Marina is a climate actor and youth mobilizer, born and raised on traditional and unceded Coast Salish territory (Richmond and Vancouver, BC). She is the Founder and Partnerships Director of Youth4Nature, an international, youth-led initiative that is mobilizing young people to lead on nature-based solutions for the climate crisis that are grounded in science and justice. Marina has worked on biodiversity conservation and climate change at home with the provincial and federal government, abroad as a research exchange fellow in India, and with the United Nations as an intern with the UN Environment Programme. She is currently pursuing an MSc at the University of British Columbia with a research focus on how dimensions of governance and participation influence nature-based solutions projects on the ground.

Marina holds a B.Sc. in Natural Resources Conservation from UBC. She is a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholar, a Students on Ice alumnus, a member of the BCCIC Youth Delegation to COP 24, and an organizer of Youth4Nature's Global Youth Delegations to both the 2019 UNSG Climate Action Summit and to COP 25. Marina was recently named among the Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders by Corporate Knights. She loves 70’s rock, good vegan food, and the BC coast.

For over two decades, Alicia Adams has been presenting work from national and international arenas at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As Vice President of International Programming and Dance, she produces the distinguished international theater series World Stages each year. Since 1997, Adams has curated and produced major international festivals including most recently Artes de Cuba, an unprecedented festival in 2018 that brought together 400 Cuban and Cuban American artists. She also curates the Center’s Contemporary Dance programming and annual Lunar New Year Celebration. Active in the performing arts community, Adams has served on numerous boards and planning committees including the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts, the Caine Prize for African Writing (UK), Africa 95 (UK), the All Roads Project of National Geographic, the International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA) the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), the National Dance Panel of the New England Foundation on the Arts, the Advisory Council for Georgetown University's Laboratory for Global Performance and Circle World Arts. In 2011 she received the APAP Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for exemplary service to the field of presenting. She is also an elected member of the Cosmos Club. In 2013, Adams was awarded the Insignia of Member First Class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star by the Swedish government. In 2014 Adams was awarded Insignia of Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the Finnish government.

Jason Baerg is a registered member of the Metis Nations of Ontario and serves his community as an Indigenous curator, educator, and visual artist. Recent curatorial projects include exhibitions with Toronto's Nuit Blanche and The University of Toronto. Baerg graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University. He currently is teaching as the Assistant Professor in Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Painting and Media Art at OCAD University. Dedicated to community development, he founded and incorporated the Metis Artist Collective and has served as volunteer Chair for such organizations like the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the National Indigenous Media Arts Coalition. Creatively, as a visual artist, he pushes new boundaries in digital interventions in drawing, painting and new media installation. Recent international solo exhibitions include the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and the Digital Dome at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jason Baerg has adjudicated numerous art juries and won awards through such facilitators as the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and The Toronto Arts Council.

One of the world’s most experienced corporate directors and educators.

Board Experience

Over his career, he has served on 39 different boards of directors in Canada, America, Mexico, Australia and England and been chairman of 9 public companies.

He currently serves as Chair of two Private Equity sponsored start-up companies one on medical healthcare products and the other in FinTech.

David began his executive career in 1979 with George R. Gardiner one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs and the sponsor/founder of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts where David served as a director for many years.

From 1984-94 he was the President of Weston Foods a multi-billion food processing company owned by the Weston family. He was Chair of Upper Canada College in Toronto during much of this time.

He was the founding Managing Director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (2003-2008), an organization that today represents 50 institutional investors with ~C$3 trillion of assets under management.

In 2004 he created and still oversees the Canadian Directors’ Education Program that has now graduated over 6,000 senior Canadian entrepreneurs, directors and family office members.

Honours & Awards

In 2013 he was inducted into the Order of Canada (the C.M. above).

He was previously awarded a Queens’ Diamond Jubilee medal.

In 1994 he was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (the O.B.E. above) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to Papua New Guinea. In Papua New Guinea he was the principal economic architect for Independence in 1975. He was subsequently presented with a 30-year independence medal.

On June 26, 2018, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) a grouping of global asset managers with AUMs ~$33 trillion.

Since being appointed Executive Director of the Stratford Festival in 2012, Ms Gaffney has guided the Festival towards financial stability while supporting the introduction of a number of new initiatives including The Forum, The Laboratory, the HD film series and the Stratford Direct bus service. The Festival is in the midst of a $100 million campaign to support the redevelopment of the Tom Patterson Theatre and the activities housed in this new facility. The new Tom Patterson Theatre is set to open in the spring of 2020.

Ms Gaffney joined the Festival in 1991 as a Publicity Assistant, and over the past 29 years has held a variety of positions, including Director of Marketing during the theatre’s years of peak attendance.

An active member of the Stratford community, Ms Gaffney is Past Chair of the City of Stratford’s economic development agency, the Stratford Public Library, and in 2011 she served as the Campaign Chair of the United Way Perth-Huron.

Ms Gaffney was named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network in 2018 and received an honorary doctorate from Western University in 2019. She participated in the Governor General’s Leadership Conference in 2008 and received a Business Excellence Award for Personal Achievement from the Stratford and District Chamber of Commerce in 2006

She has an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business and a degree in English Language and Literature from Western University. She has continued her executive education through Harvard Business School. She resides in Stratford with her husband, Kevin.

Mr. Genest has been Senior Vice-President of Power Corporation and Power Financial since 2016.

His background includes government, academia and business. He served in a number of portfolios as a Deputy Minister in the Ontario Government, including Intergovernmental Affairs, Francophone Affairs and also Deputy Minister responsible for the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games held in Toronto in 2015. He served in the federal government as Director of Policy in the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada. He served as Chief Executive Officer of the Council of Ontario Universities and as Assistant Vice-President of Bell Canada. He has also been an Adjunct Professor at Glendon College, York University.

Mr. Genest is a Fellow at the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Ryerson University, an active volunteer with Pine River Institute which provides residential rehabilitation for teenagers, Vice-Chair of the Nature Conservancy of Canada - Ontario Region, is a Board member of Business for the Arts, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Foundation for the National Gallery of Canada. A champion of diversity, he has been honoured for his advocacy for the rights of the LGBTQ community. He is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Mr. Genest holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours (cum laude) in English and Philosophy from the University of Guelph, a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Ottawa, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Johns Hopkins University. He is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and has completed the Rotman School of Management, Institute of Corporate Directors - Directors Education Program (ICD.D).

Deadria Harrington is a New York City-based creative producer and member of the Producing Artistic Leadership Team of The Movement Theatre Company. With The Movement, she has developed numerous new works by artists of color, most recently What To Send Up When It Goes Down by Aleshea Harris, directed by Whitney White and And She Would Stand Like This by Harrison David Rivers, directed by David Mendizábal and choreography by Kia LaBeija. Select producing credits include The Architecture of Becoming (WP Theater), At Buffalo (NYMF, UB Buffalo Creative Arts Initiative, CAP21, TED 2019 Conference participant), Alligator (New Georges). Harrington is a recipient of the 2019 National Theater Conference’s Emerging Professional Award, was a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2012-2014 Producers Lab at Women’s Project Theater, and has participated in artEquity’s National Facilitator Training. She has worked on a consultant basis with SITI Company and artEquity and is currently the Associate Director at New Georges and Vice President of ART/NY Board.

Michèle Maheux is a 40 year veteran of the Arts & Culture arena in Canada, having served most recently as the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). In her more than 30 year tenure at TIFF, she helped grow the organization into one of the most powerful and acclaimed cultural institutions in the world with a purpose-built home in the heart of downtown Toronto – TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Throughout her career, Maheux has focused on organizational and leadership effectiveness - helping to cultivate the next generation of arts leaders for Canada. Maheux has used her transition from TIFF to concentrate on this mission and is now a certified and practicing Executive Career Coach and is now consulting for a number of CEOs and top teams in various sectors both at home and abroad.

Maheux has been a member of provincial, municipal, industry and arts organization committees and advisories, has served as a juror at international film festivals around the world and has been a mentor for arts administrators throughout her career.

In January 2020 she was recognized by the Toronto Film Critics Association with the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award for service in the advancement of Canadian film. Maheux is also a two-time recipient of WXN (Women’s Executive Network) Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada Award (2011, 2018), and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). She is past Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors of Ryerson University, past Director of the Movie Theatre Association of Canada, past Director of the Board of the TD Toronto Jazz Society and Festival. She is a Certified Effectiveness Coach, Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coaches Federation. She holds the ICD.D designation of the Directors’ Education Program of the Rotman School of Management.

Tara is a government relations consultant and registered federal lobbyist. She has worked on numerous lobby day campaigns, fundraising initiatives, policy research and communications, and coalition facilitation. Prior to joining Global, Tara was the staff Curator for Humber College’s Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre, an Engagement Coordinator for the Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN), and a consultant with Canadian Artists’ Representation (CARFAC). A regular volunteer on multiple arts and non-profit advisories and boards, she is currently a co-founder of Mass Culture, an initiative to build a nation-wide cultural policy research network. Tara studied at the University of Toronto, with a BA (Hons) Specialist degree in Arts Management and a Minor in Studio Art.

As the first Director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), it is Ry Moran’s job to guide the creation of an enduring national treasure – a dynamic Indigenous archive built on integrity, trust, and dignity. Ry came to the Centre directly from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). On the TRC’s behalf, he facilitated the gathering of nearly 7,000 video/audio-recorded statements of former residential school students and others affected by the residential school system. He was also responsible for gathering the documentary history of the residential school system from more than 20 government departments and nearly 100 church archives – millions of records in all.

Before joining the TRC, Ry was the founder and president of YellowTilt Productions, which delivered services in a variety of areas including Aboriginal language presentation and oral history. He has hosted internationally broadcast television programs, produced national cultural events, and written and produced original music for children’s television. Ry’s professional skills and creativity have earned him many awards, including a National Aboriginal Role Model Award, and a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Ry continues to advocate for survivors, truth and reconciliation with commentary in radio, print and television. Ry is a proud member of the Métis Nation of Manitoba.

Jan-Fryderyk Pleszczynski is the CEO of 4U2C. As a member of the Cirque du Soleil’s executive team, Jan-Fryderyk leads the efforts of the studio specializing in the creation and production of video content, stage design and multimedia experiences for the live entertainment industry. Prior to holding this position, Jan-Fryderyk invested himself for a decade in the transformation of a Montreal-based 3D animation studio into a leader in the film, TV and interactive entertainment industry. He also practised corporate law for a number of years at one of the top Canadian law firms. Deeply involved in his community, he is currently chairing the Conseil des arts de Montréal, sitting on the board of directors of the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and is a council member of the Order of Montreal.

Janice Price became President of The Banff Centre on March 16th, 2015. She most recently served as CEO of the Luminato Festival, Toronto’s Festival of Art and Creativity, an organization she led since its inception in 2006. As the Festival’s Founding CEO, Janice helped Luminato become one of the world’s largest and most respected annual multi-arts festivals. The Festival reaches over 800,000 audience members annually, and in its first eight seasons commissioned 75 new works. Previous to Luminato, Janice was the President and CEO of The Kimmel Centre for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia from 2002-2006, and prior to that position, she was Vice President of Marketing and Communications and then Interim Executive Director at New York’s Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts. Prior to her professional engagements in the United States, Janice held senior positions at a number of Toronto arts organizations, including the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts and The Corporation of Roy Thomson Hall and Massey Hall. From 1992 – 1996, Janice was the Director of Marketing and Special Projects for the Stratford Festival. Ms. Price has served on numerous arts-related Boards and currently serves on Business / Arts, Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Council, and the Council of Post-Secondary Presidents of Alberta.

Founder & CEO, MobSquad Venture Partner, Relay Ventures Principal, Totem Capital Corporation Adjunct Professor, Sauder School of Business at UBC

Irfhan Rawji is the Founder & CEO of MobSquad, an innovative Canadian start-up that ensures high-calibre software engineers with US work visa challenges remain working with their current company, but near-shored from Canada. MobSquad also forms near-shore teams of software engineers in Canada for US-based clients on an exclusive, long-term basis, effectively rendering the remote software engineers the clients’ full-time employees.

Irfhan is also a Principal with Totem Capital Corporation, a private capital firm focused on investing in Canadian small businesses, and is a Venture Partner with Relay Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on mobile computing with offices in Toronto and Menlo Park. Irfhan is also an Adjunct Professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches in the areas of finance, public policy, strategy and leadership.

Irfhan is presently Board Chair of The Organic Box, Alberta’s largest organic food hub, offering home delivery as well as click-and-collect grocery services. Additionally, Irfhan is Board Chair of Activate, a partnership between the Government of Canada, private investors and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada aimed at reducing the incidence of stroke; Activate represents an innovation in social finance as Canada’s first social impact bond. Irfhan is: a Director of Sage Properties, a Calgary-based real estate investment corporation; a Director of Chatter Research, a text-driven customer insight chatbot which counts Lush Cosmetics, The Finish Line, and Chase Bank amongst its customer base; and a Director of The Logic, a digital media publication focused on the innovation economy.

Irfhan is actively involved in civic affairs as Board Chair of Glenbow Museum and Board Member of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. Additionally, Irfhan serves as Chair of the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s Impact Fund Advisory Committee, as an advisor to the Canadian government’s Impact and Innovation Unit within the Privy Council Office, and as a member of the New Economy Advisory Committee to the Alberta Securities Commission. Previously, Irfhan has served on the boards of the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada (Board Chair), the Harbourfront Centre (Director, Treasurer), imagiNation150 (Director, Treasurer), the Harvard Business School Global Alumni Board (Director), Business for the Arts (Director), and member of and Finance and Investment Sub-Committee Chair of the Calgary 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Bid Exploration Committee.

Irfhan holds an MBA with High Honors from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar, and also holds a BCom with Honours from the University of British Columbia where he was a Wesbrook Scholar. He is a recipient of The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s Award of Merit, the Sauder School of Business’ Teaching Excellence Award, Business for the Arts’ Arnold Edinborough Award and is a member of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 (2017).

The youngest person to assume this post in more than a century, Sasha was appointed in February 2019 and is passionate about revitalizing the Gallery’s relevance to audiences across Canada and beyond. Her ambitions for the Gallery reflect both the times in which we live and art’s importance to them: to bridge cultures, to engender diversity and perspective, and to unleash the power that civic institutions hold.

To this end, Sasha has demonstrated immediate leadership by establishing three core institutional values that will help the workforce move in a bold new direction: the Gallery is centered on art; it offers a warm and generous welcome, and it embraces the unfamiliar and the future.

Born in Toronto to Czech parents, Sasha studied at Princeton University before completing her Master’s degree in art history at Williams College and her PhD at New York University. Her professional career began at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she worked in various roles in the Medieval Department between 2003 and 2011. Following this, Sasha returned to her native Toronto to work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, first as an assistant curator, and eventually as Curator of European Art and the Elliott Chair of Prints & Drawings. In these roles, she led major international exhibition projects and spearheaded innovative digital initiatives that presented historical art to audiences in a new light.

In addition to her work in major art institutions, Sasha sat on the Association of Art Museum Curators’ Committee for Career Advancement and represented Ontario at the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference.

She lives in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa with her two children, Frances and Felix, her husband Albert, and their trusty dog Phil.

Recently retired as RBC’s Chief Administrative Officer (December 2019) Jennifer Tory held responsibility for Brand, Marketing, Citizenship, Communications, Procurement and Real Estate functions globally. As part of Group Executive, Jennifer helped set the overall strategic direction of RBC.

Previously, Jennifer was Group Head Personal & Commercial Banking, leading RBC’s banking businesses of more than 13 million clients and 40,000 employees in Canada and the Caribbean.

Jennifer is Chair, Toronto International Film Festival Board and sits on the Sunnybrook Hospital Foundation Board; she is currently Chair of WE’s 2020 Capital Campaign. A recipient of the 2011 Catalyst Canada Honour for championing women in business, Jennifer was inducted into the Women’s Executive Network Hall of Fame in 2017. For her commitment to diversity, Jennifer received a Harry Jerome Award in 2013, and the Leading Executive Ally Award by Start Proud in 2016. In December 2019, Jennifer was honoured as a recipient of the Order of Canada.

Jennifer has her ICD.D designation from Rotman. She has two daughters and resides in Toronto.

Ben has since 2011 been Director of the charity Creative Carbon Scotland, which works to ensure that the essential role of culture in addressing climate change is widely understood and harnessed by both the cultural and the climate change worlds. In this role, he combines over 25 years’ experience of producing events and running permanent and temporary venues in the cultural sector with an MSc in Carbon Management and a doctorate in applying complexity theory to social systems in order to bring about more sustainable social practices. He has developed CCS into a leader in both technical support for cultural organisations in carbon management and developing culture’s influencing role in addressing climate change. He has accordingly been asked to speak about this work to groups from Salzburg Global in Austria via the ArtCOP Professional workshop in Paris to the Glasgow Life Green Team Awards and the Sustainable Scotland Network annual conference.

As a theatre director and producer, he was the Associate Director at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and Artistic Director at Manchester’s Contact Theatre. He ‘revisioned’ Contact to prepare it for the 21st century and he led the restructuring of North Edinburgh Arts to bring it out of a financial crisis: both are now thriving organisations. As Chair of the Scottish Arts Council Lottery Committee, he facilitated and supported organisational change with many cultural organisations and led the distribution of over £150m of National Lottery funds, mostly to capital projects. He has directed theatre and music theatre as a freelance across the UK, Europe, North America and New Zealand. He is Chair of Scotland’s leading classical chamber music group Hebrides Ensemble and was Vice-Chair of the Theatres Trust and the Edinburgh Sustainable Development Partnership.

Bruce Munro Wright is the local managing partner of MLT Aikins, Western Canada’s Law Firm, where he has a securities, M&A and business law practice. He is a graduate of U of T (B.Comm), Osgoode Hall (LLB) and London Business School (MBA), with an ICD.D from the Institute of Canadian Directors.

Bruce is active in the Vancouver arts sector. Locally, he has supported Early Music Vancouver, Ballet BC, the Contemporary Art Gallery, the Vancouver Symphony and the Vancouver Chamber Choir, among others arts institutions, as trustee or assisting in development activities. He’s held a number of senior roles including, Chair of the Vancouver Art Gallery (2012-2015), and Chair of the Vancouver Opera and its Foundation, and is the current President of Health Arts Society. On the national front, he is the incoming Chair of Frontier College and serves on the Trustees Forum of Opera America.

Bruce has a background in music performance, with ARCTs in piano and French horn. He is an ardent supporter of the BC arts scene, and young performers and visual artists. He is also an avid art collector and is often involved as a panelist, adjudicator or committee member in various arts related forums.

Janet Yale is an accomplished leader and senior executive with long years of management experience in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. She served as the President and CEO of the Arthritis Society (Canada) from June 2012 to January 2020 after a long career in the telecommunications and broadcast sectors. In June 2018, she was appointed by the federal Ministers of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Canadian Heritage to serve as Chair of The Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel. The Panel released its Report “Canada’s Communications Future: Time to Act” in January 2020.

Previously, she served as President and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association and, later, as the Executive Vice President of External Affairs at TELUS. Ms. Yale also served as a Director General at the CRTC and as General Counsel at the Consumers Association of Canada.

A long-time volunteer, Ms. Yale currently serves on the board of the Samara Centre for Democracy. In 2008, she was awarded the United Way Community Builder Award for Volunteer of the Year.

During the course of her distinguished career, she has received a number of awards and recognitions. In 2001, she was named "Woman of the Year" by the Canadian Women in Communications Organization. She is a recipient of both the Queen Elizabeth II Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals. She was also named as one of Canada's 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women's Executive Network from 2004 to 2006, and inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2005, she was named Businesswoman of the Year by the Women's Business Network and in 2006 she was named Woman Leader of the Year by Federated Press.

A lawyer and economist by training, Ms. Yale is fully bilingual (English & French), a keen marathon runner and passionate about health, the arts and business.