Emcees
Julia Chung
Spring Planning
Julia is the CEO of Spring Planning, an advice-only financial planning firm. Ms. Chung grew up inside an entrepreneurial and academic family with interests around the world. She began her career in financial services in 1997 and started her own entrepreneurial journey just a few years later.
After a few decades of working with individuals, families and businesses providing increasingly complex advisory services, Julia gained her FEA designation in 2013. Since then, she has had the great opportunity to work collaboratively with many members of the FEA community and volunteer with Family Enterprise Canada on various committees, including the Vancouver events committee and the FEA Council.
Steve Legler
Family Legacy Coach & Advisor
Steve is a Family Legacy Advisor based in Montreal, Canada. He grew up in a business family, destined to take over the company his father had founded before he was born. After an unexpected liquidity event that occurred while he was still in his 20’s, he ended up managing their family office instead. He also married into a business family, where he has witnessed a number of other complex issues.
In 2013, he stumbled upon the Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) program in Canada, which turned in to career-changing calling for him. Since then, he has been working with other business families as they face the challenges surrounding their intergenerational transitions.
Steve is the author of SHIFT Your Family Business and Interdependent Wealth: How Family Systems Theory Illuminates Successful Intergenerational Wealth Transitions.
Facilitators
Susan St. Amand
Sirius Financial Services
James A. Burton and Family Foundation: The Family Journey
Susan is the Founder and President of Sirius Financial Services, and Chair of the Board of Family Enterprise Canada. She specializes in continuity planning for business and philanthropic families with wealth. Susan has over 30 years of experience in finance, governance, strategy, risk management and philanthropy. Her integrity, passion, ‘big picture’ view, intense listening and communication skills, and comprehensive approach, make her uniquely skilled.
Over the last 30 years, Susan has sat in leadership positions on more than 20 boards. She has continued as President of the successful life insurance business she started in 1990 while focusing her consulting on family enterprise continuity.
She is a director on the local Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD), Co-Chair of the local International Women’s Forum and a member of The Society for Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), The Purposeful Planning Institute, ADVOCIS and the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting (CALU).
Wendy Sage-Hayward
The Family Business Consulting Group
Maximizing Engagement in Family Enterprise Continuity
& James A. Burton and Family Foundation: The Family Journey
As educator, author, adjudicator and family business owner, Wendy brings 30+ years of experience working with business leaders, family firms and their boards. She is the Academic Director and a Lead Instructor for Family Enterprise Canada and a certified Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA).
Wendy was a fifth-generation member and director of a 135 year-old U.S. family firm for 20+ years. She currently owns and operates an agricultural tourism business with her family in the Southern Gulf Islands.
Wendy is the co-author of two books: Human Resources in Family Business: Maximizing the Power of Your People and Own It! How to Develop a Family Enterprise Owner’s Mindset at Every Age. Her background in family business ownership and governance motivated Wendy to dedicate her career to serving the needs of business families who are passionate about operating and transitioning their enterprise to future generations.
Julie Westeinde
Breakthrough Learning Connections
Land Acknowledgement & Indigenous Welcome
Julie is the founder of Breakthrough Learning Connections and brings over 30 years of experience in designing, facilitating, coaching and consulting for transformative organizational design and development. With edgewalking individuals, families, teams, organizations and communities, she works the interdependence between strategy, culture, multi-stakeholder engagement, leadership, transformative learning, team and conscious communication development.
Julie is a recipient of Ottawa's 40 under 40. She draws inspiration from conscious communication (cnvc.org), One Planet Living, NIA dance and indigenous wisdom keepers from Chile, Ecuador and Canada.
Growing up in a business family, Julie has also facilitated healthy relational and strategy capacity development in the context of family business and P.A.G retreats for over 20 years.
Keynote Speakers
Kristin Keffeler
Illumination360
The Myth of the Silver Spoon
Kristin is a thought leader and consultant at the forefront of a global shift in family wealth advising, known as Wealth 3.0. She works with affluent and enterprising families, rising gen and the professionals who support them. As the founder of the consulting firm Illumination360, and the Chief Learning Officer for the Johnson Financial Group, she specializes in human motivation and behavioral change, family dynamics, family governance, rising gen education and development, and intergenerational collaboration.
Drawing upon her research and years of private practice advising and coaching the rising generation in affluent and enterprising families, Kristin believes that members of the rising gen are uniquely positioned to create significant impact in the world and uses a lens of strengths to help them — and those who guide them — to ignite their potential. Her recent book, The Myth of the Silver Spoon: Navigating Family Wealth & Creating an Impactful Life, captures this approach.
Tom McCullough
Northwood Family Office
Wealth of Wisdom
Tom McCullough is Chairman and CEO of Northwood Family Office, a leading Canadian multi-family office. He has spent over 35 years in the wealth management and family office field.
He is a frequent speaker on issues relevant to families of wealth and is the co-author of three books: Wealth of Wisdom: The Top 50 Questions Wealthy Families Ask, Family Wealth Management: 7 Imperatives for Successful Investing and the newly-released, Wealth of Wisdom: Top Practices for Wealthy Families and Their Advisors.
Tom is also an Adjunct Professor and Executive-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management MBA program, a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Wealth Management and a board member and faculty member of the Ultra High Net Worth Institute.
Moderators
Karen Brookman
WCD
Family Enteprise of the Year Award (FEYA)
Karen is an entrepreneurial business leader with a track record for leading transformational business strategies. As the President and CEO of WCD, Karen is leading the company to be an innovative market leader in digital print, information management and ecommerce fulfillment.
Prior to joining WCD in 2018, Karen was the President and co-founder of Commonwealth Legal in Ontario. Under her leadership, the company grew from a regional company to an industry-leading, multi-million-dollar, national eDiscovery company. In 2014, Karen returned to Calgary to lead the next generation of her family’s 70-year-old business with her father, sister and husband.
Karen has a degree in Production Management and Design from Ryerson University and is a graduate of multiple executive leadership programs at Harvard Business School. She has an ICD designation from the Director’s Education Program at Rotman School of Management. Karen was a member of the Alberta Define the Decade Task Force with the Business Council of Alberta and has served on the Boards of several private and non-profit organizations.
Grant Conroy
Genus Capital Management
Ask the Experts Anything!
Grant Conroy is a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Genus Capital Management, a B Corp certified wealth management company specialising in Sustainable and Impact Investing. His role encompasses working with all types of clients, but he specifically enjoys working with families of wealth across the different generations, helping them to think about and navigate the complexities that come with multigenerational wealth.
Grant has passion for learning, growing, self-awareness and has a strong innate desire to help others. He is an FEA, serves on the boards of Vancouver Public Library Foundation and The Writers Exchange. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and three young children, and thrives in his role of chief ‘Dad Joke’ teller.
Keita Demming
The Covenant Group (TCG)
New Canadian Family Enterprise Stories
As a trusted advisor and thought leader in design, strategy and innovation, Keita strongly believes that the more we learn from others, the more likely we are to find our own journey a little bit easier. He is described by his clients as helping people become better business people and better people in business.
Keita is an award-winning educator and coach who is working to transform companies into places and spaces that are idea-driven and people-centred. As a high school dropout turned PhD, he now uses education and coaching as a tool to help clients thrive professionally and personally.
One of his proudest personal achievements is the community he helped grow around TEDxPortofSpain, part of the popular TED Ideas festival and one of the most successful TEDx events in the world.
Panelists & Experts
Katrina Barclay
Family Enterprise Legacy Institute
Educational Breakfast
Katrina is Executive Manager of the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute (FELI) at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. Growing up in an entrepreneurial family and working closely with several family businesses during her time as a business owner, Katrina pivoted towards the field of family enterprise advising, education and research after completing an MBA in 2021.
Prior to that, Katrina spent 10 years as an entrepreneur and small business founder/owner running a niche, creative retail business which she sold to an employee in spring 2023. Her contributions to business and community led her to being named one of Ottawa’s Forty Under 40 in 2016.
Before starting her business, Katrina spent a decade working for some of the world’s top media organizations, including the BBC and the CBC. In addition to her MBA, Katrina has a BA in communications and an MA in media. Originally from Calgary, she now lives in Ottawa with her husband and two children.
Phyllis Bourne
BGEI Family of Companies
New Canadian Family Enterprise Stories
Phyllis is a mother of three wonderful children, a wife, a second generation member of a multi-venture family enterprise and much more. She is an Entrepreneur, an International Real Estate Investor, a Community Economic Developer and an Intergenerational Legacy Building Advisor. She is the President and CEO of the BGEI Family of Companies.
Phyllis received a rich multi-cultural upbringing, living and schooling in a variety of countries around the world, including Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, UK, France, Spain and Canada. She holds a Post Graduate Certificate and B. Admin in Business from the University of Ottawa and her B.A. Hons. in Special French Studies - Language and Culture - from the University of Hull, UK. She also holds several professional certifications including Family Business Advisor, Life Transitions Specialist and is a licensed Financial Services Advisor. She attributes her work ethic and the key to her success, to the values her parents, instilled in her and her strong Christian faith.
In everything she does, at work, home or play, Phyllis endeavors to incorporate and displays with pride her heritage and her culture.
Andrew Bryson
Family Business Network International
Concurrent Family Session
As Family Business Network (FBN) International’s Head of Sustainability and Business Transformation, Andrew leads the organization’s sustainability and digitalization initiatives. Andrew has been a part of FBN since 2014, first as a founding member of the Polaris Committee and, in 2019, helping FBN renew its purpose and visual identity.
Previously, Andrew worked at Saatchi & Saatchi in both the US and Asia where, as Director of Transformation, he led the agency’s transformation and purpose initiatives with clients ranging from social enterprises to the Fortune 100, including Walmart, AT&T, T. Rowe Price, Coca-Cola, Juma Ventures and Air New Zealand. He also spent a number of years as the Executive Director of the Beastie Boys' nonprofit The Milarepa Fund, where he led the innovation of various strategies focused on activating youth globally. Most recently, Andrew was the Managing Director at several tech start-ups, including Inmoji, a mobile messaging and client engagement platform.
Peter Jaskiewicz
Family Enterprise Legacy Institute
Ask the Experts Anything!
& NextGen Retreat: Addressing Pressing NextGen Questions
Peter is full professor of Family Enterprise at the Telfer School of Management in Ottawa where he holds a University Research Chair in Enduring Entrepreneurship and leads the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute (FELI). Peter is also co-author of Enabling Next Generation Legacies: 35 Questions that Next Generation Members in Enterprising Families Ask, acknowledged as one of the most influential books on the subject.
Born into a business family in Poland and growing up in Germany, Peter was motivated to understand why succession failed in his family’s business. He researched family businesses during both his doctoral studies at the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, and while visiting INSEAD, Fontainebleau, and IESE Business School, Barcelona.
Peter’s findings on family business have received numerous awards and were considered among the most globally influential scholarship in 2013, 2015 and 2017.
Matt Knight
Alberta Business Family Institute
Educational Breakfast
Matt is the Executive Director of the Alberta Business Family Institute, responsible for developing and delivering research, education and programming to support family businesses. Matt is an experienced leader, splitting his career between strategy consulting with Deloitte, EY Canada and Productivity Alberta, and working for local family businesses including Ledcor, Umay and the Latimer Family Trust (Cashco Financial).
Matt understands the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship, having been a local business co-founder himself at Polar Park Brewing Company. He also serves as an Entrepreneur In Residence with Spring Activator, focused on coaching global entrepreneurs and impact investors.
Matt holds an MBA from Cape Breton University and a Bachelor of Supply Chain & International Business from MacEwan University, and he has been a sessional instructor at MacEwan, SAIT and the University of Alberta in Operations and Supply Chain Management.
Ian Macnaughton
Ian Macnaughton & Associates
Concurrent FEA Session
Dr. Ian Macnaughton focuses on family dynamics, conflict management and succession planning. Among other businesses, Ian has a particular focus on real estate families. As both a psychotherapist and a past second-generation family business owner, he has lived to experience some of the interpersonal and succession issues that families are going through in their family enterprise.
Ian has taught organizational behavior, design and family systems at several universities and colleges. He has a Ph.D (human science), EMBA, FEA, AFBA and AWFA. Ian is also on the teaching faculty for the Family Firm Institute, where he is both a Fellow and the holder of the Richard Backhand Award for outstanding contribution to the field of family business.
Monette Malewski
M Bacal Group
New Canadian Family Enterprise Stories
Monette is the founder of M Bacal Group. She is recognized as one of the leading advisors in the Canadian insurance world. In 2014, she was named as one of 50 most influential women in business by the Canadian Insurance and Investment Journal. She is also one of the founding members of Family Enterprise Canada.
Monette is Chair of the Board of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew, a founder of Genius100™ and she sat, until recently, on the boards of Investissement Quebec & Anges Quebec Capital. She is also the past president of Montréal Relève, a non-profit organization that works to prepare the next generation of Montreal business leaders, and she spent 6 years on the International Women’s Forum (IWF) International Board.
She has been honoured with many awards, including being named “Top de la Diversité “ by Médiamosiaque, receiving an honourary fellowship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee and she was named a Woman of Action by the Israel Cancer Research Fund. Most recently, Monette was recognized as a “Woman who make a difference” by IWF Global.
Liz McBeth
Armour Valve
Concurrent Family Session
Liz McBeth is a second generation leader in her family business and founding member of Family Enterprise Canada’s Family Business for Sustainable Development (FBSD) initiative.
Liz’s sustainability journey began when, as a teenager, she urged her parents to transition away from selling products into fossil fuel projects. Now she is overseeing Armour Valve’s pivot to purpose – transforming infrastructure for a healthy, thriving planet – as the business focuses on supporting clients through the Energy Transition sustainably and equitably.
Liz looks forward to sharing her experiences to and helping other family businesses discover their purpose and uncover the good that they are already doing through their work.
James Price
Telfer School of Management
Educational Breakfast
James is a mission-driven leader, CEO and development executive responsible for leading the Telfer School of Management’s external outreach vision, development and community engagement initiatives. Driven by a desire to make a positive impact on society, he takes great personal pride in building sustainable relationships and partnerships to advance higher education, research, innovation and economic development. In addition to his primary job functions, James is a member of the School’s Senior Leadership Team and represents the School on several external Boards and Committees. James has also been a champion of the Family Enterprise Legacy Institute since its founding and has been responsible for the development of its independent governance.
Prior to joining the School in 2019, James led Canada’s national stem cell advocacy and strategic funding efforts as President and CEO of the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation. He holds an MBA from the University of Georgia and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta.
Presenters
David R. Beatty
The David & Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance Innovation
Ask the Experts Anything!
& Uniqueness of Governance for Family Business
David is one of the world’s most experienced corporate directors and educators. He has served on 39 different boards of directors in Canada, America, Mexico, Australia and England, and has been chairman of 11 public companies.
David was the founding Managing Director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance and he still oversees the Canadian Directors’ Education Program (DEP).
In 2013, he was inducted into the Order of Canada for his work in Corporate Governance – the only person ever to be so cited. In 1994, he was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to Papua New Guinea. In 2018, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN).
Jim Burton
James A. Burton and Family Foundation
James A. Burton and Family Foundation: The Family Journey
Jim is the President of the James A. Burton and Family Foundation, and is the Founder and former Executive Chair and CEO of PPI Management Limited. He is a past Board Chair of Family Enterprise Canada and a driving force behind its creation.
Jim also served as Chair on the Board of Family Enterprise Foundation and as a Director on the Board of Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors. He lives in Niagara on the Lake, ON and is actively working with his children to create his family legacy.
Jeff Halpern
TD Wealth
Concurrent Community Session
Jeff is an experienced Business Succession Advisor who holds the Chartered Professional Accountant/Chartered Accountant designations with cross-border tax and estate planning experience.
Jeff has been actively focused on helping high net worth business owners plan for the future transfer of ownership and control of their businesses to their chosen successors, as well as ensuring the co-ordination of various TD Specialists (i.e investment, banking, insurance, trust) in the succession process. Jeff has gained extensive experience while working in America, Asia and Europe over almost four decades.