Impact Canada : Advisory Committee

Chair of Impact Canada Advisory Committee | Former CEO, MaRS Discovery District

Ilse Treurnicht’s career spans scientific research, technology startups and growth companies, commercialization of academic discoveries, venture capital, innovation consulting and policy development.

For the past 12+ years, she has been the CEO of MaRS (marsdd.com) in Toronto, overseeing the development of the organization from a startup to a leading urban innovation hub.

Ilse was Chair of the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance in 2010, and is recognized for advancing a Canadian innovation ecosystem that fosters both economic and social prosperity. She has served on the Government of Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC), and on the boards of several technology firms and non-profit organizations. She is currently a member of Canada’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth and the Advisory Committee on Open Banking. She also serves as executive chair of Triphase Accelerator Corporation (a cancer drug development firm), and is a board director of Cogniciti (a brain health company) and the Public Policy Forum. She holds a doctorate in chemistry from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

VP, Global Corporate Citizenship at TD Bank Group

Andrea Barrack is the VP, Global Corporate Citizenship at TD Bank Group. In this role she is the lead champion for Corporate Social Responsibility across the enterprise, ensuring the development of a best in class integrated strategy that is aligned to business objectives while creating positive social, economic and environmental impacts in the community.

Prior to coming to TD, Andrea was the Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, providing strategic and operational leadership to a government agency that distributed over $120 million in public funding to the charitable and not for profit sector. Andrea Barrack worked in healthcare administration for more than a decade, focused on primary health care and community health. She is recognized for her expertise in making organizations more effective by ensuring that systems are integrated and impact is both measured and assessed.

Andrea Barrack earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology at the University of Guelph and a Master’s of Health Science in Health Administration at the University of Toronto. She has also earned certificates in non-profit management and governance from Harvard University’s Business School and John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2016, she was named in the Women’s Executive Network Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the Trendsetter and Trailblazer category.

In her volunteer life, Andrea is on the Board for the Western Hemisphere of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Chair of the Dean's Council for the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. She is also a diversity fellows mentor with the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance.

VP Corporate Citizenship for RBC and Executive Director of the RBC Foundation

As the VP Corporate Citizenship for RBC and Executive Director of the RBC Foundation, Valerie is responsible for the development and execution of RBC’s global corporate citizenship strategy which includes strategic philanthropy; employee ‘citizenship’ engagement; citizenship impact measurement, evaluation and reporting; corporate environmental affairs; and social innovation and finance.

For over 23 years Valerie has helped national and international businesses, governments and non-government organizations create opportunity by proactively managing environmental and social risks, and implementing programs that deliver both shareholder and stakeholder value. She has conducted a broad range of engagements including sustainability visioning and stance definition; stakeholder mapping and materiality assessment; stakeholder engagement; benchmarking and sustainability assessment; management system design and audit; indicators, goals and metrics identification, design, measurement and reporting; cost-benefit and scenario analysis; governance and leadership structure design; and change management planning and implementation.

Prior to joining RBC, she was a Partner with Deloitte’s Enterprise Risk Services and the America’s Leader of Deloitte’s Sustainability and Climate Change(S&CC) Practice. In this role, she provided national direction and expertise in the areas of Environment, Health & Safety (EHS), Sustainability, Climate Change, Water and Energy Management across the Americas. She was also a member of Deloitte’s global Sustainability & Climate Change Leadership Team, and an advisor to Deloitte Canada’s internal corporate responsibility program.

In 2013, she was named as a member of Canada’s Clean 16 – leader in the consulting sector and is part of the Canadian Clean 50.

Valerie graduated from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering. She is fluent in French and Spanish.

Chairman of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment and The Portland Trust

Sir Ronald Cohen is Chairman of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment and The Portland Trust. He is a co-founder director of Social Finance UK, USA, and Israel, and co-founder Chair of Bridges Fund Management and Big Society Capital. For nearly two decades, Sir Ronald’s pioneering initiatives in driving impact investment have catalyzed a number of global efforts, each focused on driving private capital to serve social and environmental good. These efforts are leading the global impact investment movement towards an Impact Revolution.

He chaired the Social Impact Investment Taskforce established under the UK’s presidency of the G8 (2013-2015), the Social Investment Task Force (2000-2010) and the Commission on Unclaimed Assets (2005-2007). In 2012 he received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Innovation Award for innovation in social finance. He co-founded and was Executive Chairman of Apax Partners Worldwide LLP (1972-2005). He was a founder director and Chairman of the British Venture Capital Association and a founder director of the European Venture Capital Association.

He is a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School and a Vice-Chairman of Ben Gurion University; a former member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers; a former director of the Harvard Management Company and the University of Oxford Investment Committee; a former Trustee of the British Museum; and a former trustee of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he was President of the Oxford Union and serves as an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School to which he was awarded a Henry Fellowship. In 2007, Sir Ronald published: The Second Bounce of the Ball – Turning Risk into Opportunity and today is authoring a book on the “Impact Revolution.”

CEO, Convergence Blended Finance

Joan M. Larrea brings to Convergence 20 years of experience in emerging markets investing. Prior to joining Convergence, she led the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation's (OPIC) efforts to partner with philanthropic and private investors to increase capital flows to OPIC's target markets. While at OPIC, she also directed a pilot program to finance smaller, high impact, and innovative funds, many of which drew on blended finance structures. Before OPIC, Joan served as a managing director on the emerging markets team at Global Environment Fund, an asset manager dedicated to the energy, environmental, and natural resource sectors. She began her career as an investment officer at International Finance Corporation, where she concluded pioneering transactions in a variety of infrastructure and manufacturing sectors across Asia.

The Rockefeller Foundation Managing Director, Innovative Finance

As Managing Director, Saadia leads the Foundation's work on Innovative Finance, overseeing its ‘Zero Gap’ portfolio. Her responsibilities include developing next generation finance mechanisms and large-scale blended finance funds that mobilize private sector capital towards the SDGs. Her work directly supports the Foundation’s mission of promoting the well-being of humanity throughout the world.

Saadia has been featured in numerous publications such as the FT, Bloomberg, BBC, and WSJ Live, among others, and frequently speaks at industry and finance events to advance the idea of innovative finance as a mainstream instrument of social policy. She is a frequent author as well, having contributed pieces to Foreign Affairs, Project Syndicate, Fortune.com, Business Insurance, and many other publications.

Before joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Saadia was Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Prior to NYCEDC, she was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company.

President and CEO, Horizon Investments Founder, Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship Fund

David Martin (44) is currently the President of Bromart Holdings, which owns and controls 100% of the CSL Group and 100% of Horizon Capital Holdings. The CSL Group, of which David is a Director of the Board and the Chairman of the Corporate Environmental Sustainability Committee, is a Canadian based company headquartered in Montreal with affiliated offices in Halifax, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Burlington, London, Boston, Singapore and Sydney, Australia. The company specializes and controls the world’s largest self-unloading bulk carrier fleet with inland, coastal and deep sea trading capabilities. Horizon Capital Holdings, of which David is the Co-President and CEO, is responsible for Bromart’s non-shipping related investment activities as well as its philanthropic activities.

In addition, he is a co-founder and General Partner of the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship Fund (CAPE Fund), a $50 million fund created to encourage Aboriginal entrepreneurship and wealth creation as well as capacity building at both management and governance levels amongst First Nation, Metis and Inuit peoples.

In 2012, David joined the board of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada. Currently he is the Chair of the Governance Committee.

Between 2000 and 2004, David was as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch Canada where he was involved in originating and executing both mergers and acquisitions and financings for numerous public and private companies. In 2004, David left Merrill Lynch to assume responsibilities at Bromart and Horizon Capital Holdings.

David graduated from McGill University with a Joint Honours degree in Political Science and History in 1997. In 2000, he received his MBA from Cambridge University, graduating as a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholar (Honorary) and was admitted as a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society.

David has also completed the academic requirements for the Directors Education Program, Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD).

David is married to Laurence Duguay, and the couple are the proud parents of their three children, Ethan, Liam and Finn.

Chair and Co-Founder, Open Source Pharma Foundation

An international human rights lawyer, scholar and social entrepreneur, Jaykumar Menon is currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, which is based at McGill University in Canada. He fancies himself a giant killer, and a collector of impossible tasks. His research, teachings and practice focus on innovation and human rights. He seeks to use open innovation techniques such as crowdsourcing and open intellectual property to help realize basic human rights for a billion people. He is a founder of the Open Source Pharma Foundation, which aims to help generate affordable new medicines in areas of great health need. OSPF currently in late stage clinical trials for a new therapy for tuberculosis. The TB bacteria inhabits ¼ of humanity. He is also a founder of The India Nutrition Initiative, which is developing salt double-fortified with iron and iodine (“DFS”), to help address the world’s the most widespread form of malnutrition, iron deficiency, which afflicts 2 billion people. DFS is currently reaching over 20 million people daily.

His innovation-for-humanity concepts have recently received over $111 million in funding from groups such as the Gates Foundation, Tata Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and governments in Canada and India. Previously, he led the international development and education programs at the X PRIZE Foundation, a radical innovation group funded by the founders of Google and Facebook that awards $10+ million incentive prizes to teams that achieve targeted “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity”. He founded X PRIZE’s operations in India and has worked on innovation and development with WFP, IIT-Delhi, the UN Secretary-General’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office of the Government of India, and other groups. He also worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey.

As a human rights lawyer at the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights and working alongside activists and community groups, he won a string of victories in high profile cases. He represented the student leaders of Tiananmen Square against the ex-Premier of China, and helped win a $4 billion judgment on behalf of victims of the Bosnian genocide against Radovan Karadzic. He helped represent the family of Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in a landmark corporations and human rights suit against Royal Dutch Shell ($15M settlement) and freed a man from death row in Indiana. As the fifteenth lawyer to take up the case, he hunted through the prisons of New York for the real killer and helped exonerate a man named David Wong who has served over a decade of a life sentence for murder.

As a scholar, he has written articles in top peer-reviewed international human rights law reference journals and books, including those published by the Oxford University Press. As an entrepreneur, he has co-founded a venture-funded Internet company that currently has seven-figure revenues. He is a published creative writer and has written a short story in an anthology that collectively won the American Book Award. He received the William Rogers Award in 2016, the Brown Alumni Association’s highest honor, given to one person annually for a life of “usefulness and reputation”; prior winners include diplomat Richard Holbrooke, the current World Bank president, a vice chair of Citibank, and an astronaut.

Jaykumar holds a JD and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University along with a BA degree and one year of medical school at Brown University. Through his creative and strategic approach, he hopes to bring about a just and large-scale social change in the communities he works with.

Regional Manager, Google.org

Hector leads all philanthropic programs and investment for Google.org in Canada and Latin America, as well as helps lead Google.org’s crisis response and humanitarian efforts globally. His previous experience includes investment banking at Oppenheimer & Co, legislative analysis for Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and bilateral relations at the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Hector holds a Bachelors of Arts in International Business from Florida International University, a professional certificate on social entrepreneurship from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and is a Masters in Public Affairs from the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Hector is originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and now resides in Oakland, California.

Co-Founder & CEO, Social Finance U.S.

Tracy Palandjian is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Social Finance U.S., a nonprofit organization which is leading the development of Pay for Success financing and Social Impact Bonds, an innovative public-private partnership that mobilizes capital to drive social progress.

For more than a decade, Tracy has committed to building a more impactful nonprofit sector by re-imagining the role of the capital markets in enabling social progress. Inspired by Social Finance UK, Tracy co-founded Social Finance US in 2011 to develop the Pay for Success model in the United States. Prior to Social Finance, Tracy was a Managing Director for 11 years at The Parthenon Group where she established and led the Nonprofit Practice and worked with foundations and NGOs to accomplish their missions in the US and globally. Tracy also worked at Wellington Management Co. and McKinsey & Co.

Tracy is co-author of Investing for Impact: Case Studies Across Asset Classes. She is vice chair of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance to the Global Impact Investment Steering Group. She is a trustee at the Surdna Foundation (where she chairs the Investment Committee), and a Director of Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE: AMG). She also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Community Development Advisory Council. A former Vice Chair of the Harvard Board of Overseers, Tracy continues to serve on various Standing and Visiting Committees at Harvard University.

Tracy is a frequent speaker and writer on impact investing, social innovation and results-oriented policy making, having been covered in The Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Economist, TIME, Forbes, and New York Times. A native of Hong Kong, Tracy is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. She graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. magna cum laude in Economics, and holds an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar.

Executive Director of the Fondation Mirella et Lino Saputo

Claude is currently Executive Director of the Mirella Foundation and Lino Saputo, a private family foundation located in Montreal. It is dedicated to improving the quality of life of elderly people and children in need of special help. In addition, the foundation supports initiatives in social innovation. With a background in Political Science and Communications, Claude has management experience in both the private and public sectors.

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 aims to repatriate Canadian software developers and keep new STEM graduates from leaving Canada as well as attract new immigrants to Canada by creating domestic career opportunities for software developers that did not formerly exist. MobSquad forms remote teams of high-caliber developers in Canada that are “leased” to US-based clients on an exclusive, long-term basis, effectively rendering the remote developers their full-time employees. MobSquad’s Canadian-based developers obtain the opportunity to work with the most compelling start-ups in the world, backed by globally recognized venture capitalists and be mentored by leading serial entrepreneurs – all from Canada.

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 exclusively 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 two Totem Capital investee companies: Carrot Insights, a mobile health app recognized by Mobile Syrup as Canada’s app of the year in 2017; and 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 Federal government, 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 and Chatter Research, a text-driven customer insight chatbot which counts Lush Cosmetics, The Finish Line, and Chase Bank amongst its customer base.

Irfhan is actively involved in civic affairs as Board Chair of Glenbow Museum and Board Member of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. 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 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 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).

Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Dilip Soman is a professor and holds the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He serves as the director of the university’s Behavioural Economics in Action research centre [BEAR]. He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering (Bombay), Management (Indian Institute of Management) and Behavioural Sciences (Chicago).

Soman is a behavioural scientist and does research on behavioural economics and applications to welfare, policy and business. He is the author of over 50 research papers and several books, including the recently published The Last Mile (University of Toronto Press). Dilip also teaches an open online class (MOOC) entitled “Behavioural Economics in Action.” He previously served as the Director of the University’s India Innovation Institute, and has also served on the faculties of the University of Colorado and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

When not working, he spends time on photography, reading, cricket, and taking weekends seriously.

President & Chief Executive Officer Vancity

As president and chief executive officer of Vancity, Canada's largest community credit union, Tamara Vrooman believes that banking has a vital role in developing a healthy society—building the well-being of people and, at the same time, ensuring the long-term sustainability of the communities in which they live and work. This summarizes Vancity's vision of redefining wealth.

Tamara views the economy as much more than what is written on a balance sheet; it includes the social and natural economies in which we all live. Understanding the interdependence of these three means that Vancity takes a very different approach to banking, ensuring its products, services and advice deliver financial, social and environmental results for the more than 523,000 members it serves.

As a member-owned financial co-operative, Vancity is ideally suited to operate in an economy that is ever changing because it is through its close connection with members that Vancity sees what is required to meet their changing needs. This 'member-led innovation' guides Vancity in its business strategies to use the $25.6 billion in members' assets and assets under administration it holds to create community impact.

Under Tamara's leadership, Vancity has gained international recognition for its values-based banking model. Vancity was the first Canadian financial institution invited to join the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, an independent network of the world's leading sustainable banks and banking co-operatives. Tamara's voice is also sought internationally—she has been invited by Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, as well as other government and business leaders to share Vancity's business model at various summits and conferences.

Tamara's achievements include leading Vancity to become the first carbon-neutral financial institution in North America, to become the largest private-sector living wage employer in Canada, and to tackle the shadow financial system by launching an alternative to predatory payday loans for its members—the Vancity Fair & Fast Loan™. Vancity was named Canada's Best Corporate Citizen in both 2016 and 2017 by Corporate Knights, and has also received many national and international awards for its business leadership.

All of this was achieved while growing the assets plus assets under administration of the credit union 61 per cent to $25.6 billion and achieving the highest profits in the organization's 70-year history. Under Tamara's direction, more than one-fifth, or $5.4 billion, of Vancity's assets plus assets under administration are invested in impact.

Prior to joining Vancity, Tamara served as Deputy Minister of Finance for the Province of British Columbia and as Secretary to the Treasury Board and CEO of the Public Sector Employers' Council where she oversaw the government's annual $100 billion borrowing and cash requirements and developed its $36 billion fiscal plan. Her prior portfolio was as Deputy Minister and Executive Financial Officer for the Ministry of Health.

Tamara pursued post-secondary education at the University of Victoria, earning a Master of Arts in History in 1994 and a Bachelor of Arts with honours in 1991. She also received an Honorary Doctorate (Laws) from Simon Fraser University in 2016 and an Honorary Doctorate (Technology) from the British Columbia Institute of Technology in 2013.

On a personal level, Tamara lends her voice and leadership experience to issues related to women, families and children with a particular focus on issues related to equality, inclusion and empowerment.

Founder of Social Capital Partners

Bill Young is the founder of Social Capital Partners (SCP), an innovative non-profit, social finance company started in 2001. Throughout its history SCP has facilitated thousands of jobs for people who face employment barriers through social enterprise and the private sector by linking community hiring to attractive financing. Before founding SCP, Bill worked in the private sector, primarily as CEO of Hamilton Computers – later sold to GE Capital – and Optel Communications Corp. He began his career as a Chartered Accountant and holds an Honours BA from the University of Toronto and an MBA from Harvard. He sits on numerous boards and advisory boards involved in social finance and social innovation and is a Member of the Order of Canada.