadian privately-owned commercial and consumer leasing and lending

►iii) due diligence related to a small and medium sized merchant cash advance company;

►iv) financial due diligence related to the acquisition of a privately financing company,

►v) sell side due diligence on a privately held consumer finance company specializing in consumer lending and retail services,

►vi) financial due diligencebehalf of a major non-bank finance company in Canada acquiring a carved-out block of business of specialized finance loans.

Biography

Matthew Smith is passionate about supporting research to policy to improve societies in the Global South. While completing his PhD at the London School of Economics in 2007, Matthew followed his wife to start a family in Ottawa, Canada where has since worked at Canada’s International Development Research Centre. As a senior program officer in the Technology and Innovation Program, Matthew manages a portfolio of projects on a range of topics including education, artificial intelligence (AI), digital access and use, and adaptive management. One part methodology geek, two parts collaborative thinker, and three parts a father of three, Matthew has recently written on a variety of topics including AI for human development, openness, and digital learning.

Biography

Joana Talafré is co-founder of Okapi Environmental Consulting Inc. (OECI) and currently acts as OECI’s chief executive officer and principal consultant.  Ms. Talafré is a leading sustainable development expert with 20 years of experience working in and with governments around the world to develop, manage and monitor sustainable development initiatives, policies and projects.  She has worked with governments in developed and developing countries, international organizations and financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and local communities.  Over the past 11 years, OECI’s work has led to the mobilization of over 600 million USD in grants and loans for developing country partners, through international organizations, development banks, and bilateral donors.  Ms. Talafré has strong expertise in all areas of sustainable development, including natural resources management, conservation, climate change adaptation and resilience planning, or renewable energy.   Her skills include consultation and negotiation, results-based project management and evaluation, strategic planning and policy development, training and facilitation.

Biography

Holder of a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in Business Administration (M.Sc.) from HEC Montréal, Michel Patry is currently Full professor at the Département d’économie appliquée of HEC Montréal and Director of HEC Montréal, a major international business school.
In the past, Mr. Patry has served in other administrative capacities at HEC Montréal, as Associate Director – Academic Affairs and Strategic Planning; Director of the Doctoral Program and Director of Research; and activities outside of HEC Montréal, more specifically as President and CEO of the Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations (CIRANO), an important research, liaison and transfer center dedicated to the improvement of organizations’ and markets’ efficiency and competitiveness; Director of the Romanian-Canadian MBA Program, Director of the Joint Ph.D. in Administration Program offered by the four Montreal universities, and Secretary-Treasurer of the Société canadienne de science économique.
In Canada and abroad Mr. Patry sits on several Boards such as HEC Montréal (www.hec.ca), Fondation HEC Montréal, Université de Montréal (www.umontreal.ca), Chair of the Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire (BCI), Conseil du patronat du Québec (www.cpq.qc.ca), Conseil des relations internationales de Montréal (www.corim.qc.ca), Revue Gestion, European Foundation for Management Development (www.efmd.org), Global Foundation for Management Education (www.gfme.org), Fédération canadienne des doyens des écoles d’administration (www.cfbsd.ca). He is a member of the Advisory Board of ICN Business School and EFMD North America and of the Conseil Consultatif sur l’économie et l’innovation du Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations. He was a volunteer of the 2011 and 2012 Campaign Cabinet of Centraide of Greater Montreal and Chair - Government Corporations and Public Organizations of Centraide; member of the Advisory Board for Quebec of TALISMAN (2011-2013) and Association of MBAs (2008-2014). He was a member of the Boards of Collège André-Grasset (2009-2014), Finance Montréal (2010-2013), CIRANO (2001-2006), AACSB International (2009-2015), CEFRIO (2007-2009) and ACFAS (2002-2005).
Michel Patry is an expert in the economics of organizations and regulation. At the moment, his teaching and research deal with the economic analysis of organizations, the economics and strategic analysis of outsourcing and P3, the economic analysis of regulation, as well as the economics of IT and e-commerce.
Professor Patry has published over a hundred research documents of scientific and professional nature, articles in academic and professional publications, book sections, monographs, research reports, etc., as well as many transfer and public education articles. He has supervised and participated in the supervision of close to a hundred students in Business Administration, Economics and IT postgraduate programs. He also serves as a consultant to many private and public organizations.

Biography

Bernard Spitz is the President of the French Insurance Federation (FFA) which gathers the French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA) and the Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (GEMA) since 8 July 2016. Mr Spitz was the chairman of FFSA since 2008. He also chairs the Club des Juristes Commission on Cyber Risks launched in September 2016.

A Board member of MEDEF, the French employer’s organization, Bernard Spitz has chaired International and Europe since July 2013. In charge by MEDEF of the Social Agenda of the B20, the international business leaders and employers summit which coincided with the G20 held under French Presidency at Cannes in 2011, Mr Spitz coordinated the ever first joint declaration of employers and workers represented by the B20 and the L20, the international Unions summit. He remains an active member of the B20 representing France and working on the Task Forces related to employment and the financing of growth.

Bernard Spitz is a graduate of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and the École supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (ESSEC), as well as of École nationale d’administration (ENA) from 1984 to 1986. He was an adviser to Prime Minister Michel Rocard from 1988 to 1991 ; a Maître des Requêtes at the Council of State ; and an executive Director at the head of Canal+ from 1992 to 1996. From 2000 to 2004, he was Chief Strategy Officer of Vivendi Universal.

Bernard Spitz has served as a rapporteur to the French Competition Council, a member of the French Economic and Social Council and of the Security Council. He has overseen a number of public reports and efforts, among which President of the Diversity In Media Committee (2010); Coordinator of the Estates General of the Print Media, commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy (2009); and in charge of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1998).

Bernard Spitz is a member of the boards of Air France and Ecole Alsacienne (Paris), the President of think tank Les Gracques and the Vice-President of the association Michelrocard.org. He also sits on the Policy Board of the Aspen Institute (France), and is a member of several leading European think tanks, including Astrid (Italy), The Lisbon Council (Belgium) and En temps Réel (France).

He wrote several books on how to reform the State, including Notre Etat (In Our State), with Roger Fauroux, published by Robert Laffont in 2001; C’est possible ! Voici comment... (It’s possible : Here’s How), with Michel Pébereau, published by Robert Laffont in 2007 ; Le Papy Krach (The Grandfather Krach), published by Grasset in 2006 and On achève bien les jeunes (Our children betrayed) published by Grasset  in 2015.

Biography

Kim Thomassin has been Executive Vice-President, Legal Affairs and Secretariat since January 30, 2017. She manages the Legal Affairs, Corporate Secretariat and Compliance and Responsible Investment teams. Her mandate specifically involves managing CDPQ’s legal and regulatory activities, including the implementation of legal and governance structures for all investment transactions. Her team also plays a central role in supporting CDPQ in its globalization strategy. She is a member of the Executive Committee, in addition to being a member of the Board of Ivanhoé Cambridge, the institution’s global real estate subsidiary.

Before joining CDPQ, Ms. Thomassin was National Client Leader and Managing Partner for the Québec Region at McCarthy Tétrault. As a member of the Leadership Team, she contributed to the firm’s regional and national management while strengthening its national presence. In her 17 years at the firm, she held various important positions and specialized in project finance and acquisition transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors. She has been involved in several transactions related to large-scale Canadian and international projects. She has also represented public institutions and developers in connection with public-private partnerships.

Ms. Thomassin received a B.C.L./LL. B. from Université Laval and a minor in psychology at McGill University. She also studied at the University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Law. Ms. Thomassin is a member of the Québec Bar.

Ms. Thomassin sits on the Boards of Directors of Centraide of Greater Montréal and the Foundation of Greater Montréal. In 2016, she received the Quebec National Assembly Medal in recognition of her dedication to initiatives supporting women. Her leadership has received additional recognition, including the Christine Tourigny Award of Merit, the Lawyer Emeritus distinction from the Barreau du Québec and Lexpert’s Zenith Award recognizing her as a leading lawyer. In 2012, the Women’s Executive Network (WXN) recognized her as one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

Biography

Inderpreet is a renewable energy enthusiast and has over 20 years of experience building large scale infrastructure projects, patented application products, extremely profitable operations, and raising venture/project finance for startups and fortune 500 companies in energy, retail, financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, CPG, and service industries.

After his successful stint in Silicon Valley, he thought of starting a venture that will have a direct and positive social impact with respect to improving the livelihood in parts of rural India. Given his undergrad in electronics engineering, passion for solar power development and Indian government policy impetus around rural electrification, clean energy delivery to rural household through distributed solar power generation was the obvious choice leading to his creation of Azure Power in 2007. His work has been highlighted in top tier publications such as Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, and Economic Times and he is a sought after speaker at major solar power events in India and abroad including Solar Power International, Inter Solar and other leading solar conferences. Additionally, Inderpreet has been a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). He is passionate about rural electrification and energy security through clean energy sources.

He has steered the company into building a portfolio of over 2000 MW across 20+ states in India. The company has accomplished a number of leading industry milestones. Highlights include developing India's first private utility-scale solar power plant and implementing India’s first distributed megawatt-scale solar rooftop project.  In 2016, Azure Power launched an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, creating the first listing of Indian energy assets in the United States. The following year, it issued India’s maiden solar Green Bond.

Inderpreet graduated from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and has Bachelors in Electronics Engineering from G.N.D.U, Punjab. At Azure Power, Inderpreet has been instrumental in creating a leading solar power platform that provides reliable solar power to Utility, Commercial & Industrial customers.

Biography

Mr. Pérodeau has been Superintendent, Client Services and Distribution Oversight of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) since January 2018. In co-operation with over 150 employees, he supervises the activities of representatives and firms in insurance of persons, damage insurance, claims adjustment and financial planning. He also administers the rules governing eligibility for and pursuit of distribution activities while ensuring the issuance of certificates to individuals and the registration of firms.

AMF Client Services and Distribution Oversight is also responsible for assistance services to consumers of financial products and services as well as the AMF Information Centre, in addition to supervising the activities of the Chambre de l'assurance de dommages (damage insurance chamber) and the Chambre de la sécurité financière (financial security chamber) and administering the Fonds d'indemnisation des services financiers (financial services compensation fund).

A lawyer by profession, Mr. Pérodeau joined the AMF in 2012 as Director, Litigation, then served as Senior Director, Investigations, the position he held until his appointment as Superintendent. Since joining the AMF, Mr. Pérodeau has been highly involved with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), including as chair of the Enforcement Committee. He has also chaired the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association. He has been active at the Barreau du Québec (Québec Bar) since 2008, and is the current chair of its Comité de l'inspection professionnelle (professional inspection committee) as well as a member of its Comité d'accès à la profession (access to the profession committee) . Prior to joining the AMF, he was legal counsel at SNC-Lavalin and a partner at the law firm McCarthy Tétrault.

Mr. Pérodeau is well known within the AMF for his leadership, strategic vision and considerable communication skills. He is actively engaged in his community and is a past member of the board of directors of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) and of the CBA Québec Branch's executive committee. He also sat on the board of directors of The Lighthouse, Children and Families, a non-profit organization that provides respite to parents of seriously ill children and pediatric palliative care services.

Mr. Pérodeau holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Québec at Montréal and a bachelor of law degree from the University of Montréal, for which he was awarded the law faculty medal. He completed the Canadian Securities Course (CSI) and the Business Leadership Program for In-House Counsel of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

Biography

Rod J. Rosenstein is the 37th Deputy Attorney General of the United States. As Deputy Attorney General, he advises and assists the Attorney General in formulating and implementing Department of Justice policies and programs and in providing overall supervision to all organizational units of the Department of Justice. Mr. Rosenstein has spent over 27 years in government service. After graduating from the Wharton School of Business and Harvard Law School, Mr. Rosenstein started his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Mr. Rosenstein began his career with the Department as an attorney with the Attorney General’s Honors Program and previously served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland from 2005 to 2017.

Biography

Mark has an MBA from Cass Business School where he specialised in Corporate Finance, Economics and International Marketing.  He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  Mark has also helped project manage four successful company turnarounds.  His experience includes company acquisitions & disposals and major change management programmes.

Mark Yeandle is the lead author and co-creator of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI). The GFCI has been published every six months since March 2007 and Mark has been the project manager and lead author of the GFCI since its inception.  As a result of his research into what makes financial centres competitive, Mark is regularly interviewed on international television and radio and has spoken at many international conferences in centres such as Bogotá, Busan, Casablanca, Cayman Islands, Edinburgh, Istanbul, London, Montreal, Moscow, Seoul, and Shenzhen.  Mark has conducted in depth research studies into all the centres mentioned above and others including Casablanca, Copenhagen, Doha, Dubai, Guernsey, Jersey, Shanghai and Toronto.

A central theme in Mark’s career has been quantitative and economic analysis.  He has strong experience of using support vector machine mathematics to enhance efficiency in both the finance and the not-for-profit sectors.  Mark has been involved in many of Z/Yen’s recent projects including managing an Anti-Money Laundering research project and research into Best Execution Compliance Automation.  Mark has also conducted a piece of research evaluating competitive stock exchange systems and carried out portfolio analysis.

Selected Publications and Articles

Expertise – Search & Deploy - Z/Yen Group Limited 2003 London 2005

The Competitiveness of London as a Global Financial Centre - City of London 2005

Best Execution Compliance – The Need for New Techniques for Managing Compliance Risk - Journal of Risk Finance 2006

Best Execution Compliance Automation – Towards an Equities Compliance Workstation - Journal of Risk Finance 2006

Best Execution Compliance Automation - Financial Services Research April 2006

WarmGame – A Game for All Seasons - London Accord 2007

Co-operation During Crisis - Washington Times December 2008

The Global Financial Centres Index 1 - 23 - City of London/QFCA 2007 – 2018

Biography

Current Positions
▪ Founder and Managing Director of NewMark Group in the fields of market research, consulting and financial communication
▪ Managing Director of Frankfurt Main Finance e.V.
▪ Managing Director of NewMark Finanzkommunikation GmbH
Education and Professional Background
▪ Master in Economics at the University of Mainz
▪ Nearly 12 with Deutsche Bank, with stations in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Singapore, as Analyst, Asia Head of Communications, Chief economist Asia/Pacific and Global Head of Marketing for Wealth Management
Initiator of the German and European Structured Products Association
Occasional lecturer
Social activities
▪ Member of the Rotary Club
▪ Member of the Economic Council
▪ Member of the German Red Cross
▪ Co-Founder of the new Youth Training Centre of Eintracht Frankfurt in Riederwald

Biography

Stavros N. Yiannouka is the CEO of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a major initiative of the Qatar Foundation. WISE is a multi-sectoral, multidisciplinary platform dedicated to building the future of education through innovation. WISE flagship programs include an annual summit dubbed the ‘Davos’ of education and the WISE Prize for Education, the first global prize of its kind to recognize an individual or team for making a major contribution to education. To find out more about WISE please visit www.wise-qatar.org.

Prior to joining WISE in August 2012, Stavros was the Executive Vice-Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) at the National University of Singapore. He joined the LKY School in June 2005 to spearhead the implementation of an ambitious growth strategy, which he had helped develop as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Today, the LKY School is widely recognized as the leading global policy school in Asia. Together with Kishore Mahbubani et al. Stavros is the co-author of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy: Building a Global Policy School in Asia, World Scientific (2012). To find out more about the LKY School please visit www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg.

Before joining the LKY School, Stavros spent five years with McKinsey & Company from 2000-2005 serving private and public sector clients in Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Canada, predominantly in finance, healthcare and education. Prior to joining McKinsey, Stavros practiced corporate law in the City of London from 1995-1998 with the firms Gouldens and Mayer, Brown & Platt. Stavros holds an MBA (with Distinction) from the London Business School and an LLB (with Honours) from the University of Bristol. He is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and an Adjunct Professor and Advisor at the LKY School.

Biography

Stefani Pashman became the CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and its affiliated organizations – the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, the Pennsylvania Economy League of Greater Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance – on October 2, 2017.
Before joining the Conference, Stefani served as CEO of Partner4Work and its predecessor, the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, for seven years. She transformed the organization from a $1.5 million research-based group to a $20 million public-private system that educates the region on labor market dynamics, funds public and private workforce programs and connects local employers with qualified talent. Prior to Partner4Work, Stefani served in Governor Rendell’s Administration for nearly seven years at the PA Department of Human Services as Director of Policy and as Special Assistant to the Secretary. She also worked in private consulting at Avalere Health and Navigant and as an analyst in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Stefani holds an M.B.A. and a Masters in Health Administration from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. She is active in national and local organizations and is a graduate of Leadership Pittsburgh. She resides in Squirrel Hill with her husband and three children.

Biography

An American by choice, Eduardo Padrón arrived in the United States as a teenage refugee in 1961. Since 1995, he has served as President of Miami Dade College (MDC), the largest institution of higher education in America with more than 165,000 students. He is credited with elevating MDC into a position of national prominence among the best and most recognized U.S. colleges and universities. An economist by training, Dr. Padrón earned his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. In 2018, he was elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of America's oldest and most prestigious organizations. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., for being a prominent national voice for access and inclusion in higher education. In 2009, TIME magazine included him on the list of “The 10 Best College Presidents.” In 2010, Florida Trend magazine placed him on the cover of its inaugural “Floridian of the Year” issue. In 2011, The Washington Post named him one of the eight most influential college presidents in the U.S. Also in 2011, he was awarded the prestigious 2011 Carnegie Corporation Centennial Academic Leadership Award. In 2012, he received the Citizen Service Award from Voices for National Service, the coveted TIAA-CREF Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence, and the Aspen Institute Ascend Fellowship. In 2015, he was inducted into the U.S. News & World Report STEM Hall of Fame. Dr. Padrón’s energetic leadership extends to many of the nation’s leading organizations. He is the past chair of the board of directors of the American Council on Education (ACE) and is a past chair of the board of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and former chair of the Business Higher Education Forum (BHEF). During his career, he has been selected to serve on posts of national prominence by five American presidents. Internationally, President Padrón’s accomplishments have been recognized by numerous nations and organizations including the Republic of France, which named him Commandeur in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques; the Republic of Argentina, which awarded him the Order of San Martin; Spain’s King Juan Carlos II, who bestowed upon him the Order of Queen Isabella; Spain’s Prince and Princess of Asturias, Felipe and Letizia, who presented him with the Juan Ponce de Leon 500th Anniversary award; and Morocco's King Mohammed VI, who appointed him Honorary Consul in Florida of the Kingdom of Morocco in 2016. Dr. Padrón’s pace-setting work at Miami Dade College has been hailed as a model of innovation in higher education. He is credited with engineering a culture of success that has produced impressive results in student access, retention, graduation, and overall achievement. MDC enrolls and graduates more minorities than any other institution in the United States, including the largest numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans. Under Dr. Padrón’s leadership, Miami Dade College has received national recognition for its longstanding involvement with its urban community, its catalytic effect for social and economic change, and the marked difference the College has made in student access and success through pace-setting initiatives. He currently serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Urban Institute; RC 2020; the International Association of University Presidents; and Achieving the Dream. In past years he has held leadership positions on the boards of the Federal Reserve Board of Atlanta, Miami Branch (past Chair); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities (Chair); the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the White House Commission on Educational Excellence; Campus Compact; Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute; The College Board; and the White House/Congressional Commission of the National Museum of the American Latino. He is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and prestigious awards.

Biography

Abhay Parasnis has always been fascinated with how things work - from gadgets to hardware and software. His early passion for tinkering paved the way for his commitment to tech innovation and formed the basis for his core belief: continuous reinvention is how businesses disrupt and lead.

As CTO of Adobe, Abhay is applying that same desire to disrupt and lead to the company's technology strategy, bringing a fresh vision to initiatives across the company's cloud platform, mobility, data science and technology ecosystems. He leads a team responsible for integrating Adobe's cloud solutions, driving a consistent customer experience and ensuring Adobe's products are engineered using industry leading security practices.

Abhay also oversees Adobe Research and its focus on the core areas of world­ class innovation, creative design tools, media and document intelligence and customer intelligence - including content and mobile intelligence. Most recently, Adobe Research has taken on an expanded and unified charter for artificial intelligence (Al) research and immersive media.

Before bringing his talents to Adobe, Abhay held leadership positions at IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, i2 and Kony, and has contributed to more than 20 patents.

As a child Abhay frustrated his parents by spending countless hours programming on his first PC, a Sinclair ZX81. Later, he left his Sinclair behind to earn a bachelor's degree in Electronics and Telecommunications at the College of Engineering in his hometown of Pune, India. He later studied Advanced Computer Science at the National Institute of Information Technology.

In his spare time, Abhay enjoys hiking and pursuing landscape photography.

Biography

Philippe Zaouati is Managing Director of Mirova, an asset management company specializing in sustainable investment, which he created within Natixis in 2014, recognized as one of the pioneers of green and sustainable finance. After a career in various financial institutions, including Caisse des Dépôts and Crédit Agricole, notably as an expert in quantitative management, head of international distribution and head of marketing and communication, he has devoted himself for ten years to the development of responsible investment.

Author of several books including "Green finance begins in Paris" in 2018 and "Sustainable finance: ringing in a second chance" in 2020, he has contributed to market and regulatory developments in France and Europe. Successively Chairman of the Responsible Investment Committees of AFG and EFAMA, member of the high-level expert group on sustainable finance at the European Commission in 2018, co-founder and Chairman of the Finance for Tomorrow initiative, member of the One Planet Lab, group of experts created by the President of the French Republic, he has notably contributed to the development of responsible investment labels and transparency standards on climate. Since 2015, he has been particularly involved in the development of impact investing, particularly in natural capital.

Involved in public debate, Philippe Zaouati contributed to the writing of Emmanuel Macron's presidential program on the environment, before being the referent of La République en Marche in Paris from 2017 to 2018. He is co-founder and President of the think tank Osons le Progrès which aims to be a laboratory of progressive ideas.

Philippe Zaouati is also the author of several novels, including "Les refus de Grigori Perelman", the English translation of which will be published by the American Mathematical Society, and more recently "Applaudissez-moi !".

Philippe Zaouati is a graduate of the National School of Statistics and Economic Administration (ENSAE) and a member of the Institute of French Actuaries. He teaches sustainable finance at Sciences Po.

Biography

Yvonne is Airware’s CEO. For over 25 years she has led enterprise companies to successfully adopt and innovate with new technologies. Yvonne is a thought leader in cloud solutions, big data analytics, and business digitization. Prior to Airware, Yvonne has served as Chief Information Officer and SVP of Operations at New Relic where she prepared the company for its IPO and led key growth initiatives. Yvonne also held multiple leadership positions at VMware, scaling the company from $2B to $6B. Yvonne began her career as a software engineer at Accenture, where she held and led a variety of functions over 17 years including running the internal corporate strategy & development team for the company’s $4B Communications, Media and Technology business unit. Yvonne serves on the board of directors of Forrester Research (FORR), Harvey Mudd College, and the Athena Alliance. Yvonne holds a BA in economics/computing from UCLA and an MBA in strategy and operations from the university’s Anderson School of Business.

Biography

Alan Shepard is serving since 2012 as the president of Concordia University in Montreal.

Biography

Sandrine Rastello is Montreal bureau chief for Bloomberg News. She has written about business, economics and politics for more than 15 years from Paris, Washington and Mumbai. In Montreal, she has been covering Quebec's leading companies, while chronicling the province's economic renaissance. Sandrine is a native of France and has degrees from Sciences Po and Northwestern University.

Biography

Born in Hull (Gatineau) on November 25, 1944, son of Carmel Rémillard and Jeannine Desjardins, Gil Rémillard is married to Marie DuPont. They have one son, Nicholas-Philippe, and two grandchildren, Matthieu-Gil and William, whose mother is Élizabeth Côté. Gil has two brothers, Jean and Martin and a sister, Sylvie.

Gil Rémillard holds degrees in Philosophy (1965), Political Science and Economics (1968), was called to the Québec Bar (1969), and has a PhD in Law (1973). He has worked in the fields of university teaching, private law and politics.

Career

From 1965 to 1969, when he was studying at the University of Ottawa, Gil Rémillard worked as a freelance journalist for Radio-Canada on Parliament Hill.

Professor and lawyer (1973 – 1985)

Upon returning from Europe in 1973, where he completed his PhD, Mr. Rémillard began teaching constitutional and administrative law in the Faculty of Law at Laval University in Québec City; he also taught in several other universities. During this time, he also practiced law at the Chouinard, Rémillard, Bussière & Robinson law firm and acted as advisor to the Québec and Ottawa governments on reforming administrative bodies and on certain constitutional issues, among them cable distribution. In 1983, he became a special constitutional advisor to Brian Mulroney, then Prime Minister of Canada, and an advisor to the United Nations Canadian delegation in New York. He has appeared before all levels of the Canadian court system, including the Supreme Court of Canada. From 1981 to 1985, he organized and chaired the Québec Constitutional Conferences at Laval University, which included a number of high-profile speakers, among them Prime Ministers Trudeau and Mulroney, as well as Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (former Secretary-General of the United Nations), Mother Teresa and Marguerite Yourcenar.

Politician (1985 – 1994)

On December 2, 1985, Mr. Rémillard was elected as the MNA for the Québec City riding of Jean-Talon; 10 days later, he was sworn in as a member of Premier Robert Bourassa’s Liberal government. Within that government he held several positions, being successively Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs, Minister of International Relations, Minister of Public Security, and Minister of Justice. As Québec’s Minister of Justice for nearly six years, Mr. Rémillard was responsible for implementing the new Civil Code of Québec, which came into effect January 1, 1994. In 1990, he presided over the creation of the Human Rights Tribunal of Québec and, on June 4, 1990, convened a major Justice Summit and created the Prix de la justice Award. Each year, the award recognizes the outstanding achievements of individuals who have worked to ensure and promote the quality, universality and accessibility of justice.

As Minister of Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs, Mr. Rémillard headed the negotiations which led to the Meech Lake (1987) and Charlottetown (1992) Accords. While not officially part of the Canadian Constitution, these two agreements had a considerable impact on Canadian federalism, primarily because the Parliament of Canada recognized the “Québec nation.” In addition, the distinct nature of Québec and the principles of cooperative federalism that were central to the Meech Lake Accord are now recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as points of reference for interpreting the Canadian Constitution.

As Minister of International Relations for the Bourassa government, Mr. Rémillard negotiated the agreement that would lead to the creation of the International Organisation of the Francophonie (OIF). As the Minister responsible for International Relations and La Francophonie, in 1987, he hosted the organization’s second summit in Québec.

Professor and Lawyer (1994 – the present)

In January 1994, Mr. Rémillard left the political arena. From February 1, 1994 until March 1, 2016, he taught at the École Nationale d’Administration Publique (ÉNAP), where he lectured on administrative and international law and gave a course on the principles and issues involved in public administration. He also served as counsel to the law firm Fraser Milner Casgrain, now Dentons Canada LLP.

In 1995, along with his wife Marie DuPont and his son Nicholas Rémillard, he founded the International Economic Forum of the Americas, which annually presents the following events: the World Strategic Forum in April in Miami; the Conference of Montreal in June; the Toronto Global Forum in September; and the Conference of Paris in November. The primary goal of these forums is to promote understanding of the major issues involved in economic globalization.

From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Rémillard acted as an advisor to the governments of the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria concerning the reform of their Civil Codes, as part of the preparation for their entry into the European Union.

From 2008 to 2011, he served as Chair of the Board of Governors for the Université de Sherbrooke. From 2009 to 2012, he acted as a negotiator for the Québec Government and Secretary General of the Québec-France Mutual Recognition Agreement that establishes equivalency of professional qualifications for many trades and professions on both sides of the Atlantic. From 2010 to 2013 he sat on the roundtable of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); in December 2015, the Government of Canada appointed him Chair of the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission. As Founding Chairman of the International Economic Forum of the Americas, in partnership with HEC Montreal, Sciences Po Paris, the University of Seoul, the University of California in San Diego, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2017 he created the International Institute of Economic Diplomacy.

Publications

Mr. Rémillard is the President and publisher of the economic magazine FORCES and IEFA Magazine, the official magazine of the International Economic Forum of the Americas. He is also the author of several books and articles, among them: Le fédéralisme canadien, et Le fédéralisme canadien, Éléments constitutionnels de formation et d’évolution, Volumes I and II. He has edited a number of collections, including Global Economy: The Foundation for the Next Era of Growth, which was published in 2014.

Honours

In 1992, he was made Doctor Honoris Causa by the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Aix-Marseille University, France. In 1994, he was awarded the Mérite du Barreau by the Québec Bar for his assistance in creating the new Civil Code of Québec. In 2001, he was appointed to the Order of Canada and, in 2002, was awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In 2004, he received the Ordre national du Québec and, that same year, was made a Knight of France’s Légion d’honneur by then-President Jacques Chirac; in 2017, he was made an Officer of that same organization by then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

In May 2007, he was granted the honorary title of Advocatus Emeritus by the Québec Bar. In 2013, he was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and the France-Canada Institute’s Samuel de Champlain prize. That same year, Ottawa’s Saint Paul University named him Alumnus of the Year and established a fund in his name to help children with learning disabilities. On June 11, 2017, he was awarded the 50^th Anniversary Medal by the Québec Ministry for International Relations and La Francophonie (MRIF), in recognition of his years of service as Minister.

Social Involvement

A dyslexic himself, Mr. Rémillard devotes his efforts to supporting organizations that help children with learning disabilities. He serves on a number of Boards of Directors, one of which is the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, co-chaired by former Governor General of Canada Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul, that helps welcome new citizens and integrate them into Canadian life.

Biography

President and Chief Executive Officer since March 2009, Michael Sabia is responsible for the strategic direction of CDPQ and the global growth of the organization.

Before joining CDPQ, he was with BCE, holding such positions as President and Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Executive Officer of Bell Canada International. From 1993 to 1999, he occupied various roles with Canadian National Railway, including Chief Financial Officer. He spent the preceding decade working as senior official in the Government of Canada.

Mr. Sabia obtained a Bachelor of Arts in economics and politics from the University of Toronto and holds graduate degrees in economics and politics from Yale University.

Mr. Sabia is a member of the Canadian government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. He is a trustee of the Foreign Policy Association of New York and a member of the Canada-Mexico Leadership Group and the Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council.

He is committed to community involvement, including recently co-chairing the capital campaigns of Université de Montréal, Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal.

Mr. Sabia is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Biography

Sir Martin Sorrell is Founder and Executive Chairman of S4 Capital plc, which is building a purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients and millennial-driven influencer brands.

Sir Martin was CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million “shell” company in 1985 into the world’s largest advertising and marketing services company. When Sir Martin left in April 2018, WPP had a market capitalisation of over £16 billion, revenues of over £15 billion, profits of approximately £2 billion and over 200,000 people in 113 countries. Prior to that, Sir Martin was Group Financial Director of Saatchi & Saatchi plc for 9 years and worked for James Gulliver, Mark McCormack and Glendinning Associates before that.

S4 Capital plc merged with MediaMonks, its content practice, in July 2018 and MightyHive, its programmatic practice, in December 2018 and has added eight further content programmatic and data companies to both practices in 2019 and six in 2020. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange under SFOR.L and after a little over two years, S4 Capital plc has over 2870 people in 30 countries, with a market capitalization of over $2.7 billion.

Sir Martin supports a number of leading business schools and universities, including his alma maters, Harvard Business School and Cambridge University and a number of charities, including his family foundation.