BAYO

AKOMOLAFE

BAYO AKOMOLAFE

Bayo is a widely celebrated international speaker, teacher, public intellectual, essayist and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak. He is also the Executive Director and Chief Curator for The Emergence Network and host of the online course, ‘We Will dance with Mountains’.  

Bayo has been Visiting Professor at Middlebury College, where he taught on his own formulated concepts of ‘transraciality’ and postactivism. He has also taught at Sonoma State University (CA, USA), Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada), and Schumacher College (Totnes, England) – among other universities around the world. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California and University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. 

RIEL

MILLER

For over thirty years Riel has been pioneering advances in the theory and practice of ‘using-the-future’ as a means to improve management and public policy, with a focus on transformational experimentalist leadership. He is a practitioner-researcher who has designed hundreds of projects around the world, deploying innovative ways of ‘using-the-future’ in order to change what people see and do. In all his projects Riel walks-the-talk of co-creation, harnessing the collective intelligence of everyone, from CEOs and Prime Ministers to shop-floor workers and children. He is an experienced and innovative educator, a pioneer of the field of Futures Literacy and the Discipline of Anticipation. 

In 2012 he joined UNESCO as Head of Foresight.

Riel’s unflagging ambition is to find ways to put the richness of complex emergence at the service of humanity's capacity to be free. Most recent publication: Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century

RIEL

MILLER

LYNETTE

GILLEN

Lynette Gillen is the Vice-President of Trade Finance for RBC Royal Bank.  She is responsible for leading Trade Finance across all platforms, from Commercial Banking through Capital Markets. Her team supports Canada’s largest companies in growing outside of Canada and mitigating the risks inherent in global expansion. She has over 20 years experience in progressively senior and leadership roles in the areas of Wealth Management, Retail Banking, and most recently Global Services. 

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Lynette is passionate about improving access to resources for people experiencing mental health issues.  She sits on the Board of Governors of the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center, and has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Hospitals of Regina Foundation and the Advisory Board for the Levene Graduate School of Business at the University of Regina. Lynette holds an MBA from Dalhousie University. 

LYNETTE
GILLEN

MARY

BUTLER

As an educator and entrepreneur, Mary believes lifelong learning is a catalyst for individual and collective growth.

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Mary has worked in both the public and private education sector in multiple jurisdictions in Canada and the United States, and has worked with learners at all stages from pre-school through primary, secondary and now post-secondary education. Central to her values and practice is her commitment to every individual’s right and opportunity to reach their full potential. Joining NBCC in 2011, Mary led the creation and growth of several new initiatives in applied research and innovation, entrepreneurship and community leadership. She initiated, and continues to champion, the transformation of NBCC’s long-standing academic model to better meet the needs of students, the labour market and communities.

MARY

BUTLER

SOO BOO
CHEAH

MBA, CFA 

Senior Portfolio Manager 

RBC Global Asset Management (UK) Ltd 

Based in the U.K., Soo Boo is responsible for managing global fixed-income allocations. He specializes in assessing the impact of central bank policies and global macroeconomic trends on developed-market bonds.

In his role as a senior portfolio manager, he integrates a wide range of investment strategies involving interest rates, currencies, and derivatives.

Soo Boo started his career in the investment industry in 2000 and holds an MBA from University of New Brunswick. Soo Boo has been a CFA charterholder since 2002. 

SOO BOO

CHEAH

DR. ARUN 

SHANBHAG

Dr Shanbhag is the Chief Innovation Officer, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal. Previously he was on the faculty of Orthopedic Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Boston and Senior Advisor to the Chairman, Orthopedic Surgery, Mass General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. 

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He is the current recipient of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenge  Explorations Award. 

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At the Innovation Center, Dr. Shanbhag inspires students to follow design thinking principles and develop innovations to solve local problems.

DR. ARUN 

SHANBHAG

KAAREN

MAY

Kaaren May is currently the Director of Industry Research and Interim Director of Industry Partnerships at UPEI’s new Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering. At UPEI she also served as the Program Director of the university’s first ever Shad program. Prior to joining UPEI in 2016, Kaaren held a variety of positions in the UK and across Canada in product development, R&D management, consulting and entrepreneurship. 

Her experience with entrepreneurship includes advising entrepreneurs in BC, acting as the Director of Finance and Operations at a tech startup, co-founding an import business that she ran part-time for over 5 years, and launching a UK company’s first product line. Kaaren has a BScE in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University, a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London in the UK, and an MBA from INSEAD in France. 

KAAREN
MAY

MARTIN

CALNAN

Martin has an eclectic background. His professional journey, spanning over 25 years, has taken him from luxury product marketing to founding a digital agency, by way of developing indoor climbing centers and consulting… A not so direct, but maybe fitting, trajectory to his present role as Director of Executive Education at Ecole des Ponts Business School in Paris.

At the Business School he has the enviable mission of creating new and transformative experiences for executives around the world. He is deeply involved with the network of UNESCO Chairs on Futures Literacy, and EIT Climate KIC in developing a methodology to support organizations and institutions in achieving systemic transformation.

Martin holds a Bachelors degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Bocconi University in Milan. 

MARTIN

CALNAN

MUTHU

SINGARAM

Muthu is parallel entrepreneur having been involved in several startups over last 20 years. Muthu has over 25 years of experience in Engineering, Management and Entrepreneurship and holds a MBA in Multimedia Finance and is a British Trained Chartered Electrical Engineer and Chartered Member (IET UK), a Chartered Engineer (Engineering Council, UK) and an European Engineer (European Federation of National Engineering Associations).. 

Muthu’s passion is in Entrepreneurial Development, Mentoring, Management of Emerging Technologies and Innovation and he is a Mentor/Entrepreneur in Residence in several Universities. Muthu is a regular contributor to several major magazines and the author of two books Entrepreneurship: A Hands on Guide To Starting Your Business and Greenfields: Suggested Standard Operating Procedures for Incubators.

MUTHU

SINGARAM

FLORIAN

VILLAUME

Florian Villaumé is a bilingual entrepreneurial innovator who creates and grows impact-oriented initiatives. Florian holds a Bachelor in Engineering, a Master in Science and is currently completing a Graduate Degree in Business Administration. 

Florian has been the Director of the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship (MCE) since 2016. Under his leadership, MCE grew from an initial intake of 20 students to more than 300 annually in just over three years. MCE supported companies have attracted $12.8 million in private financing in just four years. In 2019, the MCE was recognized as one of the top five emerging entrepreneurship Centres in the world and in 2020 Florian was named to Atlantic Business Magazine’s 2020 list of Top 50 CEOs in Atlantic Canada. 

FLORIAN VILLAUME

SAMSON

OKPARA

As Co-founder and CEO of Pique Analytics, Samson believes that data analytics will transform business operations and give competitive advantages to businesses that optimize their use of data.

Samson has worked on several business transformation projects globally for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, DELLEMC and Hitachi Vantara in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to win strategic business opportunities and grow market share. 

Samson is a Master Accredited Solutions Expert (MASE) on HPE technology awarded over 30+ IT certifications cutting across the IT industry. Samson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Physics and a Master's degree in Technology Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of New Brunswick. 

SAMSON

OKPARA

SAM

POIRIER

Sam is one of the co-founders and CEO of Potential Motors, a company developing AI driven software for electric vehicle drivetrains.

He has a background in Mechatronics Engineering and is a recent graduate of the MTME program at UNB.

He has always been passionate about sustainability and is a visionary for an ecofriendly future. 

SAM

POIRIER

AMY LYNN
PATTERSON

As Vice President of Commercial Financial Services, Amy Lynn leads a team of talented professional account managers in the Western New Brunswick market and is responsible for growing RBC’s commercial business, while ensuring the delivery of an outstanding experience to every client, every time.

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Amy Lynn has worked in the financial industry since 2009, joining RBC in 2012. She has held positions of increasing responsibility including Personal Financial Advising, Branch Management, National Office Coaching, Commercial Underwriting and Commercial Banking.

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Amy Lynn obtained her MBA from Saint Mary’s Sobey School of Business, and Bachelor of Commerce from Mount Allison University. She is a Board & Executive member of the United Way of Saint John, Kings & Charlotte, as well Board & Finance Committee Member with Economic Development Greater Saint John.

AMY LYNN PATTERSON