Aazam Bhimji has over 12 years managing leading consumer brands across a variety of categories and is currently Senior Brand Manager at Dyson. He is responsible for strategic planning, product launches, and marketing within Canada. Upon joining Dyson in 2016, Aazam spearheaded the entry into the air purification category, driving successful growth every year. More recently, he has been leading new innovation launches within the vacuum category, across corded, cordless and robotic formats. Aazam has also played a pivotal role in delivering plans to support the expansion of Dyson’s direct-to-consumer business. Aazam is a leader on Dyson Americas Diversity & Inclusion taskforce, fostering a better sense of inclusion and recognition of the communities Dyson does business in.
Prior to Dyson, Aazam spent six years managing a variety of different brands and products at Reckitt. In his time as Brand Manager on Lysol, he launched the Healthy Habits initiative to introduce hand and surface hygiene education within school curriculum across Canada. He also successfully launched Lysol as a personal hygiene brand. Throughout his experiences, Aazam has not only delivered global, full-funnel campaigns, but also worked with internal and external partners to develop localized communications and campaigns rooted in consumer insights and data.
Aazam has a unique educational background having completed his Bachelors in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and an MBA in Strategic Marketing, both from McMaster University. He is passionate about understanding people, the problems they face, and delivering solutions to improve their daily lives.
Andre Plaut is the founder of human machine, a learning design studio. He has spent over 10 years at the intersection of technology, design, and education, developing and scaling learning experiences, products, and teams for organizations like Apple, Obama for America, General Assembly, Huge Inc, BARK, Indeed, and many others. In his free time, he watches too many reality shows with his wife and dog in Brooklyn, NY and writes a newsletter about the science and mysticism of predicting the future called The Prediction Game.
Andrée Laforge holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Laval University in Quebec City. She has more than 25 years experiences in management position in different organizations. She holds the position of VP Employee Experience and Product Manager at SYNTELL since 2011. She has been involved in several workforce analytics project in SME and large enterprises. She has built a reputation of experts in Workforce analytics in the province of Quebec and she is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer as well as author of several articles and publication on the subject. She is passionate about business intelligence, key performance indicators and human capital. She runs a blog called “Mesurer le capital humain”. In 2018, she was nominated to the “Top 100 HR analytics influencers.”
Anick Fortin-Cousens is Vice President of Privacy at Ceridian, where she leads a team responsible for the company’s global privacy policies and programs, and advises the business on a broad range of initiatives and products. Prior to this, she led IBM Corporation’s Privacy Office, and served as Chief Privacy Officer for Canada, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa.
For 20 years, Anick has worked with public policy makers and other stakeholders across the globe to achieve privacy frameworks that are contemporary, practical and support trusted information flows. She holds law degrees in civil and common law (J.D., LL.L.) from the University of Ottawa (Canada) and an undergraduate degree in journalism. She currently sits on the IAPP Canadian Advisory Board.
Director of Data Science for the enterprise People Analytics practice, RBC
Arjun is the Director of Data Science for the enterprise People Analytics practice at RBC. In this role, he leads a team of data scientists tackling the bank’s most important people-related challenges through advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI. Arjun is a certified HR leader (CHRL) and brings 14 years of experience in the field. His previous roles include leading a People Analytics practice at BMO, Capacity, and Workforce planning in technology consulting and various other people operations functions.
Brian Weiner is the Vice President and Head of Product for Visa Canada. His organization is responsible for the development and rollout of Visa’s full Canadian product suite, including its credit, debit, and prepaid products, as well as its expanding array of digital products and capabilities, transit solutions, open banking and real-time payments initiatives. Brian also plays an active role in providing guidance and oversight to Visa’s interchange function, and support to its communications and government engagement functions as well.
Brian has been an active member of Visa’s leadership team since 2010, a decade that is widely viewed as one of the most dynamic and transformational times in the history of the industry in Canada. Through that time, Brian has helped to shape the country’s secular shift to electronic payments, making Canada one of the most cashless economies in the world. He has been recognized for his work as a global winner of Visa’s Go Beyond program and as a finalist for the North America Leadership Award.
Looking ahead, Brian and his team are focused on re-imagining the future of payments in collaboration with many partners across the payments ecosystem in Canada and around the world.
Brian was the founder of Visa Canada’s Let’s Make a Difference committee which promotes community involvement, and he recently served as the Chair of Visa’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. In addition, Brian is a global faculty member of Visa University where he has taught courses on Inclusive Leadership to hundreds of colleagues throughout North America and beyond. In recognition of his work promoting the advancement of women, Brian was chosen to represent Visa at a global women’s conference in 2020. He’s also been involved in the community as a Board member of both the Leo Baeck Day School and Jewish Family and Child Services, an Honorary Chair of the Rexall OneWalk to Conquer Cancer benefitting the Princess Margaret Hospital, and he had the pleasure of working as a Big Brother.
Brian has been in the Canadian financial services industry since 1997. He holds an MBA (Accounting) from the Schulich School of Business, a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) from Carleton University, and he has completed executive courses at Harvard, Cambridge, and INSEAD. Prior to Visa, Brian worked at TD Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM.
Carla Spina is a dedicated and experienced human resources professional with over 20 years of experience. She is currently the AVP HR Business Partner at CAA Club Group (CCG), where she oversees employee relations, labour relations, talent acquisition, talent management and organizational design. She has been with CCG for over 17 years, having held many progressive roles in pension and benefits, HRIS management and HR consulting. Prior to CCG she worked at OnX and Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee. Outside of work, she is very passionate about her family and is an advocate for working professionals to find harmony between their career and personal life.
Carla holds a Bachelor of Sociology from McMaster University. She has completed the Post Graduate Program – Human Resources at Humber College, the Masters Certificate in Leading Business Excellence at Schulich School of Business, York University, and the Certified Achieve Global Trainer – Leadership and Teamwork Queen’s Mental Health@Work Leadership Certificate.
Cindy Bush is Chief Human Resources Officer at TMX Group, responsible for leading all aspects of TMX’s Human Resources function in support of the Company’s corporate objectives, including strategy development and execution, workplace culture, performance management, and talent development and acquisition. Ms. Bush joined the Company in December 2020, after more than 25 years of international experience in human resources, talent strategies and culture transformation.
Most recently, Cindy served as Chief Human Resources Officer at Cineplex and had previously held leadership roles at companies ranging in size from 30 to 100,000 employees, including Foresters Financial, OMERS, and CIBC. In 2008, she authored “Project Managing Change: Practical Tools and Techniques to Make Change Happen,” a global best-seller published by Financial Times Business Enterprises. Ms. Bush holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University and a Masters of Education from the University of Toronto.
Cindy is a dynamic and innovative Senior Human Resources Leader who believes in building and developing workplaces that work. She is the Founder of squaredots, a boutique HR solution providing project-based virtual HR expertise to businesses that directly influence their culture, engagement, productivity and results.
With over 25 years of experience, Cindy’s expertise includes people, performance, recruitment, strategy, leadership, analytics, operations, change, talent, training and policies.
Cindy believes in building and developing a stronger HR community. She is the Vice-Chair, HRPA Registration Committee, Team Leader, HRPA York Region Career Management & Community Engagement (CMCE) Committee. She is also a committee member for the HRPA Experience Assessment Committee (EAC) and Seneca College Program Advisory Committee (PAC) for Human Resources Management programs. Cindy is also a Mentor with Seneca’s Human Resources Mentorship Program.
Vice President, Labour Relations and Human Resources, Maple Leaf Foods Inc
Dezi Singh is currently the Vice President of Labour Relations and Human Resources at Maple Leaf Foods. He received his honours Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the Schulich School of Business at York University in 2006, followed by his Masters degree in Industrial Relations from Queen’s University in 2007. Since then, Dezi has held a number of esteemed positions in the field of labour relations, in large federal and provincial organizations. He has focused on developing labour strategies and collective bargaining, as well as alternative dispute resolution. More specifically, Dezi has created and delivered training with regard to maintaining a positive workplace, health and safety in the workplace, and interest based negotiations. In his free time, Dezi developed and taught a course in negotiations and has been an adjunct professor at York University since 2017.
Dinesh Garbharran is currently Vice President, Risk Management, TD Insurance (TDI). Dinesh assumed leadership of the Risk Management function supporting TDI in May 2014. Dinesh joined TD Bank Group in December 2013. Prior to joining TD, Dinesh was the Head of Enterprise Risk Management for Standard Bank Group in South Africa from 2012-2013. Previous to this, Dinesh was the Group Chief Risk Officer of Discovery Holdings (2004 – 2012). Dinesh holds Masters of Science degree from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Dwayne Conrod is a seasoned HR professional with more than 20 years in retail, consulting and energy industries. He has helped organizations manage through vast amounts of change to drive exceptional business results. Dwayne earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of New Brunswick, a Master’s in Human Resources Management from York University, and has completed an accelerated leadership program in a partnership between Loblaw Companies and Schulich School of Business. He is currently involved in one other program advisory committee with another post-secondary institution.
Farhan Tahir has 15 years of experience in executive product, technology and business leadership globally. He is a passionate, driven and forward-thinking technology leader with extensive executive-level experience driving complex operational initiatives and effective go-to-market strategy for major enterprise technology organizations. He has a broad expertise across business, sales, marketing, product management and engineering with a deep understanding of development processes, including design thinking and LEAN methodologies. He is currently Vice President of Product Management at Salesforce where his mission is to democratize application development with innovations in the Low Code space.
MHRM, CHRL. Vice President, Human Resources Opseu Pension Trust
Fiona Gardner has worked in Human Resources for over 15 years in a broad array of sectors including financial services, utilities, telecommunications and health care. Fiona has developed expertise in HR strategy, executive compensation, talent acquisition, leadership development and succession planning. Fiona has contributed to the HR profession as a mentor to new HR professionals. She is a strong believer in continuing education. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts, Fiona went on to Ryerson University and graduated with a certificate in HR Management. She also completed Rotman’s Advanced Program in HR Management, and in 2008, obtained her master’s degree in Human Resources Management from York University. She currently works at OPTrust, a pension investment and administration firm, as the Vice President Human Resources. Fiona is a member of HRPA and is delighted to participate as a member of York’s Program Advisory Committee.
Guinevere is a product executive with over 20 years experience collaborating with passionate teams to create and manage hundreds of digital products from the smallest feature on the tiniest of devices, to large, complex omni-channel experiences with brands including CBC, Financial Post, Sportsnet, and many others.
Guinevere earned a BA from York University, an MBA from Ryerson University and is a certified Agile leader. She is currently VP, products at Postmedia.
James has 12+ years of experience in the technology industry across design and product management crafts. An advocate for customer focused innovation he is currently a Senior Product Manager at Shopify. He also previously worked at Uber, Walmart Labs and Xe.com in product management roles.
Joanna has more than 20 years of experience in international business operations with industry expertise in manufacturing, retail, hospitality, and international logistics operations. Her progressive experience in human resources and organizational operations culminated in becoming the Chief Executive Officer of 3Ks Unique Co., a successful multinational firm. As a business and human resources consultant with a focus on business development, compliance, and health & safety for international organizations, Joanna brings a passion for teaching that brings business world reality into classroom instruction.
Joanna brings a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, an MBA from William Howard Taft University, and Certificates in Project Management, Human Resources Management and TESOL. She is currently in the process of completing her Doctorate in Business Administration with a specialization in business leadership and management, and receiving validation as a CPHR. Joanna teaches a variety of business and human resources courses at York University, Seneca College, and Centennial College and is a facilitator for HRPA-York Region’s Educational Committee.
Associate Vice President of Product Services, Canadian Tire Corporation
Jonmichael is a product executive with 20+ years of experience working in e-commerce, digital payments, digital media, and marketplace industries. He is Associate Vice President of Product Services at Canadian Tire Corporation, overseeing site search, personalization, product recommendations, user generated content, and demand shaping across all digital banners including Canadian Tire, Sport Chek, Mark’s, and Party City.
Jonmichael has launched consumer digital product experiences to market, developed commercial strategies, grow audiences at scale, and built high performing product teams from the ground up. He has demonstrated stellar results leading global product teams at Canadian Tire Corporation, PayPal, eBay, Postmedia, Torstar, and various startups.
CHRE, ICD.D. Chief Human Resources Officer CAAT Pension Plan
Julie Giraldi is an accomplished senior human resources executive and is recognized as an organization and leadership culture turnaround specialist. She currently works at CAAT Pension Plan. Previously, she was at OMERS, one of the largest pension plans in Canada, as Vice President, Business Transformation, where she led and implemented new ideas across the COO platform aimed at driving engagement, creativity, and improved performance. She is also acting President of the newly-established OMERS Foundation.
Prior to joining OMERS, Julie held the position of Vice President, Health Human Resources Leadership at the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA), where she partnered with senior health care leaders on provincial matters ranging from executive compensation, collective bargaining and multi-year health human resources strategies, to data analytics and group benefits. She was also responsible for the OHA’s strategic HR, information technology and eHealth initiatives.
Julie also served as a Trustee of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan – one of Canada’s most successful pension funds – for six years. She has held senior human resources positions at eHealth Ontario and the Toronto Transit Commission. Julie holds a degree from the University of Toronto, a Certified Human Resources Executive designation from the Human Resources Professional Association, and is certified by the Institute of Corporate Directors as an ICD.D.
Katherine has extensive startup experience being on the founding team of OneClass, helping it achieve proof-of-concept and scale the business to an international platform with multiple product lines. Her journey into product management started in 2015 with a laser focus on the creator economy of OneClass and its marketplace. Katherine has worked with product organizations based in Canada and China, and in both cases, established the product culture in both.
Katherine completed her undergrad at University of Toronto Scarborough with a BBA specializing in Strategic Management. She is passionate about tech-enabled solutions helping people and businesses scale.
MBA, MIR, BA. Chief Human Resources Officer, Dentalcorp Canada
Mark is a senior HR executive with over 20 years of broad experience in both business and academic ventures. He has held senior HR executive and officer roles in various organizations including large global organizations, domestic market leaders and high-growth start-ups. His experience includes all major facets of the HR discipline including total rewards, talent management, organizational transformation, change management, labour relations in addition to board level and other advisory work. He has taught HR and labour relations courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level and joined York University in 2002. Mark holds a BA (Economics), Master of Industrial Relations (MIR) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) and is a graduate of York University, University of Toronto and the London School of Economics.
Rob Catalano is passionate about helping companies succeed – by helping them focus on their employee experience. With his unique experience in HR Technology as a founding employee at Achievers, Rob co-founded WorkTango – a solution that helps give employees a voice and companies actionable insight. He has recently been named as a 2019 Top Global Employee Engagement Influencer, and is the Canadian Chairperson for The Enterprise Engagement Alliance, with a mandate to lead and help educate corporate, government and not-for-profit management on a formal process for implementing engagement across the enterprise community. He is an avid hockey and volleyball player, traveller, used to play guitar in a metal band, and in his own terms a ‘pointaholic’ – he collects loyalty points for everything and anything! You can reach him at rob@worktango.com or @RobCatalano on Twitter.
Rob holds a Bachelor Commerce, Marketing & IT, from Ryerson University.
Tanya Piazza-Hughes, Principal, Sr. HR Manager at HOK is a passionate, creative, innovative HR executive with 20 years’ experience who believes that HR is more than just policies and procedures. Tanya leads by example because the camera is always rolling, she likes to kick it old-school and have actual conversations, she sees the employment experience as a whole-human experience, believes that a critical function of HR is to build, grow, nurture, and develop relationships. Tanya holds Leadership accountable, even when it’s the unpopular thing to do; she stays curious, makes the world a better place one person, interaction, and experience at a time; and firmly believes that Tupac is still alive.
Manager, Risk Management Services, The Regional Municipality of York
Tina Gardiner is the Manager, Risk Management Services for The Regional Municipality of York, one of Canada’s fastest growing municipalities, and has accumulated over 30 years experience in risk and insurance with various corporations. During her career with York Region Tina has successfully built the Risk Management Services (RMS) unit, from the ground up, incorporating an enterprise risk management approach. Today this unit of claims and risk management professionals has a respected advisory role within the Region.
Continuing education is important to Tina having been a lifelong learner herself. After graduating with her Biology degree (BSc) from Wilfrid Laurier University she went on to complete her Chartered Insurance Professional designation (CIP) from the Insurance Institute of Canada, Canadian Risk Management designation (CRM) from University of Toronto, a Masters Certificate in Municipal Leadership from the Schulich School of Business at York University, Excellence Canada Certificate in Process Improvement Management and York Region’s own Executive Leadership Program. Tina has been an instructing insurance and risk management courses in a formal and non-formal setting since 2005.
Currently serving in her second year as a Director on the Risk and Insurance Management (RIMS) Board, Tina has been an active participant in RIMS at the Chapter level thorough ORIMS, serving several terms as President, and nationally through the RIMS Canada Council serving as Chair. Tina was humbled and honoured to receive the industry’s 2010 Don Stuart Award for Excellence in Risk Management. Tina is also an active member in the Society of Professional Insurance Administrators of Ontario (SPIAO).
Tina likes bringing people together through networking, shared experiences and as a thought leader. She is the co-founder and co- chair of two municipal risk management committees in Ontario; and has served as Chair of a Canadian on-line municipal risk management forum. Risk Management is a passion for Tina, and she loves to talk about anything risk and insurance related….. especially with rising risk and insurance professionals.
Adarsha Datta is the Developer Engagement Lead for Cloud + Enterprise with Microsoft Canada. He has 12+ years of experience in the technology industry across software development, technical consulting, solution architecture and business development. He did his undergrad in Computer Science and Engineering, started his career as a software engineer and soon transitioned to technical consulting in IBM India. After finishing his MBA from Schulich School of Business, York University, he joined Microsoft Canada and has held multiple roles such as Technical Evangelist, National Startup Lead and currently is the Developer Engagement Lead for Cloud and Enterprise. He is passionate about helping customers and partners digitally transform by adopting transformative technologies and practices such as the Cloud, Agile and DevOps.
Alexandru is currently a Software Engineer at Sherpa, a startup providing electronic travel visas as an ancillary service for airlines and travel agencies. He completed his undergraduate degree in Information Management Systems in Germany as well as a postgraduate degree in Advanced Computing in Scotland. After working as a consultant and software engineer for four years, Alexandru joined the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program at the University of Waterloo. Since then, he has been immersed in the Toronto startup ecosystem. In 2018 he co-founded Source, a decentralized backend as a service allowing developers to create applications with interoperable data while enforcing true data ownership. His main fields of interest today are building scalable and robust cloud solutions and micro frontends.
BSc, BEd, MA, PhD. Director of Education, Blockchain Research Institute
Alisa is an experienced educator with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning from the University of Toronto. Since 2011, she has been investigating powerful new ways of teaching and learning with technology, including the design of learning analytics, intelligent agents, immersive simulations, tangible media, and “smart classroom” architectures to support collaborative learning in face-to-face contexts.
Alisa is currently the Director of Education for the Blockchain Research Institute—an independent, global think-tank, bringing together the world’s top researchers to undertake ground-breaking research on blockchain technology. A major part of her role is to mobilize this research via educational programming, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and enterprise-level learning opportunities.
MBA, BSc. Director of Product, OneLedger Technologies Inc.
Aly has over 12 years experience in Enterprise Software Solutions and has worked at various start-ups leading product strategy, with several years experience in Product Management at Oracle. He is currently working at OneLedger Technologies Inc., a blockchain protocol and solutions company, heading up all product initiatives both in their B2C applications and for their B2B Enterprise solutions. Aly has an MBA in Finance from McMaster University and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from York University.
Anita has spent many years driving and executing on cloud strategic and technical programs. From early on, she was drawn to all the possibilities that the cloud has to offer, ranging from enabling remote team collaboration, to sharing of data from anywhere in the world, to the ability to take infinite photos on her phone without concern with regards to storage, security or reliability (to the detriment of her family who perhaps wishes she took less photos!). Needless to say, she can’t imagine life without the cloud.
Today, the cloud is not only ‘foundational’ in all businesses across all industries, but the cloud is also an integral part of our daily lives. Anita continues to advocate for a cloud computing strategy and mindset, and is excited to be a member of York University’s Program Advisory Council for the Post-Graduate Certificate in CloudOps program!
Anita is currently the Vice President, Enterprise PMO at Varicent, a SaaS company, and previously, she grew and led a team to deliver on strategic cloud technical programs for the IBM Cloud Office of the CTO.
Arif is an accomplished IT Risk, Cyber Security and IT Audit professional with 15 years’ experience in the financial services. With excellent analytical skills in uncovering issues through performance of a wide range of assessments including IT Risk/Control, IT Audit and Quality Assurance, Arif has a proven ability to influence multiple levels of key stakeholders in order to address risks in a timely and effective manner. Arif focuses on excellence in the development of IT control documentation, audit programs and test scripts.
Chief Information and Analytics Officer, Ontario Medical Association
Boris Kralj holds a PhD in Economics from York University. Dr. Kralj has lengthy experience in various management, research, and consulting positions with both public and private sector organizations. Currently he holds the positions of Chief Information Officer/Chief Analytics Officer at the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). He provides leadership and oversees the technology as well as the economics, research, and analytics functions. He is responsible for the effective planning, development, deployment, security, operation and support of OMA and its subsidiaries, information and communication technologies to support the OMA’s strategic business objectives and operations. Additionally, Dr Kralj provides guidance and oversight to the economic research, policy, and evaluation work associated primarily with the negotiation and implementation of physician fee-for-service (FFS) and non-FFS agreements and the physician fees/tariff setting processes. He he is also responsible for enterprise analytics initiatives.
Dr. Kralj has authored and published a broad variety of research reports. His publications relate to physician payment reform, primary care, medical services utilization, physician human resources, workers’ compensation, physician billing, oncology practices, prescribing patterns, and walk-in clinics. He has lectured on microeconomics, macroeconomics, industrial organization, and labour economics for over 15 years.
Christian is a French Canadian born entrepreneur and investor who is the co-founder and CEO for Intellect Dynamics. Christian leads and manages all of Intellect Dynamics commercial operations. Along with CTO and co-founder Stan Yazhemsky, Christian oversees a team that has had dozens of breakthroughs in the field of AI. Christian is focused on delivering Intellect Dynamics’ technology vision by developing profitable technology solutions and services with a focus on real time analytics, artificial intelligence, business process automation and decision support. With a background in neuroscience, Christian and his team are using borrowed-from-nature methods to create new and useful knowledge from otherwise unmanageable data collections.v
Manager, Enterprise Architecture & Governance, Centennial College
Claude Sam-Foh is the former Chief Enterprise Architect and Chief Cyber Security Officer with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario. He has extensive business and IT knowledge, gained through more than 30 years’ practical experience in both fields. His area of expertise encompasses enterprise architecture, information management, information security, privacy leadership, cloud computing, service management, portfolio, program and project management, business systems analysis and agile management.
Claude has recently joined the School of Continuing Studies at York University as a curriculum developer and Instructor. Claude makes business and IT learning fun and adapts his delivery to the level of his students. He challenges them to think strategically and emphasizes on applying the knowledge they have learned in the workplace. His motto is “Knowledge Secured and Wisdom Applied.” He leads by example, teaches with passion, and creates a learning environment where students are motivated to excel.
Cristina Onosé leads teams at PwC Canada in Privacy Advocacy and Thought Leadership and Cyber Threat Intelligence. She works with organizations to optimize their privacy and security programs, enhance consumer trust, ensure compliance with applicable privacy and security requirements, and intelligently assess cyber threats.
Prior to joining PwC, Cristina was the Director of Government Relations and Privacy at the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA). She has also served in roles in the government of Ontario, an EU Parliament think tank in Belgium, and a foreign diplomatic office.
Cristina is a member of the Certification Training Advisory Board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). She also serves as board director of the Public Affairs Association of Canada (PAAC), the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC) and the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Canada (EUCCAN). She is a frequent speaker and author on privacy and security-related issues, including government regulation (PIPEDA, GDPR), data strategies, and emerging technologies (IoT, smart cities, automated vehicles, etc.).
Cristina is an instructor in York University’s School of Continuing Studies Certificate in Information Privacy (teaching the ‘Privacy in Technology’ course).
Danny Mistry is the Director of DevOps and Tooling at IGM Technology for the IGM group of companies: IG Wealth Management, Mackenzie Investments and Investment Planning Counsel. He is responsible for DevOps enablement for Digital delivery teams and leads the Tooling Support Team. Danny is a digital native leader with 20 year’s experience in Digital Media, Marketing Technologies and Wealth Management industries. Danny is a Certified SAFe DevOps Practitioner (SDP), Certified Agile Leader (CAL1), Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Kanban Practitioner (TKP) and holds a B.Math from the University of Waterloo.
Darren Jones is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of IT audit and security, with extensive experience in the field since 1986. He has excelled in delivering innovative solutions for organizations in a variety of industries. As a part of KPMG Canada’s national cyber security consulting practice, Mr. Jones provides clients with impactful solutions to help them improve their security policies, processes, and technologies. Mr. Jones’s business development and project delivery successes include solution areas as diverse as information security, corporate governance, IT strategy, enterprise systems management, network architecture and management, and outsourcing. Since 1993 he has been a sought-after speaker on IT audit, security, crisis management and IT reliability issues. He is frequently interviewed and is a published author on IT security matters.
Deborah Evans is the Chief Privacy Officer at Rogers Communications, where she is responsible for privacy across all lines of business, including management of CASL and telemarketing rules. She is also responsible for Rogers’ relationship with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the CRTC Enforcement Branch.
Deborah joined Rogers in 2007 and has progressed through various positions within the organization’s Regulatory team, including representing Rogers at numerous proceedings and government hearings, and implementation of the CRTC’s Wireless Code. As well, she managed Rogers Office of the Ombudsperson for 18 months. Deborah has managed Rogers’ privacy office since 2014.
She is the Chair of both the CWTA Privacy and Security Committee and the Canadian Marketing Association’s Privacy Committee, former Chair of the CWTA’s Recycling Committee, and former member of the CWTA Accessibility Committee.
Deborah holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Politics from Brock University; and a Master’s of Public Affairs, with a specialization in European Integration, from Carleton University. She also holds a CIPP/c privacy certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), and currently sits on the IAPP Canadian Advisory Board.
Director, Health Information Management, Business Intelligence, North York General Hospital
Deepak Sharma is an executive in the healthcare industry who uses big data analytics in leading corporate initiatives such as funding optimization analysis, clinical quality improvement projects, IT system implementation, privacy policy development, and performance measurement in large hospitals and government agencies. Currently, Deepak is the director of patient flow, health information management, and business intelligence at North York General Hospital. Previously, he was the director of decision support at London Health Sciences Centre, and the director of transformation and performance evaluation services at Rouge Valley Heath System.
President and Chief Scientific Consultant, Zero One Infinity Consulting
Harish is a data officer and an expert in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered data analytics with 15+ years of experience working in aerospace, telecommunication, automotive, security, geospatial and biomedical industries. He is the President and Chief Scientific Consultant of Zero One Infinity Consulting (ZOIC) Services Ltd., an Ontario-based Research and Development (R&D) company. Previously, he was a chief engineer at Samsung Electronics, India and an assistant professor/lead at the Visual Signal Analysis and Processing (VSAP) research center at Khalifa University, UAE.
Harish has also worked as a researcher, managing the R&D of Ministry of Defense (MoD) UK and European Union (EU)-funded projects at Lancaster and Manchester universities, UK. Harish is a strong engineering professional with a Ph.D. in Computer Science and an M.Sc. in Autonomous Systems from Loughborough and Exeter universities, UK, respectively. He has proven capacity to coordinate and spearhead the establishment of international research units and extensive management experience recognized through the successful completion of several public and private funded R&D projects in more than five different countries across the world.
Iman has a diverse technical background in devices and system level architecture planning, design, fabrication and manufacturing for a wide range of remote sensing technologies. He is specialized in spectroscopy, microscopy, optical imaging systems and integrated optoelectronics and nanophotonics. With eight years of industrial experience including entrepreneurial start-up environments and research laboratories, he has brought various sensing technologies to various sectors such as medicine, oil and gas, environmental monitoring, water and agriculture. His interests are pairing remote sensing technologies with artificial intelligence for improved processes. Currently, Iman is a cofounder and CTO at Elucid Labs, commercializing AI-based assistive diagnostic systems in medicine and is part of Canadian CIO Strategy Council to set forth ethical AI standards and policies.
Nidhi is the Applied Research team lead at Borealis AI, Edmonton, Canada. Borealis AI is an RBC institute for research. Before joining in March 2018, Nidhi was a researcher at Bell Labs, Nokia, in France since January 2015, and most recently was leading a new team focussed on Maths and Algorithms for Machine Learning in Networks and Systems, in the Maths and Algorithms group of Bell Labs. From July 2010 to December 2014, Nidhi was a researcher at the Technicolor Paris Research Labs, after 5 years at France Telecom R&D in Jim Robert’s Performance analysis group. Prior to this, Nidhi was at CWI and Eurandom in the Netherlands, and a postdoctoral researcher at INRIA at Sophia Antipolis, France.
Manager, Analytics and Visualization, Corporate Services Department, Regional Municipality of York
Duncan Rowe is a public sector executive who cares about helping York Region experience the power and value of using data for good. A leader in the data, analytics and visualization services branch, the team Duncan leads loves to work with people and their data. Duncan gets great satisfaction when clients enhance their programs informed by analytics, are inspired by visuals to share, and connect deeply through data storytelling.
He has over 25 years’ experience working in the field, and has been working at the Regional Municipality of York for more than 15 years. In addition to building data and analytics capacity across the organization, Duncan and his team provide corporate analytics and visualization services to all of the service areas delivered in York Region.
Duncan has an undergraduate degree from York University, and a Masters Certificate in Municipal Leadership from the Schulich School of Business.
Over the past 28 years, Ed Dubrovsky’s name has been synonymous with information security, Cyber breach response, risk management, cyber education and entrepreneurship. As a practitioner and management executive, Mr. Dubrovsky built and led cyber consulting practices in a number of organizations including successfully concluding an acquisition by one of the largest publicly traded global insurance services conglomerate.
Mr. Dubrovsky is responsible for helping thousands of victims across North America recover from some of the most devastating cyber-attacks including ransomware, business email compromises, extortion attacks, malicious insiders and advanced persistent threats. Mr. Dubrovsky’s passion is in developing organizational cybersecurity programs that fundamentally are structured to rapidly adapt to new threat actor tools, techniques, and processes through the use of effective controls coupled with relevant intelligence. When Mr. Dubrovsky is not busy helping clients, he can be found teaching at the York University’s cyber security program where he sits on the advisory board and acts as both a course developer and an instructor. Mr. Dubrovsky holds a number of academic and industry certifications including BSc, MSc, MBA, OSCP and the CISSP designation (2002).
Mr. Dubrovsky is a well-known leader in the Cyber field and has authored numerous articles in the areas of offensive security, practical measures to protect organizations, contributed to many media articles and is frequently sought after to present at numerous media and industry conferences across the globe.
Eugene Peters is the Senior Vice President of Product at Maropost. In his role, he leads a global team of talented technologist (Product Mgmt, Product Marketing, User Experience, Development/QA, Data Engineering, DevOps and Hosting/Infrastructure); advance the platform by defining, developing and launching new products, while partnering with various stakeholders inside and outside the organization. Prior to Maropost Eugene lead technology and product practice transformations in Fortune 100 and start up environments across multiple sectors. Eugene has an MBA in Marketing from Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario and Science degrees from York University. He has consulted with early-stage companies on strategy, product/market fit (Jobs-to-be-Done framework) and go-to-market. Eugene holds an MBA from the Ivey Business School and BSc – Biology & Psychology from York University.
AWS National Programs Lead, Canada Public Sector, Amazon. MBA, PMP, CAMS, Agile Certified Practitioner
At Amazon Web Services (AWS), Fahd works with internal and external stakeholders to develop and lead cloud computing education and workforce development programs for the Canadian Public Sector. In addition, Fahd is responsible for leading the localization of existing AWS Programs to better meet the needs of Canadians. Prior to Amazon, as Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Fahd was leading large scale fraud and anti-money laundering implementations at SAS Institute, a leading data analytics firm. Fahd is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and an Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) with proven results in incorporating Agile framework in his work. Fahd graduated from the Electrical Engineering program at the University of Waterloo and holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Chief Information Security Officer, Province of British Columbia. BA, MBA, CISSP
Gary Perkins is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Government of British Columbia. As the Executive Director of the Information Security Branch, he is responsible for providing cyber security services in support of the province. He has over 19 years of experience in information technology, risk management, and cyber security. Prior to joining the BC Government, he worked in the private sector as chief of staff for security at Telus and, earlier in his career, led teams responsible for incident response, operations, delivery, and architecture for both corporate and managed security services customers. A certified information systems security professional (CISSP) since 2004, Perkins also holds an MBA from Simon Fraser University’s Management of Technology program.
Gaurav Kumar is a security and risk management leader with one of the world’s largest management consulting companies. In his current role, Gaurav is responsible for helping client executives develop suitable security and risk management strategies that meet business needs, seeking to balance defensive and responsive strategic elements.
For over 15 years, Gaurav has been helping businesses understand and proactively manage information technology risks by effectively acting as both a technical subject matter expert and a trusted business information security adviser. Gaurav has worked in all verticals of information security and risk management including access management, threat analysis, security monitoring and response, risk management, security assurance and governance, security consulting, and enterprise security program management.
Gaurav holds a MSc in information security and assurance (majoring in vulnerability management) from Norwich University in Vermont, USA. Gaurav also holds the CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CCSK, and SABSA security architect designations.
Director, Enterprise-Wide IT Audit and QA, Government Of Ontario
Gerard Francis is the Director of Enterprise-wide I&IT Auditing for the Government of Ontario. In this role, he provides strategic leadership for all information technology audits conducted across the Ontario Public Service. Gerard has developed a deep appreciation for technology risks facing governments around the world and the critical role IT Audit plays in helping to identify and mitigate them. The enterprise-wide audits conducted by his team cover all government sectors and address key I&IT risks in IT Governance, Cybersecurity, IT Investment Planning, Project Management and Delivery, Service Management and Information Management. Prior to moving into IT Audit, Gerard worked with a number of global financial organizations in the IT field. He has a passion for public service and has devoted the past 16 years of his career to protecting the interests of the people of Ontario.
PhD. Senior Lecturer, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Lassonde School of Engineering.
Dr. Hamzeh Roumani is an award winning professor and a recipient of the 3M Fellowship, the highest and most prestigious recognition of teaching excellence in Canada. His teaching philosophy is founded on the clear separation of abstraction levels, and his pedagogy is based on learning by doing. He embraces the experiential approach in his books and courses and has recently implemented it to help design a new computing curriculum for the newly founded Lassonde School of Engineering at York University. The new courses are themed around sensors and actuators, web technologies, mobile computing, and cyber-physical systems. Dr. Roumani’s main areas of interest are computer security and quantum computing and cryptography.
Assistant Vice President & Managing Enterprise Architect, Co-Operators Group of Companies
Hashmat is currently the Assistant Vice President & Managing Enterprise Architect at Cooperators Group of companies. He is responsible for leading The Cooperator’s digital strategy and execution, with a focus on Enterprise Architecture & Applied Innovation.
Hashmat’s career has centred on ‘data science’ and ‘digital transformation’ with a focus on delivering significant and sustainable value right through from strategy to execution.
Besides being a practitioner, Hashmat also teaches software engineering, data science and agile delivery. He co-founded DisrupIT Labs that helps clients harness data analytics and digital in support of business strategy, deliver cross-functional, rapid prototyping capability to push and test new value propositions in the market fast.
His professional training as a software engineer, quantitative analyst, experience as a data scientist, fraud examiner, information security professional, digital integration specialist and entrepreneur gives him a unique advantage in driving organisational transformation and value.
Hassan Jaferi is the Chief Executive Officer of Bitnobi, Inc. His work experience includes Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP, formerly MaRS Innovation) and PARTEQ Innovations at Queen’s University. Hassan has been involved in the creation of multiple university startups and executed an IP acquisition/acqui-hire deal for York University. Moreover, a five-year term as a patent examiner at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office enables Hassan to provide strong patent advice.
While working at Bitnobi, Hassan is also the Co-director of UTEST which is an early stage incubator jointly run by TIAP and The University of Toronto. At Bitnobi, Hassan manages all day-to-day business affairs for the company in order to help commercialize their privacy protected data-sharing platform.
Hassan holds a Masters, Space Management, International Space University (2006) and a BASc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Ottawa (2003).
PhD, MEng, BASc. Associate Professor of Decision Technologies, Schulich School of Business, York University
Henry is an Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Business, York University, and is the Director for blockchain.lab at Schulich. As one of the leading blockchain scholars in Canada, he has authored more than 20 publications on blockchain topics and over 60 overall. Prof. Kim is engaged in blockchain research projects with Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (on electricity micro-grid), the Canadian blockchain startup Aion (on AI-based consensus mechanism), Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (on food traceability), Don Tapscott’s Blockchain Research Institute (on commercial insurance) and many others.
He is also a leading expert in the development of ontologies for enterprise modelling. He gained expertise conducting research on the Toronto Virtual Enterprise (TOVE) project, a world-renowned investigation into developing Artificial Intelligence based enterprise systems involving global partners like BHP Steel, Bombardier, and Oracle. Prof. Kim is a committed educator to management students and managers, as well as blockchain enthusiasts and ontologists.
Partner and Chief Data Scientist, Strategic Analytics And Modelling, Deloitte Analytics
Ian Scott is Deloitte’s Chief Data Scientist and leads advanced analytics and big data practice. He received a Ph.D. in Physics in 1993 from Harvard University. Previous positions in private industry he has held include vice-president at Lattice-Engines (a Silicon Valley big data company), CTO of Angoss (Toronto-based analytics software company on the Gartner Magic Quadrant serving banking and the broader financial services industry) and data scientist at Capital Fund Management (a Paris-based hedge fund).
Ian’s academic career includes professor and postdoctoral positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stanford University, and CERN (European Centre for Particle Physics Research in Geneva).
Vice President of Quality Engineering, Devops and IT Governance at Tangerine Bank
Over the past twenty years, Igor has been leading a team of talented engineers, technologists and risk analysts (QE, DevOps, IT Risk and IT Governance) focusing on delivering quality, integrity, security and maturity to all software products at Tangerine Bank. When he joined Tangerine Bank, Igor and his team architected the best in-class Customer Management System (CMS) by integrating emerging web technologies with telephony components of modern customer service center. The CMS system went on to receive a number of industry awards for innovation, design and simplicity. Prior to joining Tangerine Bank, Igor worked on various software development projects for multiple clients across North America. Igor has a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Avionics, and he holds multiple certifications in various technologies and best practices frameworks. Igor is passionate about emerging technologies and loves sharing his knowledge with others. On his own time, he enjoys reading, Tai Chi Chen Style and many other sport activities.
