Coaching and Collaboration, People Leadership

Sue Austin is a certified professional coach who specializes in leadership and team coaching within both for profit and not-for-profit organizations. Sue is a brand and marketing expert as well. In 2003, she decided to pursue her passion of leadership coaching where the impact and satisfaction of collaborating with others to increase their sense of professional and personal fulfillment became her ultimate goal. The return on investment in coaching is significant for Sue in terms of both bottom line results and individual client fulfillment; this fusion of working with people on the personal and professional ‘self’ is what drives her.

Suhail Hafiz is the CEO of Contrarian Investment Partners, a firm offering financial advisory services to pre-Series B technology companies and large global institutional investors in the technology industry. Over the past several years, Contrarian has helped US & European technology companies raise over $50M in capital and has worked on 10+ consulting engagements with technology companies implementing fintech solutions. Key highlights include helping clients launch buy now, pay later (BNPL) and embedded lending & payments products. Prior to launching his own firm, Suhail spent 8 years working for tier 1 investment firms on Bay Street and underwriting investment products across the capital structure. He spent 4 years working in structured credit at CIBC, underwriting $50-$500MM credit facilities. After that, Suhail led analysis at a $2BN public equities fund at Gluskin Sheff and later joined a startup investment manager, where he built their investment portfolio and established their core operating infrastructure. Suhail holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and a BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Schulich School of Business, teaching Finance.

Coaching and Collaboration, Healthcare

Dr. Susan Lieff is a Program Director at Schulich ExecEd, Schulich School of Business, York University. She is a geriatric psychiatrist, Professor and the past Vice-Chair of Education of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto (UT) from 2010- 2017. She is currently the founding Director of the New and Evolving Academic Leaders Program (NEAL) at the Centre for Faculty Development, Faculty of Medicine and St Michael’s Hospital, an international program that supports the development of leaders in the academic health sciences.  She completed her Masters of Education in higher education of health professionals at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education / UT in 2002 and her International Masters in Health Leadership at McGill University in 2008. Dr. Lieff’s scholarship focuses on studying the practices, networks and perspectives of academic leaders in the health sciences as well as the design and evaluation of academic leadership development programs in the health sciences. She has been recognized for her excellence in teaching and educational innovation by the University of Toronto, UT Faculty of Medicine, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the Canadian Association of Medical Education, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the Association of Academic Psychiatry and the American and Canadian Psychiatric Associations.

Healthcare, People Leadership

Susan (BAA, MEd) specializes in organizational development with extensive experience in leadership and team development, change leadership, and workplace engagement. She has worked in a variety of sectors including healthcare, education and not-for-profit, bringing a diverse and unique perspective to the table. As a senior internal consultant in the healthcare sector for over 15 years, she not only understands but brings lived experience to support leaders at all levels. Susan is recognized as an empathetic, effective facilitator and coach, partnering with individuals and teams to achieve personal insight, growth and increased productivity. She holds a Masters of Education degree from the University of Toronto, is certified in Emotional Intelligence (EQi-2.0 and EQi-360), DiSC Behavioural Styles and is a Registered Corporate Coach^TM.

Change Management, Public Sector

Suzanne specializes in leading public sector organizations through transformations and helping them sustain the change. She was previously Senior Policy Adviser in Ontario Open for Business, part of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, where she led the ‘Modernizing Government’ portfolio.

Strategic Leadership

Suzie Labonne is consultant in management with a focus on change and organizational development. She helps clients with deep transformation initiatives both through redesign and change management. Her areas of expertise include Human Resources, Organization Development, Training and Development, Facilitation, Talent Management, Business process redesign, and Coaching and Mentoring. She has 30 years of experience in Human Resources and in Management, in the corporate environment as well as consulting. She previously was VP and Managing Director of R3D Consulting Inc., VP HR Planning and Practices at ING Canada as well as numerous roles in Human Resources and in Management. She has been involved with Non-profit organizations in the education sector, as a mentor with young women at risk and is the Chair of the Toronto Chapter of CATA Women in Technology. She holds a bachelor degree in Business Administration

Big Data and Analytics

Tarun Rihal, MBA, MSc, SSBB is a data science manager in Ontario's public service with more than 10 years of experience growing capacity for data science, management and analytics. He specializes in helping organizations develop data-science strategies that maximize return on investment by targeting high-value insight generation. Tarun has received extensive recognition for his work in the development and deployment of novel machine-learning approaches to solving critical business problems in the public service. Most recently, his team at the Ministry of the Attorney General received the National Centre for State Courts’ 2019 G. Thomas Munsterman Award for building key spatial prediction algorithms used to transform Ontario's jury rolls to be more representative of Ontarians. He has also developed enterprise-wide policy for data and analytics for Ontario's and Canada's Treasury Board Secretariats. Tarun also has a deep personal interest in data science and the open source community and is a heavy contributor to R library codebases and Stack Overflow/Cross Validated. When not using analytics to improve public services, he enjoys competing in Kaggle competitions, where he is ranked as a Master.

Change Management, Coaching and Collaboration, Communication, Diversity and Inclusion, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Sales, Strategic Leadership

Dr. Tatiana Astray is a subject matter expert on negotiations, managing professional relationships, and body language. Tatiana holds a Ph.D. in Organization Studies with a minor in Social Psychology, an M.Sc. in Marketing and Consumer Studies, and a B.Sc. in Psychology. She has a decade of experience teaching and facilitating, including working with executives and early-career professionals. She has worked and consulted in the education, research, technology start-ups, and marketing sectors. In her spare time, she sits on the board for Jumpstart, an NGO that focuses on the economic empowerment of Canadian refugees, and facilitates workshops to help female immigrant entrepreneurs master the skills of negotiations.

Communication

Entrepreneur, innovator, and researcher: Three simple words that best describe the talent and experience of Dr. Terence Flynn. Over the last two decades, Terry has practiced and taught reputation management, strategic public relations management, crisis communications and environmental risk communication. He has created and implemented professional training programs that have been used by multi-national corporations, governmental agencies, and not-for-profit organizations, throughout the world. Dr. Flynn’s practical expertise has also assisted him in developing a theoretical model of organizational crisis preparedness based on his research of nearly 500 organizations in Canada and the United States. He is a much sought after trainer and speaker and continues to present his research findings at academic and professional conferences across North America.

Big Data and Analytics, Technology

Terence Tse is a globally recognized educator, author and speaker. He is a co-founder and executive director of Nexus FrontierTech, an AI company. Terence is also a professor at Hult International Business School. Terence is a co-author of two international best sellers on Amazon: The AI Republic: Building the Nexus Between Humans and Intelligent Automation and Understanding How the Future Unfolds: Using DRIVE to Harness the Power of Today's Megatrends. The DRIVE framework contained in the latter was nominated for the CK Prahalad Breakthrough Idea Award by Thinkers50, the most prestigious award in business thought leadership. This framework has also led Chartered Management Institute’s own magazine Professional Manager in the UK to name Terence as one of the 18 new voices in 2018 that reshape management and leadership. Talent Quarterly in the US called the DRIVE framework one of the 24 trends transforming talent management in the years to come. He also authored Corporate Finance: The Basics. His next book, “The Great Remobilization”, published by MIT Press, is to be released at the start of 2023. Terence is also a popular and entertaining commentator and has appeared on many television and radio shows as well as well-known periodicals including The Financial Times, Harvard Business Review and WIRED. He has been invited as a speaker by governments and supranational organizations including the UN, IMF and EBRD. Terence has run workshops and seminars for some 40 companies on the subject of finance, trends, fintech and digital transformation.

Terri has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical and consulting industries both in the US and Canada. For the past 10 years, Terri has held senior executive positions in both Brand and Generic Pharmaceutical companies. She has also served on the Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy Board for 6 years and is VP Industry and Member Relations, CAPDM.