Change Management, Coaching and Collaboration

Andrew Levison has been a senior faculty member at the Schulich ExecEd for over 12 years teaching clients about Leadership and Talent Management. Andrew works globally across all industries in the private and public sectors helping his clients unleash their inherent potential for success. He is also an expert public speaker, executive coach and facilitator.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Dr. Maxwell is the Bergeron Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship, Lassonde School of Engineering combines over 20 years in large technology and entrepreneurial ventures with 20 years in innovation, technology and entrepreneurship research and teaching in academia (in Canada and US). He has won awards for both including the Heizer Award for top PhD (Academy of Management), Educator Award (Temple University), and the President’s Teaching Award (York University).  During this period he has brought his unique understandings of the interaction between the physics of technology innovation and the behavioural economics of technology adoption to industry professionals in a wide variety of formats.  His structured approach to creative problem solving has been supercharged by the availability of AI tools, which he continues to explore in the context of enhancing innovation.  He will be sharing some of the insights, and practical examples in the workshop.

Project Management

Ariel Deluy’s experience spans more than 15 years during which he implemented enterprise project management systems, building and managing multidisciplinary and highly effective project teams to deliver complex solution for clients, and providing strategic planning services for a number of Fortune 1000 organizations. Ariel's leadership philosophy and professional experience is based on combining strategy with technology to deliver enduring results to clients.  In the public sector, Ariel has worked with CATSA, TSA, and airport authorities throughout Canada and the United States on several successful airport security projects and baggage systems automation. Ariel received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Concordia University, and his Bachelor of Applied Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Windsor.

Marketing

Ashley Konson's passion is helping clients and students discover and apply cutting-edge thinking and the best practices of brand leaders from around the globe for growing brands and businesses. Ashley has worked in senior and executive-level marketing positions in the United States, Canada and South Africa, with Nestle, The Walt Disney Company, Imax Ltd. and Holt Renfrew. He is the author and instructor for the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA Designing Brand Experiences program, and program director for the MBA & MMKG Brand Management programs at the Schulich School of Business at York University. He is also visiting faculty at the S. P. Jain School of Global Management based in Dubai, Singapore and Sydney, Australia. Ashley has been recognized frequently for “teaching excellence” and is a two-time winner of the prestigious Seymour Schulich MBA Teaching Excellence Award for which he has been nominated nine times.

Big Data and Analytics, General Management, Marketing

Ashwin is director of the MBA Program and co-director of the York Consulting Group at the Schulich School of Business, York University, where he is also a professor of marketing. Ashwin teaches in the BBA, MBA, PhD and Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA programs, in addition to teaching in certificate programs for the Schulich Executive Education Center. Ashwin holds the exclusive distinction of having received the Seymour Schulich Excellence in Teaching Award at both the BBA and MBA levels at the Schulich School of Business. Ashwin’s passion is in the area of developing analytical, decision-making and presentation skills. His TURNING POINT methodology helps managers to clearly identify the key issues that demand their attention, develop a systematic approach to developing solutions to these issues, and present their ideas in a compelling manner. He has conducted a number of seminars on this methodology both in-house at the Schulich ExecEd and for organizations such as CIBC, Rogers, Schneider Electric and Telus, among others.

Financial Acumen

Atipol is a highly rated professor at the Shulich School of Business at York University. He specializes in alternative financial arrangements, international technology transfer, multinational corporations as well as economic development of South East Asia.

Management

Avinash is Design Leader and Educator with a cross-disciplinary background in user experience design, business, and engineering. His life's purpose is to drive change for the good in a human-centred way. After completing a BE in Computer Science Engineering, he was selected for a Postgraduate degree in UX Design from NID (National Institute of Design), Ahmedabad, a world-ranked (India’s foremost) design institute. In Canada, Avinash continued his education with an MBA from the Rotman School of Management, the University of Toronto, majoring in Strategy and Business Design. In addition to 3 startups, he also co-founded 1 non-profit and has worked in the public sector, consulting, and for three Fortune 500 companies. Even when not designing, he enjoys aspects of design in cooking and photography. As a photographer, Avinash sees potential everywhere—finding beauty in ordinary places. As a cook, leftovers and food that might go bad also hold potential. His signature dish is Litti-Chokha, a traditional dish from my native state in India.

Healthcare, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Dr. Baseer Khan is an ophthalmology surgeon and currently on staff at Southlake Regional Health Centre, North York General Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Stevenson Memorial Hospital and the Kensington Eye Institute. Dr. Khan was instrumental at establishing a leading glaucoma and anterior segment program in the Central LHIN. Dr. Khan is a gradate of and professor at the University of Toronto, where he educates fellows, residents and medical students. In 2016, he completed the Physician CEO program at the Kellogg School of Management and Business. He is an innovator and researcher and has been a principal investigator in more than 15 clinical trials and has designed a number of surgical instruments. A highly respected consultant and adviser to many medical-device and pharmaceutical companies. Outside of his clinical and surgical practice, Dr. Khan is also highly involved in humanitarian work, performing multiple surgical and teaching missions in Jordan, Vietnam, Haiti and Jamaica.

Project Management

Currently acting as senior VP and regional director for the Project Management Centre, Benoit also provides services in process and methodology definition as well as systems implementation and training. He is also the Director of IFGP – Institut de formation en gestion de projets, a project management training and education firm. Benoit has a BEng in Industrial Engineering, with a major in Project Management, is a member of the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). In the field of Project Management systems, he has completed numerous interventions in Canada as well as in the United States among clients such as ABB Systems, Alstom, Bell Mobility, Abbott Laboratories, MDS Nordion, the Quebec Ministry of Transport, Sandoz and the Department of National Defence.

Financial Acumen

Beppino Pasquali is a Canadian chartered professional accountant with 20 years’ experience in accounting and taxation for small- to medium-sized companies. He advises clients in achieving growth and shareholder value. His considerable experience is evident in the seminar as he incorporates real life cases. Beppino lectures in the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA and MBA programs in the field of financial and managerial accounting, and at the Schulich ExecEd (Schulich ExecEd). He has trained hundreds of sales and customer service representatives, managers, executives and professionals. His “Financial and Managerial Accounting for Non-Financial Manager” program is one of the most attended programs at Schulich ExecEd.

With a career spanning over two decades in the film, television, and cultural sectors in the US and Canada, Beth Janson has consistently driven innovation and development in the industry. A seasoned executive who has served as COO of the Toronto International Film Festival and CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, she now brings a wealth of experience and expertise to her own strategic consultancy, Penn Road Advisors. A champion of inclusivity, Beth was the founding director of the Rent the Runway Foundation’s Project Entrepreneur program, a groundbreaking initiative launched in partnership with UBS, offering women the tools, training, and networks needed to build scalable and economically impactful companies. Beginning in 2002, she worked for more than a decade to build the Tribeca Film Institute. Under her leadership, TFI became an important resource and support for filmmakers through programs such as Tribeca All Access (Bloomberg Philanthropies), the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, and the IWC Filmmaker Award. TFI’s work in the emerging sector of multi-platform, XR and VR storytelling was trailblazing and included launching the TFI New Media Fund, the first fund in the US for new media projects; TFI Interactive; and Tribeca Hacks. Beth's career journey has always had storytelling at its centre, whether as Programming Director of the Newport International Film Festival or through roles at the Public Theater (George C. Wolfe, Producer) and HBO Documentary Films under Sheila Nevins. Her contributions were recognized with an Emmy nomination in 2017 for her work as Co-Executive Producer on "Meet the Patels," and in 2020, she received the Crystal Award for Outstanding Achievement in Business from Women in Film & TV Toronto. Beth is a proud alumna of York University, where she earned her BFA Honors. In 2015, she was one of two non-profit leaders in the US to receive a Ford Foundation fellowship to attend the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School. Her commitment to transformative leadership and impactful contributions continues to shape the industry landscape.

Healthcare

Dr. Bob Bell, MDCM, MSc, FRCSC, FACS, FRCSE (hon). Robert Bell served as Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Health from 2014 to 2018. Prior to this role, he worked as President and Chief Executive Officer of University Health Network (UHN) for nine years. He was previously the Chief Operating Officer at Princess Margaret Hospital, the Chair of Cancer Care Ontario’s Clinical Council and the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario. Dr. Bell received his Doctor of Medicine from McGill University, a Master of Science from the University of Toronto and achieved his Fellowship in Orthopaedic Surgery in 1983. He completed training in Orthopaedic Cancer Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University in 1985 and in the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2005. Dr. Bell is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the American College of Surgeons and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. As an internationally recognized orthopedic surgeon, health system executive, clinician-scientist, and educator, Dr. Bell has more than 45 years of healthcare experience. Today, he provides advice to a number of private and public organizations and has published three novels, with all proceeds from these books benefiting UHN foundations.

Coaching and Collaboration

Brett brings more than 17 years of experience to the concepts of thinking and organizational intelligence within a business context. He has also served as a Master Trainer and Coach with the EQ-i® (emotional quotient inventory) and is the developer of Emotional Power®, a practical business-based model used to apply the concepts of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Brett is a senior facilitator for the Schulich School of Business at York University and holds a doctorate in Human Organizational Systems.