Biography Gina Wilson rejoined Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) as Deputy Minister on September 1, 2021. She previously served as Deputy Minister of WAGE from 2017 to 2019, where she led the establishment of WAGE as a new department, ensured that GBA Plus was fully instituted in government, and served as the first Chair of the federal Indigenous Women’s Circle. Gina was in the role of Deputy Minister, Dive...
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Biography Pierre Cyr holds a bachelor of arts (Geography) from the University of Ottawa. He previously worked as director of board and stakeholder relations at Canadian Blood Services, following 15 years in federal and provincial government, where he served in a variety of senior roles. In addition to advising two Ontario premiers and a federal party leader, Pierre served as chief of staff in the Ontario ministrie...
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Claire Turenne Sjolander has been a professor at the University of Ottawa since 1990 and is currently Professor of Political Science at the School of Political Studies. Since 2000, she has held a number of academic leadership positions at the University of Ottawa, including Director of the School of Political Studies, Director of the Institute of Women’s Studies, Vice-Dean (Graduate Studies) at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies...
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Harley Finkelstein is an entrepreneur, lawyer, and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Shopify. He founded his first company at age 17 while a student at McGill. Harley completed his law degree as well as his MBA at the University of Ottawa, where he co-founded the JD/MBA Student Society and the Canadian MBA Oath. Harley is on the Board of the C100, is an Advisor to Felicis Ventures & Omers Ventures, and is one of the “Dragons” on CBC’s Next Gen Den. In 2016, Harley was inducted into the O...
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Bonnie Butlin is co-founder and executive director of the Security Partners’ Forum (SPF), a first-of-its-kind agile international network of security professionals, bridging all domains and disciplines of security. Under the SPF banner, she created the Women in Security and Resilience Alliance (WISECRA), which engages a growing network of women in security and resilience associations and groups globally, as well as the Canadian Cybersecurity Alliance (CCA), which has since become the largest in...
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Kevin Chan is a global director and head of public policy at Facebook Canada who engages in an ongoing dialogue with the policy community on issues that affect the Internet sector, including election integrity, misinformation, freedom of expression, safety, and Indigenous culture and content online. A governor of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and member of the 2017 selection board for the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, he also sits on the advisory council of McGill’s Max...
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Elizabeth Dubois (PhD, University of Oxford) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Ottawa and Fellow at the Public Policy Forum of Canada. Her work examines the political uses of digital media, including media manipulation, citizen engagement, and artificial intelligence. She leads a multi-disciplinary team that includes political scientists, computer scientists, and communication scholars. Dubois collaborates internationally with non-profits, techno...
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As President and CEO of Martello Technologies, John oversees corporate strategy and the company's merger and acquisition activity, to grow the business and ensure the company’s position as a global industry leader. John led Martello's debut as a public company on the TSXV. A respected senior ICT executive, Mr. Proctor brings more than eight years of experience driving strategic initiatives that build businesses. Prior to his work in the private sector, Mr. Proctor served for more than twenty y...
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Dane Bedward is a seasoned strategic thinker and business problem solver. He has experience as an entrepreneur in start-up companies and as a senior executive/intrapreneur in large, multinational corporations (Johnson and Johnson Inc., Nordion Inc. and Genzyme Corp.). Coming from a business-oriented immigrant family, he started his apprenticeship early in life, working alongside his grandfather, who founded the Ottawa-based Brown’s Cleaners chain of dry cleaners. He learned the importance of pe...
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Dr. John Bell is one of Canada’s foremost immunotherapy researchers and a pioneer in harnessing the immune system to fight cancer.  A professor of medicine at uOttawa and senior scientist with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, he is also co-founder of Turnstone Biologics, which has raised more than $340 million in investment and has $2 billion in licencing agreements.  During the pandemic, he applied his decades of work on cancer-fighting viruses to develop a vaccine for COVID-1...
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