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Confirmed Speakers

27 May 2021

2021 Canadian Virtual Weekend

Speakers

  • Rahul Arora

    Rahul Arora (Prairies & Balliol, 2019) is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford and an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Calgary. He co-leads SeroTracker, a dashboard and data platform for COVID-19 antibody testing studies. During the pandemic, he has consulted for the World Health Organization, Health Canada, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Rahul grew up in Calgary, Alberta. Before Oxford, he received a BHSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Calgary, interned with McKinsey & Company, and co-founded a medical devices startup. He loves spending time in the Rockies, reading science fiction, and playing air guitar.

  • Doyin Atewologun

    Doyin Atewologun is Dean of the Rhodes Scholarships. A Chartered Organisational Psychologist by training, Doyin is an internationally-recognised expert on leadership, diversity, intersectionality and organisation culture. She is also Academic Adviser for the UK government-backed Parker Review on ethnic diversity on FTSE 350 boards as commissioned by the then-UK Secretary of State for Business. Doyin was recognised in People Management magazine's Top 20 Diversity and Inclusion ‘Power List’ for 2020. She won Inspiring Board Leader of the Year award at the Precious Awards in 2019, and has won numerous other awards for excellence in academic publications. Doyin has extensive experience in coaching, executive education, programme design and research advising, and she has worked with many of the FTSE 100, United Nations agencies, legal and other professional services firms, and the UK Civil Service for over 15 years. Doyin is tasked with ensuring parity in and excellence across all dimensions of the experience for Scholars in residence, and she looks forward to advancing efforts for greater equity and inclusion at Oxford University and the Rhodes Trust. Pronouns: she/her

  • Randy Boissonnault

    Entrepreneur. Community Builder. Founder of Literacy Without Borders. Ironman Triathlete. Former Member of Parliament. For over 20 years, Randy Boissonnault has advised leaders of owner-managed companies and social profit organizations on matters of leadership, strategy and community development. From 2016 to 2019, Randy served as Special Advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on LGBTQ2 Issues. Since 2019, Randy has grown his boutique consulting firm, built a medical device import company, and worked with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in Thailand and Bolivia. A Co-Founder and Vice-Chair of the Global Equality Caucus, Randy is a tireless advocate of LGBTQ2 rights, inclusion in the workplace and supplier diversity. Randy lives in Edmonton with his partner, David.

  • Tim Evans

    Dr. Tim Evans (Ontario & University 1984) joined McGill University in September 2019, as the Inaugural Director and Associate Dean of the School of Population and Global Health (SPGH) in the Faculty of Medicine and Associate Vice-Principal (Global Policy and Innovation). Since joining McGill, and in the context of the COVID-19 Pandemic, he was named as the Executive Director of Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force in April 2020. Prior to McGill, he spent 6 years as the Senior Director of the Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice at the World Bank Group. From 2010 to 2013, Tim was Dean of the James P. Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Senior Advisor to the BRAC Health Program. From 2003 to 2010, he was Assistant Director General at the World Health Organization (WHO). Prior to this, he served as Director of the Health Equity Theme at the Rockefeller Foundation. Earlier in his career, he was an attending physician of internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and was Assistant Professor in International Health Economics at the Harvard School of Public Health. Tim has been at the forefront of advancing global health equity and strengthening health systems delivery for more than 20 years. At WHO, he led the Commission on Social Determinants of Health and oversaw the production of the annual World Health Report. He has been a co-founder of many partnerships including the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) as well as efforts to increase access to HIV treatment for mothers and innovative approaches to training community-based midwives in Bangladesh. Tim received his Medical Degree from McMaster University in Canada and was a Research and Internal Medicine Resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He earned a D.Phil. in Agricultural Economics from University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

  • Suzanna Fritzberg (1)

    Suzanna Fritzberg serves as Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary for Domestic Finance at the US Treasury Department, where she works to advance economic mobility and inclusive economic growth. She previously served on the Biden-Harris presidential transition team and convened the Biden-Harris campaign's economic policy committee. She served as a policy advisor to Pete Buttigieg in his campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination, leading the campaign's work on economic mobility and women's issues, and worked previously as Buttigieg's Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy Director at the City of South Bend, where she oversaw a broad portfolio of human services, housing and public health priorities. In addition to politics and the public sector, she has worked in philanthropy, and in 2020 founded and directed a public-private partnership in Birmingham, AL focused on promoting public health and economic resilience in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Suzanna received her B.A. from Yale University with research in gender studies and political science, and holds Master of Science degrees in social policy and political theory from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

  • Eileen Gillese

    Justice Eileen E. Gillese received her B. Comm. from the University of Alberta and her B.A. Hons. Jurisprudence and B.C.L. (Oxon.) (first class) from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Justice Gillese was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2002 after serving as a Superior Court Justice from 1999-2002. Before her judicial appointments, Justice Gillese was Dean and Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, the University of Western Ontario. While a professor, Justice Gillese received the Western University Edward G. Pleva Award, the 3M Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching, and the Faculty of Law awards for teaching excellence. She is a former Chair of the Pension Commission of Ontario; the Financial Services Commission of Ontario; and the Financial Services Tribunal of Ontario. Justice Gillese received an honorary LLD from the Law Society of Upper Canada (2002), was named the 2003 Globe & Mail Nation Builder (with two others), was named a Top 100 Women (WXN) (2006), and received the OBA Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Pensions & Benefits Law (2009). From 2017 to 2019, Justice Gillese served as the Commissioner for the Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-Term Care Homes System. While on the Bench, Justice Gillese wrote the third edition of The Law of Trusts. She is a frequent speaker at judicial and professional events on a wide variety of subjects

  • Elizabeth Kiss

    Before taking up the Wardenship in 2018, Dr Elizabeth Kiss (pronounced ‘quiche’) served for twelve years as president of Agnes Scott College, Georgia. During her tenure, Agnes Scott broke records for enrolment and retention and was named the second ‘Most Diversified College in America’ by Time and the country’s most successful liberal arts college for graduating low-income students by the U.S. Department of Education. In December 2017, the Chronicle of Higher Education named Elizabeth Kiss on its 2017 list of the most influential people in U.S. higher education.

  • Sandy MacIver

    For the first thirteen years of Sandy’s post-Oxford career, he followed the standard upwardly mobile A type personality career ladder path, eventually becoming a director of four different policy shops in two provincial governments and a manager with the international consulting firm Coopers and Lybrand. Then he abruptly stepped off the ladder and began a path of “leadership from behind and beside” inside of “leadership from in front”. He established his own firm and worked closely with CEOs in tailored long term leadership development, people skills, team development, conflict resolution and people- related problem solving mode. In so doing, he became an integral player in the success of a silviculture company in BC, a general contractor in Texas, a commercial real-estate company in Atlanta and various arms of the BC government. These working relationships spanned decades and provided Sandy with opportunities to partner with succeeding CEOs to develop and nourish deep seated cultures of trust and collaborative teamwork. He also took on challenging extended assignments with Microsoft, the San Antonio Spurs, the Commonwealth Games and the Ontario Securities Commission. At the same time Sandy kept himself current and relevant by teaching part time in numerous university programs. They included the MPA and Aboriginal Governance programs at UVic, the first ever MA in Leadership faculty team at the new Royal Roads, the first executive program at Royal Roads, the business program headship at his alma mater, Mount Allison, while doing breakthrough work in experiential learning, and most recently in tech business areas at SFU. Along the way, he acquired an MPA focused on social psychology and strategic planning from UVic and a doctorate from UBC in educational leadership with a focus on building trust in organizations.

  • Murray McCutcheon

    Murray McCutcheon is VP of Corporate Development at AbCellera, a Vancouver-based biotech company dedicated to the discovery and development of antibody therapies to treat disease. As part of the senior leadership team, he contributes to the development and execution of corporate strategy and is responsible for negotiating AbCellera’s partnership and license agreements. A former scientist, Murray has 14 years of experience in technology commercialization and early-stage venture development. Prior to AbCellera, Murray worked as a Business Development Manager at Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development, where he helped to commercialize intellectual property developed at Harvard and bring industry sponsored funding to research groups. Prior to Harvard, Murray was a senior consultant at Lux Research, a strategic advisory firm specializing in science-driven innovation. Murray completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University and has PhD, MSc, and BSc degrees in physics from the University of British Columbia. He read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Trinity College in Oxford, where he earned his BA in 2001.

  • Zehra Naqvi (1)

    Zehra Naqvi (British Columbia and Green Temple 2018) is a writer, editor, and educator. She is a 2021 finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and a winner of ROOM Magazine's Poetry Contest. Zehra has written and edited for various publications internationally. Her work has appeared in, among other places, Tin House, The New Quarterly, Jaggery, Routed Magazine, and is forthcoming in Living Hyphen. Her research, writing and community work often focus on narratives that shape ideas and policies around belonging, borders, and transnational identities and experiences. She is also a section editor of the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration. As an educator, Zehra has been working with students facing educational inequality in the UK and in Pakistan. She holds an MSc in Migration Studies and an MSc in Social Anthropology from Oxford. Prior to Oxford, she graduated from the University of British Columbia with a BA (Honours) in English and Creative Writing. Zehra is currently working on her first book.

  • Andrew Wilkinson

    After unexpectedly winning a Rhodes Scholarship in Alberta, Andrew skipped out of medical school for two years of law at Magdalen, which taught him that medical textbooks are more fun because they have pictures. With too many degrees in hand, he eventually found a steady job at age 30, and took a further two decades (and nine years as Canadian Secretary for the Rhodes Trust) to figure out that politics could be even more fun – until you lead your Party to defeat in a general election. Andrew continues to serve the people of Vancouver, and looks forward to ongoing provocative thinking from his many Rhodes friends and colleagues for many years to come.

  • Cheryl Whiskeyjack

    As Executive Director of Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society, Cheryl Whiskeyjack’s job is to help urban aboriginal peoples live in two worlds at once: the City of Edmonton, with its particular laws and norms, and the aboriginal world of ceremonies and beliefs that has existed on this land for millennia. Those two worlds can live in harmony, but it isn’t always easy. “We have a community of people who are thousands of years from this land that we’re on right now,” Cheryl says. “And they don’t feel connected to it. They feel displaced, even though they live here. So public engagement is a way to re-engage the folks that we serve.” Cheryl has been with Bent Arrow just about since its inception a quarter-century ago. Now she oversees a suite of 18 different programs and services. The organization’s programming connects indigenous clients to the city around them, and helps them build skills and resilience that they can use in other parts of their lives. “People are sitting straighter in their chairs by the time they’re done their program,” she says. Cheryl proudly serves as a board member of the Canadian Accreditation Council of Human Services and the Align Association of Community Services. She has contributed to the work of EndPovertyEdmonton since its inception and currently acts as co-chair of the Stewardship Round Table. She also sits at the table for the National Advisory Council on Poverty. She acts as a mentor for the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations Executive Director Mentorship program and represents Bent Arrow through C5, a collaborative partnership of five non-profits using innovative engagement in vulnerable neighbourhoods. Cheryl is proud of the strong partnerships she has maintained across sectors and believes that ending poverty requires a diversity of voices to ensure better systems and communities for all of us.

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