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Max Valiquette 

Innovation and Trends Expert

OPENING KEYNOTE : MAX VALIQUETTE

As a journalist and broadcaster, Valiquette hosted TVOntario’s weekly youth-oriented current affairs show, VoxTalk; was a frequent contributor to the internationally syndicated television programs Listed and Evolution; and has made frequent appearances as both a panelist and guest-host for the Business News Network’s daily wrap-up show, SqueezePlay. He can be heard every two weeks as a “Round One” panelist on Moore in the Morning, and every month on AM1010’s weekly radio rewind, Viewpoints. Valiquette has appeared on the CBC’s Lang and O’Leary Exchange,  written and delivered columns for CBC Radio’s Day One, and appeared on Q and The Current. He also writes for the pages of Canadian Business, Marketing,  and Strategy magazines. His insights and opinions have been featured in The Financial Post and The Globe and Mail; on NPR and MuchMusic; and in scores of other media outlets.

Valiquette holds a BA from the University of Ottawa, is a former Central Canadian Debating Champion, and has performed, as a sketch comedian, on the main stage at Second City Toronto.

Leonard Brody

Business and Technology Visionary

TUESDAY KEYNOTE: LEONARD BRODY 

Leonard Brody has been called “a controversial leader of the new world order” by BC Business magazine. He is an award-winning entrepreneur, venture capitalist, bestselling author, and a two-time Emmy nominated media visionary who is consistently ranked as the #1 speaker on conference programs. In his compelling, customized talks–for clients ranging from the United Nations to Visa and Pepsi–Leonard addresses the rapid pace of change, innovation, and disruption facing us all, and what to do about it.

Leonard has helped in raising millions of dollars for start-up companies; been through one of the largest internet IPOs in history; and has been involved in the building, financing, and/or sale of five companies to date. He is currently the President of the Innovation and Digital Group for the Anschutz Company, one of the largest live sport and entertainment businesses on the planet, which owns assets such as the O2 Arena in London and the Staples Center in LA; sports teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Galaxy, and the Los Angeles Kings; and is one of the premier concert promotion businesses in the world, seating hundreds of millions of people a year.

Leonard also acts as principal in several venture capital funds throughout the world; is behind the financing and creation of 20-30 companies a year; and is one of the proud owners of Coventry City Football Club in England. If that wasn’t enough, Leonard was asked to run for Mayor of Vancouver in their last election.

A highly sought-after speaker, Leonard has lectured at institutions such as Stanford, the G8 and the United Nations. His insight has been requested by companies such as The Financial Times, Warner Music, Dell, Visa and Pepsi, as well as, the governments of countries such as India, Israel, Ireland, Russia and South Africa. His work has been featured in such publications as Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC and The New York Times.

Leonard is co-author of the bestselling books, Innovation Nation: Canadian Leadership from Jurassic Park to Java and Everything I Needed to Know About Business…I Learned from a Canadian. Currently, he is authoring a new book in partnership with Forbes magazine, entitled, The Great Re:Write. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from Queens University, a law degree from Osgoode Hall and is a graduate of the Private Equity Program at the Harvard Business School.

Virologist Dr. Jim Strong 

From the National Microbiology Laboratory

Lunch Guest Speaker: Dr. Jim Strong 

Jim Strong obtained his MD and PhD from University of Calgary and subsequently came to Winnipeg for training in Pediatrics as well as Post-Doctoral training at the National Microbiology Laboratory.

His PhD studies included the molecular virology of Reovirus. He is currently cross appointed to Departments of Pediatrics and Child Health, Medical Microbiology and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Manitoba as well as the Head of Diagnostics and Therapeutics Division of Special Pathogens at the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

He has also been a consultant to the World Health Organization in management of Ebola and Marburg virus outbreaks in equatorial Africa. His current research interests include basic clinical pathophysiology of filoviruses in cell culture and animal systems.

Randy Bauslaugh
Partner
McCarthy Tétrault LLP

Randy Bauslaugh leads McCarthy Tétrault's national Pensions, Benefits & Executive Compensation practice.
He has been involved with many of the leading pension and benefit cases over the past 30 years. He provides Canadian legal advice to the United Nations on responsible investment by institutional investors, including pension funds. He has experience structuring pension fund investments, governance, plan design, plan mergers and restructurings. He also acts as a litigator, mediator and arbitrator in pension disputes, including as lead counsel for the administrator of Nortel’s Canadian pension plans, a lead creditor in the world wide bankruptcy proceedings.
Randy has experience as a fiduciary; for example, he is currently an independent expert Trustee for one of Canada's largest Employee Life and Health Trusts.
In 2014, Mr. Bauslaugh was inducted into the CPBI Hall of Fame. He is listed as a leading practitioner in pensions law both nationally and internationally in publications such as Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Chambers Canada, The Legal 500 - Canada, The Lexpert®/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada, and enjoys the highest rating granted to lawyers for professional competence and integrity in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory.

Alex Boucher Total Health Management Leader - Canada
Mercer

Lisa Callaghan
Vice President, Strategy, Marketing and Communications
Manulife Institutional Markets.

Lisa leads the teams responsible for developing institutional strategy, digital solutions, sales proposals, marketing and communications for Manulife’s Canadian group businesses. Before taking on this role, she was the Assistant Vice President of Group Benefit Product.

Lisa has worked in the insurance industry for over a decade in both group benefits and group retirement as well as individual retail wealth, filling various leadership roles including product development, marketing, client management, operations, and strategy. Prior to her move to insurance, Lisa worked in the defense manufacturing industry, supporting a global executive team creating business strategies and organizational redesign as well as leading the global business process improvement team.

Lisa holds undergraduate degrees in Science and Physical Education from Queen’s University, an MSc in Biomechanics from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Douglas Clark
Executive Director
Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, Canadian Competition Bureau

Doug Clark is Executive Director, with Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB).  A career public servant, Doug has a backgroundin international trade law, intellectual property policy, pharmaceuticalindustry issues and competition law enforcement. Doug attended McGill University, the University of New Brunswick and l'Université de Moncton. He graduated law school in 1997 and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1999 after a clerkship with the Honourable Marc Noël of the Federal Court of Appeal. In 2000, Doug was hired by Industry Canada to assist in the case management of two WTO-based legal challenges to Canada’s pharmaceutical patent regime brought by the US and EU. In 2006, Doug became the Director of the Patent and TrademarkPolicy Directorate at Industry Canada, where he led a number of legislative and regulatory initiatives under the Patent Act and Trademarks Act, including the development of Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) and pharmaceuticalpatent litigation reform. In 2009, Doug joined the Competition Bureau as Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Civil Matters Branch, where he was responsiblefor a number of high profile prosecutions under the Competition Act.  Doug became Executive Director of the PMPRB on October 28, 2013.

Jean-Pierre Couture, M.Sc.
Chief Economist & Portfolio Manager, Emerging Markets
Hexavest

As a member of the Strategy team, Jean-Pierre Couture works closely with Vital Proulx and Jean-René Adam in the elaboration of the firm’s macro strategy, in addition to co-managing our Emerging Markets equity portfolios. Prior to joining Hexavest in 2010, Jean-Pierre spent nine years at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, where he held a number of roles, including Director of Macroeconomic Research and Senior Analyst, Global Macro. His career started at the National Bank of Canada, where he worked as an economist from 1995 to 2001. Jean-Pierre holds a bachelor’s degree (1993) and a master’s degree (1996) in Economics from the Université du Québec à Montréal.  

Josée Dixon
Senior Vice-President
Dejardins Insurance

Josée Dixon has been Senior Vice-President of Group and Business Insurance since September 2014. Josée has more than 25 years of experience in the group insurance industry. She has been with Desjardins Group since July 2013, holding the position of Vice-President of Business Development for Group and Business Insurance prior to her current role.

As Senior Vice-President of Group and Business Insurance, Josée contributes to the development and expansion of Desjardins’ group and business insurance line of business across Canada.

Josée holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce, with a specialization in marketing and finance, and is the recipient of a number of certifications and awards in the group insurance industry.

Don Ezra

Don Ezra is a widely published author. In addition to numerous articles and papers, his books include Pension Fund Excellence and The Retirement Plan Solution: the Reinvention of Defined Contribution. Among many awards, he received the Lillywhite Award from the US Employee Benefit Research Institute in 2004 for “extraordinary lifetime contributions to Americans’ economic security.”
He “graduated” from full-time work seven years ago. In his post-graduate career, Don is now a member of the investment committee of two American charitable foundations. He continues to think about retirement-related issues and contributes an occasional “Art of Investment” column to the FT Money supplement of the London-based Financial Times. He is pleased that he has now also found the time to write a philosophical book, Happiness: the Best is Yet to Come.

David Fann
President & Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Fann is President and Chief Executive Officer of TorreyCove Capital Partners and is a member of the Firm’s Board of Directors and Executive and Investment Committees. Mr. Fann has led investment organizations that have invested/committed over $25 billion in private equity investments. With nearly 30 years of experience in the private equity industry, he has invested in 26 leveraged buyout, private equity and venture capital investments as a lead investor or co-investor, of which ten became publicly traded through successful initial public offerings and a number were acquired by Fortune 500 companies. Prior to co-founding TorreyCove, Mr. Fann was the President and Chief Executive Officer of PCG Asset Management, LLC. Previously, he was a Managing Director of US Trust and Vice President of Citicorp Venture Capital. Mr. Fann has served on the board of directors of eleven companies, as a board observer for seven, as chairman of the board of directors for the Association of Asian American Investment Managers and on the advisory board for the Robert H. Toigo Foundation. He holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Industrial Engineering and Economics from Stanford University.

Paul Lai Fatt
Consultant
Morneau Shepell

Located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Paul joined Morneau Shepell in 2008 and is a key member of the Consulting practices and the office management team in the Atlantic Region. Paul has provided strategic advice on pension reform matters including much of the work done in New Brunswick with respect to the design and development of Shared Risk Pension Plans. Paul has helped multiple clients convert to the new Shared Risk Pension model including Saint John Energy and the City of Fredericton.

Paul currently acts as practice leader for number of lines of business in Halifax and Atlantic Canada including Pension Consulting, Pension Administration, Health & Benefits Consulting, and Asset and Risk Management Consulting. In his role Paul is responsible for the operational, strategic, and people management aspects of these businesses.

A frequent industry speaker on matters concerning pension sustainability, Paul has been invited to speak at events sponsored by the Society of Actuaries, the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute, the Ontario Bar Association, the Association of Canadian Pension Management and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefits Specialists, among others.

He has his B.Sc. from Dalhousie University and is a Fellow of both the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries.

Mark Firman
Legal Counsel
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

Mark Firman is Legal Counsel, Pension Administration at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. He advises on all aspects of pension law, including related taxation and trust law issues. In particular, he has experience with pension plan governance, structuring pension fund investments and pension litigation. Mr. Firman has been published in International Pension Lawyer, Taxation of Executive Compensation and Retirement, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review. Mr. Firman received his B.A. (Hons.) from Queen’s University in 2005 (where he medaled); his J.D. (with honours) from the University of Toronto in 2008 (where he was Senior Editor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review); and a Certificate in Pension Law from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2011. He is currently ranked in Chambers Canada.

Stephen Frank
Vice President of Policy Development and Health
Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association  

Stephen Frank is the brains behind policy development and health and disability insurance for the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. Frank has been busy this year with key issues, including how the government and insurers can work together to provide healthcare to Canadians, with a strong focus on the impact catastrophic drugs are having on health and employee benefit plans. With more and more of these claims coming in the future, and provinces continuing to be financially constrained, this will continue to be an area of concern for Frank.

Henry Hudek
MBA, FCSI, CFA
Vice-President, Business Development

Born in Saskatchewan and raised in Winnipeg, Henry received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Manitoba and his Masters of Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario. His non-financial experience includes strategic and economic planning, as well as trade issues, merger and acquisition analysis and marketing.

As a founder of IQON Financial Inc. in 1996, Henry contributed as Director of Research and Chief of Compliance while the organization grew from four employees to over 60 employees with over $4 billion in assets under administration. IQON was sold to Sun Life Financial in 2004. In 2005, Henry was a founder and became Director of Research for Value Partners Investments, a Winnipeg based mutual fund company, where Henry worked when he wrote the 1st and 2nd edition of The Cardinal Rules of Investing. In 2010 Henry joined Cardinal Capital Management as Vice-President, Business Development. Henry currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the University of Winnipeg Pension Plan. Henry is a Certified Investment Manager, a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from the CFA Institute.

Zaheed Jiwani, CFA 
Principal
Eckler Ltd.

Zaheed is a Principal in Eckler’s investment consulting group. With almost 20 years in the institutional investment industry, Zaheed is able to provide a unique perspective, drawing on his experience in consulting, asset management and record-keeping.
Prior to joining Eckler, Zaheed lead the DC business at an asset management firm, where he helped design and build a lifecycle/target-date fund suite incorporating alternative asset classes. Prior to that, Zaheed lead the DC consulting practice at another consulting firm, where he also consulted to DC and DB clients.
Zaheed works with clients in a variety of areas, including governance, investments, record-keeper selection and plan design. His strength is dissecting complex problems, developing relevant solutions and distilling everything into a format that is easy to understand. Zaheed regularly contributes to the industry through conference speaking engagements, authoring articles and sitting on the Benefits Canada Advisory Board.
Zaheed graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Science degree with a Specialist in Actuarial Science and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation (2001).

Jillian Kennedy
Partner, Mercer  

Jillian Kennedy is a Partner in Mercer's Wealth Business and is responsible for leading the Defined Contribution and Financial Wellness Strategy for Canada. She is also a member of the Wealth leadership team and works closely with Mercer’s global teams. Jillian's main practice area is in supporting defined contribution pension plan and savings plans for plan sponsors and plan members. From plan design, investments, service provider management and ongoing governance support, Jillian applies a holistic approach to proactively manage plan sponsor objectives and improve the overall financial wellness of employees.

Jillian has been with Mercer for over 10 years and has been supporting plan sponsors and members to achieve better outcomes in retirement savings for over 17 years.

Barb Martinez
Practice Leader, Benefits Solutions, The Great-West Life Assurance Company 

Barbara A. Martinez is the National Practice Leader, Drug Benefits Solutions in the Toronto Group Sales office of Great-West Life Assurance Company. Barbara provides support to Great-West Life Group Sales Offices across Canada on our prescription drug management initiatives. She plays a key role in supporting plan advisors and their clients on Great-West Life drug solutions products. 
Barb joined Great-West Life in November of 2012 and is ideally suited to this role. She comes to Great-West Life with 10 years’ experience at Mercer, where she lead the Canadian drug benefits consulting team. She is also well known as a regular speaker at industry forums and commentator on employer drug programs. 
Barbara has in-depth knowledge of the prescription drug, regulatory and drug approval process in Canada from both a government and private drug plan perspective. Her past experience includes 13 years of working in the pharmaceutical industry. Her main responsibilities were sales & marketing as well as government and professional affairs.

David A. Simpson
Partner
Fillmore Riley LLP

David is a partner with Fillmore Riley LLP and practises mainly in the areas of labour and employment law, general litigation and insurance law. He provides advice to employers and employees on matters relating to employment contracts, employee termination, collective agreements, human rights, and employment standards. David has appeared before arbitration boards and labour boards. In addition to labour and employment matters, David also acts for a variety of clients in litigation matters and has appeared before all court levels in Manitoba.

David has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Manitoba, and a Bachelor of
Administrative and Commercial Studies from the University of Western Ontario. He was admitted to the Manitoba Bar in 2006.

Bradley Smith
HALEO Preventive Health Solutions Inc.

Bradley Smith worked for over 10 years in Canada and in France as a Marketing Director for leading pharmaceutical and cosmetics brands before launching a new venture in Montreal in 2015 to develop innovative and accessible preventive health solutions.  His company, HALEO Preventive Health Solutions Inc., helps employers improve organizational health and performance by increasing employee access to treatment for sleep disorders.  In partnership with Desjardins Insurance and the Sleep Health Institute of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, HALEO recently launched its innovative Healthy Sleep Program, which has already helped hundreds of employees to screen, diagnose and treat insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea.  Bradley holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

James Twiss
Managing Director, Americas
First State Investments (‘FSI’)

In his role, James is responsible for the establishment of a US presence and is currently focused on building the business. This includes developing infrastructure, including regulatory approvals, and building relationships with current / potential clients and asset consultants.

He is a member of the Colonial First State Global Asset Management Executive Committee.
Prior to joining FSI in July 2011, James was the General Manager, Cross-Business Unit projects, Group Strategic Development at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. In this role, James was responsible for leading a team that manages high-profile strategic projects for the Group from inception to the implementation stage.
Prior to this, James worked at McKinsey & Company, where he spent several years developing and implementing market entry strategies.

James holds an AB from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford and is proficient in Russian.

Joan Weir
Director, Health and Disability Policy
Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association Inc.

Joan is the director of health and disability policy for CLHIA (Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association), a voluntary trade association with member companies that account for 99 percent of Canada's life and health insurance business. In her role, Joan is responsible for analysis on industry issues, policy strategy development and to build consensus on concerns important to member companies. An important part of the health portfolio is working within industry and with provincial/federal payers on benefit programs, specifically on best practices, strategy and sustainability.
Joan brings 20+ years of benefits management expertise to her position at CLHIA, having worked for insurers and administrators on both private and public sector programs, notably with First Canadian Health and Health Canada on the NIHB program and most recently with Medavie Blue Cross.

Mark S. Yamada President and Chief Executive Officer
PŮR Investing Inc.

PŮR Investing uses quantitative strategies to provide mass-customized goal-seeking solutions for individuals, their advisors and pension plans. Mark’s experience with institutional, pension, foundation, high net worth and mutual fund investing comes from a career as an analyst, portfolio manager and leader of investment teams. He headed U.S. equities for Manulife, was president of Sun Life’s investment management company and founded the private client division of Guardian Capital. He was a member of the Investment Fund Products Advisory Committee of the Ontario Securities Commission, is a champion for individual investors and a challenger of the status quo. Building on a reputation for innovation, Mark and his colleagues are actively engaged in changing the global pension landscape through research and software development.