Julie Bastarache is the Director General of Evaluation and Integrated Risk Management at Public Services and Procurement Canada. Julie is a CPA, CA and CFE with 20 years of global experience in the private, public and humanitarian sectors. She considers herself an “expert” generalist as, in addition to risk management, she has worked in external and internal audit, evaluation, finance and treasury, training and HR, communications, public education and outreach, partnering, engagement and marketing.

She first got involved in a focused risk management position while working with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva, with more practical and field experience when, over a 2 year period, she established and supported structured risk management culture and fraud prevention awareness programs while deployed in Port-au-Prince during the IFRC’s 2010 Haiti Earthquake response. As an agent of change, she returned to the discipline in 2019 when she joined PSPC with the specific task of modernizing and developing the risk management culture in this big, diverse and complex department.

Marc is currently the Manager, Practice Management Unit (PMU) at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), overseeing many of the planning, reporting, and external liaison functions within the Office of Audit and Evaluation (OAE).  His team consists of approximately 3 permanent staff, with additional contract staff as necessary.  In particular, Marc is responsible for external audit liaison, professional practices and advisory services, providing assistance to sectors throughout the department.

Marc’s professional career has lasted nearly 30 years in the public and private sectors. Before joining AAFC, Marc worked at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) as a Manager, Internal Audit and Professional Practices.  He also worked with the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation (CAAF) teaching auditing to developing countries, specifically the Audit Office of Guyana (AOG).  Marc also worked with the Office of the Comptroller General (OCG) as Manager, Analysis and Liaison, identifying audit themes and inter-departmental areas of concern.  He has also managed audit projects at Health Canada/Public Health Agency of Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada.  Prior to this Marc was an Audit Professional at the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.  As well, Marc taught finance and accounting at Carleton University.  Marc’s main areas of audit specialization include human resources, project management, risk management, and finance.

Marc is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA), Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP), Certified Human Resources Leader (CHRL), Certified in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA) and Certified Internal Auditor (CIA).  He received his Bachelor of Commerce, specializing in Accounting from the University of Ottawa in 1993.  He also recently completed all requirements to receive a Master of Arts degree in Leadership from the University of Guelph and will be graduating in 2021.

Yat is the CEO and Co-Founder of BlueShift Advisory and brings to this role over 15+ years of experience as a seasoned leader in strategy development, risk management, finance and audit. He has provided advisory services with leaders in highly respected organizations in the post-secondary sector, air travel, securities regulation and corporate social responsibility sectors. Yat has developed a broad and deep level of practical leadership and risk experience from his career in the banking and investment world at RBC Royal Bank, as an external auditor at EY, as the first Director of Debt and Investments at Alberta Health Services, as VP Finance at Hopewell Development Corp and at the University of Calgary as the Director of Enterprise Risk Management.

Yat holds a Certificate in Risk Management and Assurance (CRMA), a certification in COSO ERM, a Lean Six Sigma green belt and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in accounting and finance from the University of Alberta.

Shannon has a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and has obtained her Fellow Chartered Insurance Professional (FCIP), Canadian Risk Management Diploma (CRM) and the Risk and Insurance Management Society – Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP). Shannon has spent fourteen (14) years working with municipalities in the Province of Ontario with a reciprocal and as a broker. Her work in that role was primarily focused on Risk Management including contract reviews, special event risk assessment and management, trail risk assessment and management, training and development for all levels of staff, communications and marketing. In her most recent role, Shannon Devane is the Manager of Risk for the City of Vaughan.

Joshua Drake is the Assistant Director of the Risk Management Centre of Expertise within the Audit, Evaluation, and Risk Branch in the Canada Revenue Agency.  He has 20 years of experience in the federal public service in the region, program delivery, and headquarters including with international tax programs. He began his public service career in 2001 with the International Tax Services Office gaining valuable operational program delivery and taxpayer facing experience. He then moved to headquarters to support the delivery of international tax programs and payroll legislation gaining knowledge and expertise working with associations such as the Canadian Payroll Association and Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses. Josh moved to the Enterprise Risk Management program in 2013, holding progressively more senior positions.  In his current role as Assistant Director, Josh oversees the delivery of risk advisory services across the CRA working closely with information technology, strategic planning and more recently risk services related to the CRA’s Covid-19 planning.  Joshua holds a Bachelor or Arts, Geography, and enjoys volunteering in his community.

Sue Lajoie joined the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as Director General – Privacy Act Investigations in 2012.  In 2019 she became the Executive Director of the Office’s new Compliance, Intake, and Resolution Directorate, under which falls the Breach Response Unit responsible for receiving and reviewing breach notifications from the federal public and private sectors, as well as conducting breach investigations. Sue has over 25 years of experience in public sector management, occupying a number of leadership positions in various government organizations, including: National Defence, the Treasury Board Secretariat, Health Canada, and, of course, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.  Sue holds an MBA from Queen’s University.

John Lark is an accomplished manager with broad experience in the management of staff, budgets and deliverables. He has managed research teams, chaired federal-provincial committees, and facilitated workshops at the Board level of large-scale organizations with domestic and international operations. He is a leader in risk management whose skills have been recognized internationally. He has worked with Canadian federal and provincial governments as well as the OECD, the US EPA, the Canadian Standards Association, the Risk Management Institution of Australasia and ISO, the International Organization for Standards. Mr. Lark has also been an invited speaker on Enterprise Risk Management, Operational Risk, Risk for Boards of Directors, and Internal Audit Control and convened an invited session of global leaders in risk management. He was awarded the global certification in risk management, CPRM in 2010.

He is a highly regarded global expert and has been an invited keynote speaker at international conferences in Washington D.C., Biel Switzerland and, Sydney, Canberra and Cairns Australia. Mr. Lark was one of Canada’s delegates to the ISO risk management Committee and was a Team Leader of several ISO Working Groups and Subcommittees. Mr. Lark was the sole author of the international ISO Guide to implementing ISO 31000:2009 released in January of 2016.

Mr. Lark also has extensive Board experience and is Chair of two Not For Profit Boards and sits on the board of several major charities. He recently completed the Director’s Education Program that is jointly offered by the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Rotman School of Management. After completing the course he successfully passed the qualifying exams and earned the ICD.D designation confirming his knowledge of Board obligations, structures and functions as well as all legal and regulatory obligations.

For over 15 years, Denley has drawn upon his various experiences as a public servant, project manager, engineer, executive coach and community leader to relate to and serve various stakeholders. As a keynote professional speaker and corporate facilitator, he has provided coaching and training on inclusion, diversity and anti-racism for various provincial ministries in the OPS. As a developer of people, his goal is to provide leadership that engages and empowers staff, leverage his experience in cultural transformation and share best practices within the HR community. Denley is known as a change agent who elevates the values and enriches the culture of teams he works with. As the Founder of Connect Ontario Professional Development Group, he acts as the Executive Director to support public sector professionals of diverse backgrounds (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, job rank etc.) to bring their whole selves to work through mentoring, coaching and adult learning.

He defines his organization as a workplace community of inclusive diversity. Connect Ontario is considered a resource for people development within the government. It is focused on building value-based leadership, inclusive engagement, collaborative culture, and mentally resilient community. In addition to the initiative above, he currently works as a Change Management Lead for Supply Chain Ontario supporting the critical COVID-19 response of PPEs to ministries.

John McLennan is the Manager of Risk Management Services for the City of Hamilton, Canada’s 9th largest city, with a population of just under 700,000. As a single tier municipality Hamilton is full service and therefore full risk, with operations ranging from basic asset provision to public health to all sectors of emergency first response. As the risk manager for the City of Hamilton, John is a member of the management team of the City’s Emergency Operations Centre which has been activated since March 13, 2020 in response to the CVID-19 pandemic.

Leslie Siegman combines a 25 year career in both the public and private sectors in the transportation industry, including for some of Canada’s premiere companies such as CN Rail, CAE Electronics and Rolls-Royce. While in the public sector, he has occupied positions with Canadian Transportation Agency, ISED, and Transport Canada where he is currently Director of Management and Resource Services. His responsibilities have included ensuring effective monitoring and enforcement of the air, rail and marine industries compliance with legislative and regulatory provisions, which is in the interest of travelers, shippers and the transportation companies that follow the rules and should not face unfair competition from those who don’t.

His responsibilities incorporated a broadened mandate to track and enforce compliance with all legislative and regulatory requirements, having his officers consider whether to take action in every case where the organization finds a contravention of legal requirements, updating regulatory language to make compliance obligations as clear as possible and considering the designation of a wider set of regulatory provisions and finally implementing a risk-based, data-driven and systematic methodology to let us target finite compliance resources based on the likelihood and expected impact of possible violations.

Sam Stephens has worked in the law enforcement and security industry in all levels of the Canadian Government, including Federal (CBSA, DFO, CCG), Provincial (BCLC) and Municipal (City of Vancouver) during his career.  Sam currently oversees the Security Programs and Operations Department for the City of Vancouver.  Leading teams of professional security management staff, operations centres and a large complement of in-house and contracted uniform guard services, Sam strives to provide safe and accessible environments to the users of civic services.  He has completed his Masters in Enterprise Risk Management from Boston University, to compliment his Canadian Risk Manager (CRM) and ASIS Certified Protection Professional (CPP) designations.

Dr. David S. Weiss, Ph.D., ICD.D is President and CEO of Weiss International Ltd., a firm specializing in innovation, leadership, and HR consulting for many Fortune 500, social enterprise and public-sector organizations. David has provided consulting on more than 1000 business and organizational projects, delivered over 200 conference presentations and he has written over 50 journal and trade articles. He is the author or co-author of seven books including Innovative Intelligence (Wiley, also available in Chinese and Persian) which was reported by CBC News as a “top 5 business book” in the year it was published. David has conducted executive sessions in Canada, USA, China, Russia, Israel, Uganda, South Africa, Malaysia, Chile, Hungary, France and England. Previously, Affiliated Professor of Rotman School of Management, Senior Research Fellow at Queen’s University, and VP and Chief Innovation Officer of Knightsbridge, David currently teaches at four university executive development programs, including Rotman, Schulich, DeGroote and St, Mary’s University. David’s doctorate is from the University of Toronto and he has three Master’s degrees. He has been honoured by many organizations globally including by the Government of Canada with the “Distinguished Lecturer” certificate, by the Asia-Pacific HR Congress with the “HR Leadership Award,” and by HRPA with the lifetime designation of “Fellow HRPA.” Download many of David’s articles at www.weissinternational.ca/articles , read an article about David’s innovative ideas at www.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Solomon_Weiss and join over 10,000 followers on Twitter at @DrDavidWeiss and 4500 followers on LinkedIn at [email protected]

Karen Zarrouki is currently Manager, Internal Audit Sector, Office of the Comptroller General at Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS). Karen entered into internal auditing in the Summer of 2014, and has undertaken several internal audit engagements ranging from audits, to reviews, to risk and control self-assessments, including the Review of Risk Management Practices at TBS. Since 2006 she has occupied several positions in TBS: Special Advisor, Security and Identity Management, Chief Information Officer Branch; acting Director, Centre of Excellence for Risk Management and Regional Federal Councils in the Priorities and Planning Sector; Manager, Office of the Auditor General Liaison; and Senior Policy Analyst, Cabinet Operations, Regulatory Affairs Sector. In her 30^th year in the federal public service, she has worked in the Privy Council Office, Industry Canada (Broadband Access program) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Karen holds a Master of Arts Degree in German linguistics, and a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in French and German Language. Karen’s area of specialization for internal audit is risk management, and she holds the Certification in Risk Management Assurance and Certified Government Auditing Professional from The Institute of Internal Auditors. She is also certified in change management (Prosci).