Loren Rafeson is Partner, Growth Equity Partners, at BDC Capital where he helps leading Canadian companies scale nationally and internationally. Since joining BDC in 2018, Loren has been involved in the execution of BDC’s investments in Firmex, Groupe Tecnic, Monarch House, Preciseley Microtechnology, and Resolute Health. He currently serves on the boards of Groupe Tecnic, Monarch House, and Resolute Health and previously served on the boards of Firmex, InvestorCOM, and Neighbourly Pharmacy (TSX:NBLY, formerly Rx Drug Mart).

Loren has over 15 years’ experience in private equity and corporate finance having worked for several investment management firms in Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as the merchant bank and the investment bank of two Canadian financial institutions. Loren holds a BBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University and an MBA from INSEAD in France and Singapore. In addition, he is a CFA charterholder.

Julia Webster is a disputes and international trade lawyer. She advises companies on trade remedies, free trade agreements, blocking measures, customs, anti-corruption laws, economic sanctions, anti-money laundering laws, compliance with forced and child labour laws, and cross-border M&A.

Tanya Knight is the Executive Vice President of Clients and Services at MNP, one of Canada's largest national accounting, tax, and business consulting firms. She leads the firm's national service line, industry, and cultural niche practices and has over 20 years of experience working with mid-market businesses.

Tanya helps MNP’s practice leaders build strong relationships with clients, developing in-depth understanding of their businesses and providing proactive solutions and advice to help them thrive and grow. She also ensures their services are tailored to each client's needs and opportunities.

Since joining MNP in 1997, Tanya has contributed to the firm’s significant expansion, diversification, and increased market share across Canada. Through her tenure, MNP has grown from a regional firm to a national firm. The culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence that Tanya has fostered ensures clients can achieve their goals and succeed in a constantly changing world.

Tanya holds a Bachelor of Commerce – Honours Degree from the University of Manitoba and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA). She works out of the Saskatoon office, traveling and working with leaders across the country. She is also an active community member, having volunteered for a number of community groups. She previously held the role of President of the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce and is currently a Director with Saskatchewan Blue Cross.

Jean-François Perrault joined Scotiabank in 2015 as Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist. He leads a team of Economists to support Scotiabank’s domestic and international business lines and clients from retail to capital markets, providing Scotiabank's senior executives, business lines and customers with perspectives, insights and forecasts on economic, financial market and policy developments.

Prior to joining Scotiabank, Jean-François held prominent roles with the federal government, the Bank of Canada, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

SPEAKER BIO COMING SOON...

Philip is a Partner with MNP’s Digital Services team in Calgary and is the firm’s National Leader, Cyber Security. Philip is an accomplished and visionary executive leader with more than 25 years of experience in the cyber security, digital risk, and technology strategy fields. His inclusive and collaborative approach results in successful, transformative programs that deliver value while inspiring and enabling people.

Philip started his career as a police officer, leading teams in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Technological Crimes and Federal Serious Organized Crime sections, and was court qualified as an expert in cyber security and digital forensics. He founded and led a Canadian cyber security and crisis management advisory company that was later acquired by a Big 4 firm. After several years in professional consulting, he served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at two major Canadian natural resources corporations.

Philip co-authored the book, Cybercrime Investigation Common Body of Knowledge (CIBOK). He volunteers with legal and not-for-profit entities, providing pro-bono cyber security advisory and incident response expertise.

Philip is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

As the SMC Lead (Small Medium & Corporate) at Microsoft Canada, Deidre oversees a team focused on helping clients innovate and transform their business. A seasoned leader with more than 25 years of experience in the industry, Deidre is a collaborative and proven leader who believes the best results are achieved with team synergy and mutual goals.

Deidre joined Microsoft in 2016 and since then has held roles in Enterprise Commercial and Consulting. Most recently the Sales Director in Central Region for Microsoft Canada, Deidre has deep industry experience, strong collaboration skills, and executes with operational excellence. 

Deidre currently resides in Toronto with her husband Chris and two kids, Rowan and Olivia. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time mentoring others with their career aspirations, being active and likes to spend time with family and friends.

Laura Burget is the co-founder of Three Ships, an effective and natural skincare brand focused on transparency, that is transforming the clean beauty space with accessible products. From farm to shelf, each product includes science-backed plant-derived ingredients, no fillers or chemicals, and is housed in 100% recyclable packaging. Better for the planet and better for the skin, Three Ships promises to deliver uncomplicated skincare backed by natural ingredients and real science. Laura spearheads product innovation and formulations, marketing + digital, operations/logistics, legal and financials.

Laura is a life-long supporter of businesses with high ethical standards. Her journey into entrepreneurship began at the ripe age of 9 when she sold handmade crafts and jewelry at her elementary school to raise money for endangered animals. While in school at the University of Toronto for Chemical Engineering, she even ran two businesses on the side. It was through these experiences that she fell in love with entrepreneurship and became fascinated with creating something from nothing.

She began using coconut oil to remove makeup naturally but was frustrated by the mess it created. After looking for a natural, yet effective and more convenient alternative, Laura was unable to find anything on the market. In 2016, a mutual friend introduced Laura to Connie Lo. Both frustrated about the lack of affordable, clean skincare on the market, the two took their $4,000 CAD and began creating their own formulations in their apartment kitchens with the goal to one day create the most transparent natural beauty brand in the world. In 2017, Three Ships was officially born.

When Laura is not focusing on Three Ships, she enjoys hikes outside of the city, going to the gym, exploring new restaurants with friends, and participating in any form of competition (especially board games).

Laura is in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2022, winner of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year® in Ontario (2022), RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), and appeared on CBC’s hit show Dragons’ Den (Canada’s Shark Tank).

Laurence Mussio is one of North America’s most senior business historians whose career has connected decisionmakers to a deeper understanding of the evolving nature of business and public policy. A working scholar and senior advisor to C-Suite executives, Laurence publishes and advises on the evolution of financial institutions, government policy and regulation in ESG, corporate culture, the future of the public corporation, finance, political economy and risk. Using the lens of past technology transformations, his current research focuses on the implications of Artificial Intelligence as a technology, as an economic force, and as a generator of unprecedented risk and opportunity.

Laurence is Chair and co-founder of the Long Run Institute (LRI), an independent, not-for- profit organization that operates across the North Atlantic world. The Institute was established with the mission of generating actionable insights for select senior decisionmakers in government and enterprise linking our critical historical experience to a widening spectrum of contemporary grand challenges including risk, technological transformation and globalization.

He is the CEO of Signal Influence Executive Research & Communications (SIERC Canada), a boutique consulting firm specializing in the strategic application of organizational experience for senior leadership. Laurence is Special Advisor to the Office of the CEO at BMO Financial Group, a position he has held since 2017. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Risk Institute, tasked with expanding the GRI’s capabilities in advising on Artificial Intelligence for global financial institutions.

Laurence teaches in the MBA Program at Schulich School of Business, York University, having also taught at McMaster University and Syracuse University. He is a member of the Leadership Council of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, Ivey Business School, Western University, and on the International Advisory Board of the Centre for Economic History, Queen’s University Belfast.

Laurence’s most recent publication is an acclaimed two-volume scholarly history of the Bank of Montreal: Whom Fortune Favours: Bank of Montreal and the Rise of North American Finance. His other books include a history of Sun Life of Canada and Telecom Nation: Telecommunications, Computers and Governments in Canada, both published by McGill- Queen’s University Press. He is currently working, with senior Google technologist Mark Ryan, on a book on AI and human judgement entitled, The Decision-Maker’s Dilemma: Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Judgement.

He is fluent in French, Italian and (intermediate) German.

With no capital or database, Sterling relied solely on generating online leads. Self-taught in SEO & SEM, Sterling started his team with one agent and an assistant. 15 years later, he’s grown his enterprise to 500 real estate & mortgage agents, staff and a management team – The engine behind this growth – Leads On Demand® supplying Leads to real estate & mortgage agents.

- Award-winning agent with Re/Max from 2007–2011
- Launched his own real estate brokerage (Search Realty Corp.) in 2012 and mortgage brokerage Search Mortgage Corp.) in 2015.
- Fueled a 5-year revenue growth of 1,942% with an agent growth of 4,433% leveraging online leads.
- Transformed his system into the Leads On Demand® industry-disrupting, lead-generating machine in 2020.

Ricardo Costa is a visionary technology leader with over 20 years of experience in driving efficiency and growth through the strategic application of technology. As Purolator's Senior Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer, Ricardo is responsible for the end-to-end delivery of IT and digital solutions and services. He is deeply passionate about improving the customer experience and has a proven track record of supporting complex, North American-wide distribution and delivery networks, as well as leading large-scale technology projects through business collaboration and integration.

One of Ricardo's primary areas of focus at Purolator is leveraging data and analytics to drive innovation and improve the customer experience. Under his leadership, the company has developed a range of cutting-edge digital solutions to support shippers and receivers, including the Purolator Your Way personal-delivery solution, which uses a ""package digital twin"" to track packages in real-time, as well as a virtual customer service assistant on the company's website.
He is passionate about creating an environment where all employees can thrive, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or background. As a leader in the technology industry, Ricardo is committed to sponsoring women in technology and has actively supported initiatives aimed at increasing diversity and promoting inclusion.

Prior to joining Purolator, Ricardo served as the Chief Information Officer at Weston Foods, where he was instrumental in digitizing the Girl Scout cookies sales process and transforming the entire user experience. He has also held senior technology positions at Rogers Communications, Loblaw Companies Limited, and Deloitte.

Ricardo holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Universidade de Brasília and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC). His expertise in technology, combined with his deep commitment to customer satisfaction, makes him a true asset to any organization.

Bio

David Parkinson has been covering business and financial markets since 1990, and has been with The Globe and Mail since 2000. In his years with The Globe, he has been an energy reporter, an editorial writer, a financial-markets columnist, and spent two years as Investment Editor. He has been an economics columnist/reporter since 2014. A Calgary native, he holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Calgary, and Masters in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario. He received a Southam Fellowship from the University of Toronto in 1999-2000, studying international political economics.

Clare O’Hara is an award-winning journalist. She covers wealth management and insurance as a reporter for The Globe and Mail's Report on Business.

Clare began her career as a research reporter at Investment Executive, a national newspaper for financial service industry professionals. Her coverage of Canada's biggest banks blocking the sale of independent investment funds prompted a regulatory investigation in 2022 and led to a Gold SABEW Canada Best in Business Award for Personal Finance and Investing.

She has also been awarded first place at the PMAC Awards for Excellence in Investment Journalism. In 2022, Clare, along with her colleagues, was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for revealing the scant progress from companies that had publicly pledged to improve the diversity of their workforces and combat systemic racism. She has an undergraduate degree in media information from University of Western Ontario and a journalism degree from the University of King’s College in Halifax.

Chris Hannay is a business reporter at The Globe and Mail. His beat is independent business: the small- and medium-sized enterprises that employ more than half of Canadians. He has written features about industries from restaurants to veterinary clinics, and investigated government programs and how big businesses can push smaller rivals around. He won an award from his business-journalism peers in 2022 for his beat reporting.

He also writes some of The Globe's editorials as a contributing member of the editorial board.

Before that, he was assignment editor in The Globe's Ottawa bureau, where he helped direct coverage of federal politics. He created the daily politics newsletter and wrote it every morning for more than five years. He also wrote some national arts stories while in Ottawa and won a National Newspaper Award for arts reporting in 2018.

He started at The Globe as a copy editor on a summer contract and has worked in just about every department over the years.

Alexandra Posadzki is an award-winning business journalist based in Toronto. She covers the Canadian telecom industry for The Globe and Mail's Report on Business.

Her industry-leading coverage of the dramatic power struggle at Rogers Communications Inc. was recognized with several Canada Best in Business Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, including gold medals in the “scoop” and “beat reporting” categories. Throughout the two-year long regulatory review of Rogers’ $20-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc., investors came to rely on Alexandra’s unparalleled coverage and consistent scoops. She is also a regular guest on The Globe’s daily news podcast, The Decibel.

Before taking on the telecom beat, Alexandra was The Globe’s capital markets reporter and wrote extensively about Canada’s fledgling cryptocurrency industry, particularly through a regulatory lens. Her network of contacts and deep knowledge of the space proved valuable during the collapse of Canada’s largest virtual currency exchange, QuadrigaCX. Alexandra’s contributions to The Globe’s award-winning coverage of the massive cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme led to her being prominently featured in multiple documentaries, podcasts and radio shows on the topic, including a 2022 Netflix documentary called Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King.

Alexandra is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program and has an honours B.A. in psychology and literature from York University. She has also completed the Canadian Securities Course.

Prior to joining The Globe in 2017, Alexandra spent three years as a multimedia business reporter at the Canadian Press newswire, where she wrote about banking, real estate and the burgeoning cannabis industry, and produced a series of investigative stories on Canada’s lax anti-money laundering regime. She has also worked at the Toronto Star, Business News Network, Global News and The Globe's B.C. bureau. Alexandra got her start in journalism at York University’s student newspaper, the Excalibur.

Her first book, Rogers vs. Rogers, is set to be published by McClelland & Stewart in 2024.

Rita Trichur is an award-winning journalist. She is a Senior Business Writer and Columnist in the Report on Business. Her previous roles at The Globe and Mail include Senior Editor, Financial Services Editor, and Canadian business columnist for the Report on Business Magazine. Rita returned to Globe in July 2016 after spending about 2 ½ years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s Canada bureau. She primarily covered domestic banks and insurance companies from Toronto, but also wrote a variety of other stories about Canada for the U.S. newspaper.

Prior to WSJ, Rita spent more than three years at the Globe, initially working as a general assignment reporter in the Report on Business before covering the telecom beat. Rita has also covered financial services and economics for the Toronto Star, and has held various roles at the Canadian Press and the Ottawa Sun. She got her first byline at age 6 when the Toronto Star published her short story about a fish-stealing cat and paid her $10. Rita, who also speaks French, was born in Toronto. She has a Bachelor of Journalism and Political Science and a M.A. in Canadian Studies – both from Carleton University in Ottawa.

Erica Alini covers personal finance for Report on Business. Previously, she worked for nearly five years at Global News, where she created and wrote Money123, a popular weekly newsletter on money matters. Between 2018 and 2020, she also hosted Money123 as a TV series on personal finance that aired Saturday evenings on Global National. Erica also worked as an economics reporter at Maclean’s and Canadian Business magazine, among others. She got her start in journalism at The Wall Street Journal, where she spent the summer of 2009 reporting on the ripple effects of the 2007/2008 financial crisis from New York.

Erica is the author of the bestselling book Money Like You Mean It, Personal Finance Tactics for the Real World, where she argues that economic, social and technological changes have complicated personal finance and provides practical tips on how millennials and Gen Z can achieve middle-class financial goals despite the challenges they face.

Moderator bio coming soon...

Menaka Raman-Wilms is the host of The Decibel, The Globe and Mail’s daily news podcast. Previously, she was a reporter in the Ottawa bureau. Before joining The Globe, Menaka was an associate producer at CBC Radio, a web writer at CBC Ottawa, and a CBC News Joan Donaldson Scholar. She’s also the author of The Rooftop Garden, a novel about climate change, extremism and friendship.

Dawn is the deputy editor of Report on Business magazine, handling long-form features and packages. She also writes the magazine's back-page column, "Last Word," along with the occasional feature.