Board of Directors

Risk Management Group, Great-West Life

Paul Desmarais works in the Risk Management Group of Great-West Life.  Previously he led projects at Imerys, a French mining company, in corporate strategy, supply chain management, key account management, and production optimization.  He worked at Goldman Sachs between 2004 and 2009 in the investment banking, investment management, and fixed income divisions.

Mr. Desmarais is the founder and honorary chairman or Young Canadians in Finance, a 500+ member organization dedicated to helping young Canadians achieve greater success in the field of finance through networking and education

Paul Desmarais is a graduate of Harvard College and INSEAD (MBA)

Co-Founder and Partner, EdgeStone Capital Partners
Chairman of the Board, Pathways to Education Canada

Mr. Duboc founded EdgeStone in 1999. Prior to EdgeStone, Mr. Duboc was a Managing Director and member of the Deals Review Committee at CIBC Capital Partners. He co-founded and served as COO of the Loyalty Group Inc. (Air Miles Reward Program), Canada’s most successful loyalty database marketing program. From 1990 to 1991, Mr. Duboc was COO of Holzman Jewellers, a U.S.-based jewellery chain and from 1984 to 1990, he worked at Bain & Company. Mr. Duboc currently serves on the Board of Directors of Porter Airlines, EZ Shield Parent, New Food Classics, Stephenson’s Rental and Bryker Technology Partners. Mr. Duboc is Chairman of Pathways to Education Canada (a non-profit organization focused on improving the lives of disadvantaged youth and their communities through educational attainment). Under Mr. Duboc’s leadership, Pathways has expanded to eleven communities, helping thousands of kids finish high-school and move onto post-secondary education. In 2000, Mr. Duboc was recognized as one of "Canada’s Top 40 Under 40™" and in 2005 was chosen as one of the “most influential“ alumni of the program. He is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), CAMH Foundation, United Way Major Giving Cabinet, Crescent School Board of Governors and is an active fundraiser for the SickKids Foundation.

Mr. Duboc holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University magna cum laude and Tau Beta Pi and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School

Chairman, General Kinetics Engineering Corporation

Scott Griffin is Chairman of General Kinetics Engineering Corp., a Canadian engineering-based company engaged in the design and manufacture of large bore shock absorbers.  He is Chairman and founder of Advance Precision Limited, a company that supplies close-tolerance machined parts to the automotive industry and Chairman of House of Anansi Press Inc., an intermediate literary Canadian publishing company, publishing fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Scott is also the founder and chairman of the The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry. The Griffin Poetry Prize is the largest annual poetry prize, for a single book of poetry, in the world. Griffin is the Chancellor of Bishop’s University, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Sedbergh School and a director of a number of companies and charitable organizations. His extra-curricular activities include writing (My Heart is Africa, 2006), sailing, skiing, flying, reading, history, travel, squash and tennis.

President & CEO, RHB Group

John Kelleher is President & CEO of RHB Group LP, Canada’s leading designer and retailer of school uniforms operating under its trading brands of R.J. McCarthy, Halpern's, and Beatties. RHB Group is partnered with Birch Hill Equity Partners, a leading Canadian private investment firm. John was previously President & CEO of Black’s Photography, Canada’s largest specialty photo retailer. Under John’s leadership a major turnaround program was planned and executed at Black’s that reinvigorated same store sales, aggressively cut operating and capital costs, while launching hundreds of new digital products proving that Black’s could be about more than “just photography”. Before joining Black’s, John was a partner at ReichmannHauer Capital Partners, a Toronto-headquartered private equity fund that he helped to launch with several McKinsey colleagues and Canada’s Reichmann family.  Prior to launching RHCP, John was a consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked for over 5 years. Prior to McKinsey, John worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in investment banking and equity research in New York. John has also worked on several occasions as a research associate for Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School. John’s writing on strategy, finance, and corporate governance have appeared in the McKinsey Quarterly, Canadian Business Magazine, the Toronto Star, and the National Post. John is a member of the Board of Directors of Covenant House, Canada’s largest youth homeless shelter. John has an Honours BA in business administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business where he graduated as Gold Medalist; an MA in public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government; and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction.

Vice Chair, Head of Global Investment Banking, TD Securities & Executive Vice President, Wholesale Banking, TD Bank Financial Group

Patrick Meneley is the Vice Chair, Head of Global Investment Banking at TD Securities, responsible for overseeing all investment banking activities at TD Securities. He leads the group of professionals who provide advisory, corporate lending and underwriting services to corporations, governments and institutions on mergers and acquisitions and equity and debt financing. In addition, Patrick is a member of the TD Securities Supervisory Committee and Capital Commitment Committees.

Managing Partner, Alignvest Capital Management

Reza Satchu is an entrepreneur, the creator of University of Toronto’s most highly rated undergraduate course, “Economics of Entrepreneurship,” and Founding Chair, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of The Next 36. 

Mr. Satchu is a Managing Partner of Alignvest Capital Management, an investment management company based in Toronto and New York..  Mr. Satchu has co-founded, built and managed four successful operating businesses all from inception, including:  SupplierMarket, a supply chain software company funded by Sequoia and KKR, that grew to 225 people with several Fortune 500 customers, prior to being sold to Ariba in 2000; StorageNow Holdings, which became Canada’s second largest self-storage company before being sold to InStorage REIT in 2007; Stellation Asset Management, an investment management firm that managed over $300 million; and most recently KGS Alpha Capital Markets, a US fixed income broker dealer launched in August 2010, that has quickly grown to over $150 million of equity capital and 70 employees.  Previously, Mr. Satchu spent 12 years in New York where he was a General Partner at Fenway Partners, a $1.5 billion private equity firm, and a Financial Analyst at Merrill Lynch. Mr. Satchu has received “Canada’s Top 40 Under 40™” Award (2007) and the Management Achievement Award from McGill University (2011).  He is the Vice Chairman of the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, a member of the Canadian Advisory Board to the Harvard Business School and a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization.  He has a BA from McGill University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

CEO, MaRS Discovery District

Ilse Treurnicht is the CEO of MaRS Discovery District, a leading innovation centre located in Toronto. She oversees both the development and operations of the MaRS Centre and its broad suite of entrepreneurship and innovation programs.

MaRS offers advisory services, market intelligence and entrepreneurship education to emerging companies in health care/life sciences, digital media/ICT, cleantech and social purpose businesses across Ontario.

Ilse has worked closely with the leadership of Toronto's academic institutions and teaching hospitals to create MaRS Innovation, an integrated commercialization platform for 14 Toronto Institutions and served as the interim Managing Director for a year following its formal launch in early 2008.

Ilse joined MaRS in early 2005 from her role as President & CEO of Primaxis Technology Ventures, a start-up stage venture capital fund focused on the advanced technologies sector. Prior to Primaxis, Ilse was an entrepreneur with senior management roles in a number of emerging technology companies.

She is an active member of Canada's innovation community, and has served on the boards of private companies, industry associations and research organizations, and has been a member of several government advisory panels.

Ilse holds a DPhil in chemistry from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes scholar.