Aryeh Green is director of MediaCentral, a Jerusalem-based project providing support services to foreign journalists based in or visiting Israel (www.m-central.org). He has been an advisor to Natan Sharansky and a high-tech business executive and consultant for the past decade and more, and is a frequent speaker on Israel, human rights in the Middle East, and current affairs.

André Marin was appointed as Ontario’s sixth Ombudsman in April 2005, for a five-year term. He brings to the Ombudsman’s office a highly respected and extensive background in the oversight of public institutions. Since his appointment, he has reorganized the Ombudsman's office and refocused its resources on high-profile, systemic investigations into issues affecting millions of Ontarians, from ...

Andrew Ross Sorkin is The New York Times’s chief mergers and acquisitions reporter and a columnist. Mr. Sorkin is also the editor of DealBook (nytimes.com/dealbook), an online daily financial report he started in 2001. In addition, Sorkin is an assistant editor of business and finance news, helping guide and shape the paper’s coverage.

Beginning with her time as an unpaid intern answering phones at the White House and culminating at Obama for America headquarters on the night of November 4th, 2008, Anita Dunn rose to the very pinnacle of strategic communications. As the brain-trust behind the most disciplined, coherent,and creative presidential campaign ever, she implemented a strategy that broke the traditional rules of camp...

Appointed as the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada in 1997, Dr. Ann Cavoukian served for an unprecedented three terms as Commissioner. In that time, she elevated the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner from a novice regulatory body to a first-class agency, known around the world for its cutting edge innovation and leadership. Dr. Cavoukian is best known for ...

The United Nations General Assembly in 2006 unanimously elected Mr. Achim Steiner as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme for a four-year term, and subsequently for a further four years in 2010. Following the decision of the 68th General Assembly of United Nations, Mr. Steiner’s mandate has been extended for two years up to June 2016.

Austan Goolsbee is a Professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where he researches tax policy, American industry, technology and innovation as the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics.

As the President and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada since 2002, Avrim Lazar has guided Canada’s Forest Products Industry into the 21st century. Named to the RISI Top 50 Power List in 2011, Mr. Lazar stewarded the landmark Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement in 2010, bringing together 21 FPAC member companies and nine environmental organizations. For his leadership, Mr. Lazar was ...

Mr. Griffiths was born in Rangoon, Burma. He was educated at McDonogh School, Maryland, McGill University in Canada (BAI954) and at The Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration (MBAI956). In 1956, he began his career with Canadian Resins and Chemicals in market research and product development. In 1959 and 1960 he was a management consultant and joined a client, Consumers Packagin...

Andy Byford was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Toronto Transit Commission in March, 2012. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the largest transit agency in Canada, and the third largest in North America, carrying over 500 million riders on an annual basis. Andy joined the TTC as Chief Operating Officer in November, 2011 and was responsible for the delivery of safe, punc...

Anne-Marie Kee completed a B.A. in English, a B.Ed. and an M.Ed. from Queen’s University in Kingston; her Additional Qualifications include Special Education, Design & Technology and Principals Qualifications Parts One and Two. She has attended the Annual Independent School Institute at Harvard and is currently enrolled in the Director's College Chartered Director Program. She taught in the Kin...

As Executive Vice-President & Head of Global Transaction Banking (GTB), Alberta Cefis leads a key business within Scotiabank. GTB delivers comprehensive banking solutions on a global basis to all business client segments – ranging from sole proprietorships to commercial enterprises, multinational corporations, financial institutions, government entities, and not-for-profit organizations. The se...

Arie Raif is a diplomat with a distinguished Government service record; Consul of Israel to Canada, Trade Mission Delegation (1976 - 1981), Consul General (Hon) of Botswana to Canada, Vice Chairman & CEO of The Peres Center for Peace-Canada, President of the Canadian Friends of Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba - Israel, Vice President of AMOS (Air Marshall Operational System) - developed by an Israel...

Mr. Haines is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Toronto Hydro Corporation and its subsidiaries. Toronto Hydro is one of the largest urban electricity distribution companies in North America. Toronto Hydro serves 2.5 million residents of the city of Toronto and operates assets of $2.5 billion with an annual revenue of $2.8 billion. Mr. Haines has worked in the Canadian energy...

MPP for Hamilton Centre, Andrea Horwath was elected leader of Ontario’s New Democratic Party on March 7, 2009. She is the first woman to lead the Ontario NDP and only the second woman in history to lead a major party in Ontario. Ms. Horwath was first elected in a by-election in the former riding of Hamilton East in May, 2004. Prior to her involvement with provincial politics, Ms. Horwath...

Anna Reid was born in 1958 in Nairobi, Kenya, and moved at age six to Dundas, Ontario. Childhood family trips to the University of Toronto Anatomy Lab to visit her great-uncle Dr. John Grant sparked an interest in medicine. In 1981 she received an honours degree in wildlife biology from the University of Guelph and in 1986 her medical degree from the University of Ottawa. In 1988 she completed ...

Andy Ruben is a transformative business leader who has pioneered some of the most significant and far-reaching change in retail in recent times. Ruben launched sustainability at Walmart. His strategic leadership and innovative approach has been credited with integrating sustainability to mainstream business, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in bottom line efficiencies. Following h...

Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2011. She is the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which unleashed a firestorm debate about the cultural value of self-discipline, as well as 2014’s bestselling The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America, ...

Alex Munter is President and CEO of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and the Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre. Since joining CHEO in 2011, he has helped CHEO earn recognition as one of Canada’s most admired corporate cultures and a leader in research, health technology and patient-centred care. CHEO is a world-class centre that provides outstanding family-centred patient ca...

Alan Young is an Associate Professor of Law at Osgoode Law School, and for nearly two decades has provided free legal services to those whose alternative lifestyles have brought them into conflict with the law. Through his work representing countless people suffering from AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis who were charged after using marihuana for medicinal purposes, the Federal Government wa...

For over two decades, Andrew has held several senior market analyst positions in Canada’s financial industry, advising individual clients and small businesses on financial issues. Prior to joining ScotiaMcLeod, he was the VP and Head of Capital Market Research for Scotia Economics and also the Chief Canadian Strategist for the Dutch bank, ABN AMRO. During his career, he has provided economic an...

Al Monaco was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer on October 1, 2012. He is also a member of the Enbridge Inc. Board of Directors. Prior to being appointed President of Enbridge Inc. in February 2012, Mr. Monaco served as President, Gas Pipelines, Green Energy & International with responsibility for the growth and operations of Enbridge’s gas pipelines, including the Gas Gathering &...

Avnish is the Principal at Stand and Command, a Calgary based strategic consulting and presentation firm. Born and raised in Calgary, Avnish graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree that focused on Human Resources and Public Policy. Avnish had a successful career in the corporate sector as a currency trader, in the risk management industry, and then finally as an owner an...

Adam Inglis joined SurveyMonkey in April 2012 and is Senior Counsel within the legal team. Adam’s primary areas of responsibility include international operations, M&A and transactional work, intellectual property issues, and governance. Before joining SurveyMonkey, he was a senior associate in Norton Rose Canada’s Calgary office and prior to that an associate in Fasken Martineau DuMoulin’s T...

Founder and co-founder, chairman and manager of several companies in the technological sector, including TecApro, Indromics, Evicertia, InnovApro and Infonet International. Vice Chairman of the Bank of Costa Rica and the International Bank of Costa Rica. Chairman of the BCR - Mutual Funds Management Company and BCR - Insurance Brokerage firm. Chairman of the Bank of Costa Rica Transformation an...

Andrea Mandel-Campbell is a veteran business journalist, author, policy entrepreneur and communications specialist who became a founding Board Director of Startup Canada in 2012. Currently she is the Director of Corporate Communications at Kinross Gold Corporation in Toronto. Before that Andrea was a television anchor on CTV’s Business News Network. She hosted SqueezePlay, a primetime current a...

Ann Dowsett Johnston is the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, named one of the top 10 books of 2013 by the Washington Post and recipient of the American Alcoholism Research Media Award.

Avery Shenfeld is Managing Director and Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets Inc. He has been with CIBC since 1993 and is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading economists for his perceptive analysis and insight on economic developments and their implications for financial markets. Mr. Shenfeld is a nine-time winner of the Dow Jones Market Watch award for most accurate US forecaster a...

Aran O'Carroll has worked with the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) both as national conservation planning coordinator for the CBFA’s work on protected areas and species at risk, and now as Executive Director. Previously, he worked with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, where he was the national manager of legal and regulatory affairs and its lead negotiator for the CBFA.

Alexander (Sandy) Taylor is President of SNC-Lavalin’s Power Group. He is responsible for the company's Nuclear, Hydro, Transmission & Distribution and Thermal divisions. Mr. Taylor joins SNC-Lavalin after 29 years with ABB, where he held a number of senior roles, including Senior Group Vice-President of the Global Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals business unit, and President and CEO of ABB Cana...

Anna was elected President of the Liberal Party of Canada in February, 2014. She campaigned primarily on preparing the Liberal Party for the next election by empowering its grassroots, focusing on volunteers and developing a digital culture within the organization. In addition to being an active member of the Liberal Party for over 15 years, Anna has also worked as a special assistant to Minist...

Allan Rock is President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ottawa. A graduate of the University’s Faculty of Law, he practiced for more than two decades as a trial lawyer with the Fasken firm in Toronto. He was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 1988 and was elected as head of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1992. In 1993, Allan Rock was elected to ...

Art Sterritt is currently the Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations- Great Bear Initiative (CFN-GBI) in Vancouver, British Columbia. As Executive Director he provides leadership and vision to ensure the CFN achieves its goal of an ecologically and economically sustainable coast now known as the Great Bear Rainforest. The CFN is an alliance of First Nations on British Columbia's Nor...

Aaron is a Managing Director and Co‐Head of the Power & Energy Infrastructure Group at BMO Capital Markets. He joined the firm in 1999 and has extensive experience advising clients on merger and acquisition opportunities involving both corporate and asset transactions. He has worked with clients on many debt, preferred share and equity financings (including initial public offerings). Aaron has ...

Ali Asaria was formerly the CEO and founder of Well.ca, Canada's largest online health, baby and beauty store. Prior to founding Well.ca, Ali worked at Research In Motion (RIM) Blackberry devices; where he independently developed “BrickBreaker”, the most popular Blackberry game that is now on more than 100 million devices worldwide. In 2005, Ali was RIM's youngest patent recipient. Prior to RIM...

As Executive Vice-President, Environment, Corporate Affairs & Legal, Al is accountable for the company’s environment strategy and performance, as well as regulatory applications and compliance. He’s also accountable for ensuring Cenovus builds strong relationships and communicates effectively with stakeholders including investors, government, media, the public, employees and the communities whe...

A native of Dublin, Ireland, Andrew Bell worked as an investment reporter and editor with The Globe and Mail for 12 years prior to joining BNN. Bell is a keen student of investing idiocy and corporate blunders, relishing the opportunity to examine stocks and mutual funds. Bell gives his blunt, well-researched assessment on the hot stocks of the day and takes viewers through the detailed numbers...

As Senior Policy Advisor to the President of CIRA, the manager of the .ca ccTLD for Canada, Allan provides advice and leadership on Internet governance issues. He is active in the ICANN multi-stakeholder Internet governance process, principally in the ccNSO where CIRA’s CEO, Byron Holland, is Chair. He has also played an active role in larger, broader Internet governance processes, attending r...

A native of Toronto, Anne Sado has been President of George Brown College since 2004. Her impact on the vision, direction and culture of the college has seen an almost doubling of its enrolment and significant increase in its physical footprint in the heart of Canada’s largest city. She has also led a critical public discussion on the value of college education in Ontario’s economic development...

Andrew Garsch (Capt Retired, P.Eng. PMP) joined the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in 2001, attending the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC). He graduated from RMC in 2005 with a B. Eng (Mech) and was posted to 1 Combat Engineer Regiment. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 as an Engineer Troop Commander. Upon his return he was posted to the Canadian Forces School of Military Engineers as an...

As eBay Canada’s managing director, Andrea Stairs leads the Canadian strategy and operations of one of the world’s largest online marketplaces and Canada’s second largest e-commerce business. In this role, Andrea is responsible for cultivating eBay’s community of Canadian users -- from individual consumers to established brands and retailers -- and for overseeing all of eBay’s Canadian functio...

Adam White joined the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario as their President in August 2005. The Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario is a not-for-profit consumer interest advocacy organization that promotes the competitiveness of Ontario industry through reliable supplies of electricity at affordable rates. AMPCO represents business consumers in the forestry, chemica...

CBC Sports' Andi Petrillo is a veteran sportscaster who most recently returned from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she hosted the Olympic Daytime Coverage alongside David Amber. Petrillo also serves as host of CBC Sports' Road To The Olympic Games each weekend. She, along with co-host Scott Russell, guides viewers through CBC Sports' coverage of national and international elite high-performance ...

Aida Fernandes is the current Vice-President, Research & Patient Programs at the Crohn’s and Colitis Canada (CCC). In her role, Aida leads the organization’s research, patient services and advocacy programs. She is responsible developing and implementing the organization’s scientific and education strategy and building partnerships that will advance basic, translational, clinical, epidemiologic...

Adam Legge joined the Calgary Chamber as the President + CEO in September of 2010. Adam is a strong believer in a vibrant and healthy business community and the role that it plays in the overall prosperity of the city. His focus at the Calgary Chamber is to ensure that the environment exists for all businesses to be successful. Before joining the Calgary Chamber, Adam held the role of vi...

Angie Specic joined Crohn’s and Colitis Canada in January 2016. An accomplished marketing leader with over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, Angie brings extensive capabilities in brand strategy, advertising, communications and digital engagement.

Ashley Whiteman is a high school graduate from Edmonton, Alberta, who is passionate about supporting her community. At school, she was part of several different programs and committees such as the Jean Forest Leadership Academy, Personalized Self-directed Learning, and the Student Union; she also mentored through the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, Social Justice, and was involved ...

Ambassador Paul Frazer brings to his clients 20 years well-grounded in Washington, DC and several years working abroad. He draws upon extensive experience in both the public and private sectors to counsel clients on the best strategic approach to securing their interests. No one in Washington can claim his international and domestic U.S. and Canadian policy bona fides. Paul advises a broad a...

Amber Kanwar is the host of BNN Bloomberg’s flagship morning show The Open and host of tech show The Disruptors. Every morning she brings the days’ trading news and analysis to viewers. She has interviewed CEO’s from across the country’s c-suite, influential political movers and large fund managers. She specializes in covering the stock market as well as Canada’s burgeoning tech scene. She has...

Amit Chakma is the 10th President & Vice-Chancellor of Western University. He also currently serves as a member of the Science, Technology & Innovation Council of Canada, and as a council member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

Alistair Bursey is the Chair of the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA). He was elected to the Board of Directors in 2014 as the New Brunswick Pharmacists’ Association (NBPA) representative and as Vice Chair in 2015.

Since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2002, Mr Del Col has directed his attention to creating an effective national platform to address the needs of the Canadian myeloma community. In 2004 he founded the Myeloma Montreal Support Network, and in 2005 he co-founded Myeloma Canada. Mr Del Col has focused his efforts on establishing the organization as the voice of the Canadian myeloma com...

Award-winning business journalist Amanda Lang has been covering business in North America for 20 years. Lang was an anchor for Bloomberg Television Canada, on Bloomberg North with Amanda Lang. Previously, Lang was CBC’s senior business correspondent, reporting for its flagship nightly news program, The National, and host of The Exchange with Amanda Lang, a daily business program airing on CBC N...

Arthur Potts was first elected as Member of Provincial Parliament for Beaches–East York on June 12, 2014. He brings to the role a passion for public service and a history of working with others to find sustainable solutions. As an entrepreneur and small-business owner, Arthur understands the challenges and opportunities of Ontarians trying to make their way in our great province. Arthur bega...

Andrew Scheer has been the Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada since May 27, 2017. He is in politics to put hardworking families first. A husband and father of five children, Andrew knows both the joys and the challenges of raising a young family in Canada today. Andrew grew up in Ontario but chose to raise a family and build a career in Saskatchewan. He and his wife Jill live in R...

Adrienne Batra was born and raised in Saskatchewan. She has an undergraduate degree in political science and a Masters in Public Administration. Ms. Batra worked at the Saskatchewan Legislature as a researcher with the opposition caucus office. She then moved on to be the Manitoba Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada's largest taxpayer advocacy group. In 2010, ...

Abdullah Snobar is the Executive Director of the DMZ at Ryerson University, the number one university-based incubator in the world. He leads a team that is passionate about helping Canada’s most promising startups scale their business and create innovative technology that changes lives. Since inception, the Toronto-based incubator has helped scale over 325 companies, which have raised more ...

Alan is CEO & Chief Token Officer of TokenFunder, and Chair & Co-Founder of Blockchain Canada. Alan is a finance technologist focused on new blockchain business models and the disruptive impacts of blockchain on global wealth distribution. He brings hands-on technology experience as a finance and risk transformation executive at a global bank (Scotiabank), management consulting (Deloitte, PwC)...

Alexandra Posadzki joined the Globe and Mail as a business reporter in August 2017. She covers a wide range of business news but is particularly interested in financial services, including the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. She previously worked at the Canadian Press newswire, where she spent nearly three years covering banking, real estate and medical marijuana, and has completed stints ...

Alan Frew is a multi-platinum selling songwriter, public speaker and author of the best-selling book ‘The Action Sandwich-A Six Step Recipe to Success by Doing What You’re Already Doing’. With over 5,000,000 in sales, his work with Glass Tiger has garnered him five Juno Awards, a Grammy nomination and five Canadian Classic Awards in recognition of songs that have been played in excess of 10...

ARI POSNER is a fixture in Canadian film and television, having scored series such as Netflix/CBC’s Anne, X Company, Blood and Fury: America's Civil War, and the critically acclaimed Flashpoint, as well as feature films Borealis, All the Wrong Reasons, and romantic comedy My Awkward Sexual Adventure. The music composer’s repertoire spans from long-format work to ads to animated series, and ever...

Alice is the Chief Digital Technology Officer at Sun Life Financial. Alice joined Sun Life in 2007 and has over 25 years of experience in technology, the last twenty years focused on digital strategy and solutions. In her current role Alice is responsible for technology enablement of the company’s digital strategies globally. This includes: portfolio management and governance of digital in...

Ailish Campbell joined Global Affairs Canada as the Chief Trade Commissioner in March 2017. ‎The Trade Commissioner Service provides Canadian business with practical advice on foreign markets to help companies sell, export and grow through more than 160 offices in Canada and around the world. (www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca) Previously she was General Director at Finance Canada and Vice Presid...

Armine Yalnizyan is a leading voice in Canada's economic scene. She helped define the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Inequality Project from 2006 to 2017. Armine is well-known for her weekly business commentary on CBC Radio's Metro Morning, which reaches a million listeners in the Greater Toronto Area; nationally on The Big Picture panel, a popular weekly feature of CBC TV's premier b...

Allison Vuchnich has distinguished herself in health, investigative and political reporting. As Senior Network Correspondent, Allison contributes to all Global News platforms including health reporting for Global National, the networkís flagship newscast. Allison has also covered world events, living and reporting from Washington, DC on 9/11, covering a coup in Thailand, and she was standi...

Manager with relevant international and corporate knowledge, after 10+ years in Sonae and Frulact Group, and executive MBA and leadership formation Wide range of experience in strategy implementation, , M&A and institutional affairs.

Anthony Dale is President and CEO of the OHA. Appointed to this role in 2013, he is dedicated to an agenda of policy innovation and thought leadership, relationship-building and high standards of member engagement and service. He has been at the OHA since 2004, most recently as Vice President, Policy and Public Affairs. Previously, he served as an aide to the Premier of Ontario and to the Mini...

Amal Clooney is a British human rights lawyer practicing at Doughty Street Chambers in London, where she specializes in international law and human rights. She is also a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School, where she teaches Human Rights.

Dr. Ghorbani has held a variety of positions in academia for the past 36 years and is currently a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity, the Director of the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity, and an IBM Canada Faculty Fellow. He has served as the Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), Canada, from 2008 to 2017. Dr. Ghorbani is also the Direc...

Ayman Antoun is President, IBM Canada, where he leads a team that is passionate about delivering value to its clients; helping Canadian organizations, both large and small, use innovative technology to transform their businesses and realize their full potential. Prior to his appointment as President in January 2018, Ayman served as the General Manager, Global Technology Services at IBM Canad...

Amanda Alvaro is an award-winning communicator, equally inspired by fashion and politics. For fifteen years, she's advised a broad range of consumer, lifestyle, luxury and corporate clients from pharma to finance, beverage to beauty. Before launching Pomp & Circumstance, Amanda founded and ran another Toronto-based PR agency for almost a decade, growing it from inception to a small boutique to ...

“Humans make noisy predictions” says world-leading Artificial Intelligence researcher and economist AJAY AGRAWAL. Author of the game-changing book Prediction Machines and founder of U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab—which boasts the greatest concentration of AI start-ups of any program on the planet—Agrawal’s talks illuminate the incoming realities of AI: how machine prediction, stripped of all...

Amber Mac is a writer, podcaster, entrepreneur and digital maverick whose understanding of disruptive technologies helps companies anticipate lightning-quick changes as they come—from Artificial Intelligence, to social media, to Amazon-era retail. Mac asks, “if it’s so easy to disrupt, the question we need to ask ourselves is why isn’t everyone doing it?” No matter how confident and established...

Anthony and his partners founded Veritas Investment Research in 2000. He is a Fellow Chartered Public Accountant, a Fellow Chartered Accountant, a Certified Public Accountant (Illinois) and a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He is a licensed portfolio manager. Anthony also serves as a member of the Ontario Securities Commission's Continuous Disclosure Advisory Committee s...

Ashley Challinor is Vice President of Policy at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and is the lead on their health policy file. Prior to joining the OCC in 2015, she worked in market research in Toronto, media in Tbilisi, and migration policy in Washington, DC.

Andrew is CLAC’s Ontario Construction Coordinator. In 25 years with CLAC he has liaised with government and industry, organized workers, mentored staff, negotiated collective agreements, developed training programs, trained workers and served as local, provincial and national decision maker. He promotes CLAC’s labour relations model to stakeholders in the construction industry. He guides C...

Antonia Maioni is the Dean, Faculty of Arts, McGill University and also Professor of Political Science at McGill University, in the Department of Political Science and the Institute for Health and Social Policy. From 2001-2011, she was Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University and William Dawson Scholar. She studied at St. Mary’s University and Université Lav...

Allen Lau is the CEO and co-founder of Wattpad, the global multiplatform entertainment company, where he leads the company’s vision to entertain and connect the world through stories. A leader in Canada’s technology sector and startup ecosystem, Allen is a member of the Canadian Council of Innovators, a lobby group that advances the interests of Canadian technology companies at all levels of g...

Adrienne Batra was born and raised in Saskatchewan. She has an undergraduate degree in political science and a Masters in Public Administration. Ms. Batra worked at the Saskatchewan Legislature as a researcher with the opposition caucus office. She then moved on to be the Manitoba Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada's largest taxpayer advocacy group. In 2010, Ms. Batra wa...

By day, Amanda Parris writes a weekly column for CBC Arts, hosts three CBC television series (CBC ARTS: EXHIBITIONISTS, THE FILMMAKERS and FROM THE VAULTS), and is the radio host of MARVIN’S ROOM on CBC Music. By night, she writes stories for the stage and screen. Her play Other Side of the Game was co-produced by Cahoots Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company in 2017 and was published by Play...

Agapi Gessesse is a powerful, influential and fearless change-maker. Born and raised in Toronto by a refugee mother, Agapi’s commitment to community development stems from her lived experience, which then propelled her to obtain her masters degree in Social Justice. Agapi has captivated audiences on local and national stages and conferences including the National Housing Conference, AFP, an...

Amy Stuart is the #1 bestselling author of three novels, "Still Mine", "Still Water", and the upcoming "Still Here" (publishing June 2020). Shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel Award and winner of the 2011 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Fiction Competition, Amy’s writing has previously appeared in newspapers and magazines across Canada. In 2012, Amy completed her MFA in Creative Wr...

Professor Alex 'Sandy' Pentland directs MIT Connection Science, an MIT-wide initiative, and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab. He is one of the most-cited computational scientists in the world, and Forbes recently declared him one of the "7 most powerful data scientists in the world". He is on the Board of the UN Foundations' Global Partnership for Sustainable Development ...

An award-winning health reporter and editor with 20 years of experience, Anna is a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail and the National Post. She is a columnist for Best Health, and has written for Inc.com, Forbes, Business Insider, Canadian Business, Canadian Living, The Toronto Star and numerous other publications. She is the former health editor of Chatelaine and senior health writer f...

Arlene Dickinson is a serial entrepreneur and General Partner of District Ventures Capital, a venture capital fund focused on helping market, fund and grow entrepreneurs and their companies, in the food and health space. She is a three-time best-selling author, podcaster and accomplished public speaker. Dickinson is widely recognized for her role as a Dragon/Venture Capitalist for over 12 se...

Alex Boyd is a national reporter for the Toronto Star who is writing a lot about COVID vaccines these days. She’s also a co-recipient of the R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship for 2021 and working on a project about inequalities in the global vaccine roll out.

Based in Seoul, Ali Izadi manages BloombergNEF's research teams across Asia Pacific, focusing on the transition of the region's economies to a cleaner more competitive future. The teams’ reports and tools help clients identify opportunities and risks associated with this transition. Prior to his current role, Ali managed BloombergNEF’s Intelligent Mobility team as well as Japan and Korea Resear...

André Picard is a health reporter and columnist for the Globe and Mail, where he has been a staff writer since 1987. He is also the author of six bestselling books. André is an eight-time nominee for the National Newspaper Awards, Canada's top journalism prize, and past winner of a prestigious Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism. He was named Canada's first "Public Health H...

Named “Top 100 Global Insurance Executive” in 2019 and 2022, Insurance Canada “Woman of Distinction” in 2021 and “Elite Woman” in 2020. Alice is a seasoned senior executive with public and private sector experience, in Canada and abroad in diverse industries such as insurance, banking, health services, transportation, manufacturing and distribution. She is recognized for innovative business mod...

Andrew Casey became president and CEO of BIOTECanada in August, 2012. In his role as President & CEO of BIOTECanada Andrew is responsible for the strategic operations of the Association which represents Canada’s biotechnology sector. As the head of BIOTECanada, he is the lead spokesperson for Canada's biotechnology industry communicating on the industry's behalf with government, regulators, i...

As President & Chief Executive Officer of Cenovus Energy, Alex is responsible for establishing the strategic direction for the company and delivering strong financial, operational and sustainability performance. Alex took on the leadership role in November 2017. He is also a Director of the company. Prior to joining Cenovus, Alex spent 27 years with TC Energy and its affiliates in a broad r...