Albertan Karl Schwonik has had an extensive and successful career in the arts, education and entrepreneurial sectors. In 2008, he founded the Wetaskiwin Jazz Society (WJS): a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing education to rural Alberta. While serving as President and Artistic Director, the WJS’s programs reached nearly 20,000 rural students and collaborated with stakeholders from local small businesses to international banks and multinational energy companies.

Mountains, ocean, and forests. Grace is proud to come from beautiful British Columbia. Having grown up in North Vancouver, she contributed to her local community volunteering at summer youth camps in rural B.C. that bridged the Korean and Indigenous cultures. Leaving the comforts of Vancouver living, Grace pursued a diplomatic career at Global Affairs Canada. Currently, she is a Specialist for the Korean Peninsula based in Ottawa and grateful for the opportunities to represent Canada abroad.

Julia Fan Li is currently a director at the Global Health Investment Fund – an innovative financing vehicle aimed at funding research and development of global health interventions including drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for diseases that disproportionately burden low-income countries. Julia holds a PhD in technology management from the University of Cambridge where, as a Gates Scholar, she completed research on building incentives for healthcare innovation for bottom-of-pyramid markets.

Joanna Claire Wong is a principal at Flow Creative, an award-winning advertising agency with offices in Beijing, Vancouver, Hong Kong and LA. Flow Creative is proud to have worked with the UN, Burson-Marsteller, U.S. Department of Energy, the Canadian Tourism Commission, the City of Vancouver, Adidas China and Taiji Zen, a health brand founded by celebrity Jet Li and Alibaba Founder Jack Ma. Joanna is passionate about building greater understanding between Canada and China through media. She is an Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada Media Fellow and her commentary on Asia has appeared in The Globe and Mail and other international publications. In China, Joanna has worked on a national climate action movement with a network of 50 Chinese universities and in the administration of the BC-Canada Pavilion, a trade showcase at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In 2010, she co-organized Beijing’s first Ethical Trade Fair.

Lindsay Colley, CPA, CA, is a sustainability professional and currently teaches corporate social responsibility at York University and the University of Toronto. Lindsay’s career has spanned both the audit and sustainability fields. She recently spent five years as Director, Thought Leadership at the Canadian Accountability Board where she worked to influence the future of audit in Canada. Previously, Lindsay worked at Ernst & Young LLP and Tim Hortons Inc. in corporate social responsibility roles. In addition to her Chartered Accountancy (CPA, CA) designation, Lindsay has both a Bachelor of Business Administration and Certificate of Environmental Management from the University of Toronto, and her Fellow in Board Governance designation.

Stéphanie wants to work against the ambient cynicism directed towards Canadian democratic institutions. She holds a B.A. in communication with a public relations specialization from University of Quebec in Montreal and a Master’s degree in public communication from Laval University. She centered her Master’s research on lobbyism in Quebec, work which earned her a place among the finalists for the Jean-Charles Bonenfant Award for the best Master’s thesis on Quebec politics. Stéphanie’s professional career is characterized by its diversity. After assuming responsibility for the public relations and marketing portfolio of an environmental multinational business for three years, she decided to jump into the political arena. After successfully completing a one-year internship at the National Assembly of Quebec, she worked as a political attachée for the office of the Premier of Quebec, and then became press attachée and vice-chief of office for the Minister of e-government, also in Quebec.

Ali Okhowat is passionate about improving access to essential medicines, technologies, and quality healthcare in Canada and around the world. A medical resident and fellow of the Humanitarian Studies Initiative at McGill University and Master’s student in Bioethics at the Université de Montréal, Ali has had a long-standing interest in global health and health policy issues and is a linguaphile, speaking Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, and French and currently studying Arabic and Russian. As a past Valedictorian at the University of Toronto Medical School and founder of numerous global health and social justice initiatives, Ali has always viewed his participation in student governance and civil society organizations as an integral part of his education.

Eric Tribe is a consultant in the Toronto office of the Boston Consulting Group. Eric, who joined BCG in 2008, has been involved in several major strategic transformation programs spanning several industries including financial services, health care, transportation and logistics, industrial goods, and public services. His career has provided opportunities to work across Canada, in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, as well as internationally in the USA and Israel. Eric graduated from the University of Western Ontario, where he graduated with a degree in Honours Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Tahara Bhate is an early career physician with a dual practice in Hospitalist Medicine and Critical Care. As a faculty member at the University of Calgary, she is highly involved in undergraduate medical education, including curricular design in evidence-based medicine and simulation, while also undertaking a medical education fellowship program next year. Active in research with numerous publications, she focuses on both basic clinical research and quality improvement, with a developing interest in complex care delivery models which draw on her passion for health systems improvement.

Kris Frederickson is a Water Management Engineer for global energy producer, Nexen Inc. His current work focuses on sustainable water management practices at the Long Lake Project, a joint-venture oil sands project with OPTI Canada. Kris graduated from the University of Manitoba with his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Biosystems Engineering. His post-graduate work centered on water treatment on Manitoban First Nations communities.