Christelle Francois is the Vice-President of Government Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at Skills For Change, the Board Chair of the Table of Impact Investment Practitioners and a bilingual executive and entrepreneur. She has extensive experience as a Strategy Consultant specializing in growth acceleration, revenue model design, and optimization solutions for various companies and organizations. Christelle was listed as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Black Canadians of 2022.

Victor Beausoleil is the founder and executive director of Social Economy through Social Inclusion (SETSI), a nonprofit organization that works to promote social inclusion and economic development through innovative social enterprise models. He has more than 25 years of experience in the social enterprise and community development sectors, and has been involved in a variety of initiatives and organizations focused on social and economic development. He has also been a consultant for a number of foundations and international organizations. He currently leads SETSI’s work in Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa.

Ashif Mawji is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, venture capitalist, mentor and community builder. He chairs the Edmonton Police Foundation and TELUS Friendly Future Foundation and serves on numerous private and nonprofit boards, including the Invest Alberta Corporation, Sarah McLachlan School of Music, Hockey Canada Foundation, CN Community Foundation, Premier’s Council on Civil Society and others.

Ashif has directly invested into more than 110 companies globally, is invested in over 10 funds, is the managing director of the ScaleGood Fund LP (Social Impact VC Fund).
He received the EY Prairies Entrepreneur of the Year award, named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 and received Canada’s 50 Best Managed companies award three years in a row. Ashif was inducted into the Junior Achievement (NA) Business Hall of Fame in 2019. Ashif is an active member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and won the coveted Laing Award – he has served in the executive including as Chair of the organization (YPO-AB). Ashif has served as an Honorary Colonel in the Canadian Army and received the Queen’s Golden, Diamond and Platinum Jubilee medals and the Alberta Centennial Medal.

Kojo B. Otoo is a former banker with Standard Chartered Bank- Ghana, and Stanbic Bank Ghana (part of Standard Bank, South Africa). He has financial, leadership, and management experience of over 14 years in retail and corporate banking. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary in Educational Research (specialization in Adult Learning), focusing on critical and social justice issues on marginalized and underrepresented groups in society. Kojo brings a unique skill set of client engagements, account management, entrepreneurship, and an understanding of what economic equity means to the black community. He was one of the contributors to the recently released report on The State of Black Entrepreneurs in Alberta by the Africa Centre. As a Senior Manager of Africa Centre’s Entrepreneurship Empowerment Program, his goal is to help drive economic fairness, justice, and advancement of Black entrepreneurs in Alberta.

Nerissa Allen is a community leader and entrepreneur with a dedication to building economic prosperity within the African Diaspora. As the Co-Founder and President of the Black Business Association of BC, Nerissa drives progressive change by harnessing her 20 years of experience as a federal public servant and many years serving on boards such as the Barbados Cultural Association of BC and the Vancouver Economic Commission Advisory Board. Winning the 2021 Surrey Board of Trade, Women in Business Social Trail Blazer award; being named 100 Most Influential Black Canadians by AfroGlobal TV in 2022; most recently, being nominated “Community Champion” in the YWCA 2023 Women of Distinction Awards.

“Troy Grainger has dedicated the last 25+ years in commercial banking, fostering labour markets, and as a strong proponent in regional and municipal economic development. Troy now has brought this experience from northern Alberta and is now leading Community Futures Lethbridge Region, an organization providing access to capital, knowledge transfer, and ecosystem collaborative programming for small, medium, and underrepresented enterprise.”

Jefferson Roc was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and immigrated to Canada at an early age. He grew up in Montreal, Canada and pursued accounting education before being organically pulled into entrepreneurship. He previously ran a distribution company, where he learned the fundamentals of sales and business. During his 15 years of enterprise sales experience, Jefferson was repeatedly recognized with overachievement awards. He combines tribal knowledge and sales-focused methodology to create customer value and is trained to achieve business objectives. His latest venture, EIMHE, is born from his lived experience with mental health challenges that inspired him to imagine a collective way to experience wellness, supercharged by cutting-edge technology such as machine learning. EIMHE is a peer support solution creating its own category, and recognized by many mental health stakeholders. EIMHE is set to become a de facto in corporate wellness. As he’s building EIMHE, Jefferson is also the Director for Partnership and Alliance for Groupe3737; Canada’s largest Startup incubator focusing on ethnocultural diversity, and he recently became a Startup mentor for BIPOC Foundation and the Alchemist X. He believes in creating contagious success and being part of the solution to the existing funding gap for under-represented groups. Jefferson’s recipe for success is resumed in passion, purpose and profit.

Popoola Akande is a serial entrepreneur, a seasoned consultant with a high level of professionalism with over two decades of banking experience. He is a Financial Analyst, and a Business Professional with proven abilities in Project Management, Strategic Planning, Infrastructure, Enterprise Application, Process Integration/Management and Change Management. Popoola is an astute advocate for community development and is the president of Canadian Imperial Advantage an organization focused on entrepreneurial development and newcomer integration and a part of the Black National Ecosystem funded by the Canadian government to support black businesses in Alberta and the whole of Western Canada, particularly with access to capital. He was recently awarded The Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal (2023) for his contribution to the Province of Alberta and Power of Inclusion Leadership Award by the Council of Nigerian Professionals (2022) for his contributions to the Black community in Canada.

A visionary, motivator, community builder, educator and mental health activist. She is a TEDx Speaker, founder of the ‘The Coaching Element’ with 10+ years of experience in coaching and consulting and the founder and executive director of Odihi Foundation, a women and girls empowerment organization dedicated to providing free access to educational resources, mentorship and boardroom training for BIWOC girls and women nationally and globally.

Dipo Alli is passionate about helping Black founders start and succeed in their technology business, as a result he co-founded Black Business Ventures Association (BBVA) to support Black founders through their entrepreneurial journey. Dipo is currently the Executive Director of BBVA. Before this role, he spent most of his career helping start-ups and established businesses raise equity capital to start and scale their business.

Gwendoline is the owner of 4Change Staffing Solutions, a recruitment and staffing firm that helps businesses find talent. She is a seasoned IT recruiter and career coach who educates, empowers, and connects IT people to employers to do meaningful work they enjoy. She is a graduate of the University of Waterloo with a Masters in the Management of Technology, and is a certified Human Resource Leader(CHRL). She has been a guest on the Canadian Job Search Podcast and is passionate about helping others achieve their best. She lives in Kitchener, Ontario with her husband and four sons.

Christine is a global speaker, consultant, community builder, and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of AfricaHacks, which organizes Africa’s largest tech competition – a virtual hackathon with thousands of youth, judges, and sponsors from around the world. On the global stage, Christine speaks about innovation, smart cities, entrepreneurship, and the African potential. In 2020, she was selected as a young leader to meet former US President Barack Obama.

Wunmi is the founder of Immigrant Techies Alberta, a community grassroots movement empowering immigrant professionals to explore tech careers and startups. She also founded ReSkill Calgary, an organizations that helps employers bridge their tech talent gap by leveraging the highly skilled immigrant talent pool. Wunmi is a Digital Catalyst at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) where she facilitates digital transformation across SAIT to elevate students future-of-work readiness. She is an active player on the Alberta tech and innovation scene and enjoys bringing people together for the collective good.

Reesa John is the Director, Fund and Fellowship at Alberta Innovates. She is an impact driven passionate relationship builder with over 25 years of experience facilitating positive innovation changes for Albertans. She works with Alberta Innovates Business Units to “Invest for Impact” by designing and implementing Performance Management and Impact systems that drive to targeted outcomes. This has included the Clean Resources Climate Change Innovation and Technology (CCITF), Technology Innovation and Emission Reduction (TIER) portfolios and most recently the Scale-up and Growth Accelerator Program.  In her role as Fund and Fellowship Director, she will be marshalling collective efforts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem for sustainable impact. She has previously worked as a Performance Management and Improvement Consultant with Alberta Health Services, The Workers Compensation Board of Alberta and the Victorian Work Cover Authority in Melbourne Australia. She has extensive experience in service delivery model and framework development, provincial scale and spread implementation, program evaluation, performance improvement and contract and service provider management.

Gerald Grant is Director of the Centre for Information Technology, Organizations, and People {CITOP), Full Professor, and Coordinator of the Information Systems Area at the Sprott School of Business, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is Principal Investigator and Co-Lead of the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub {BEKH). He obtained his PhD in Information Systems from the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom. He is co-author of the book The Value Imperative: Harvesting value from your IT initiatives.

Mo’ is a seasoned technology executive and servant leader with 10 years of experience leading and facilitating global teams. He possesses a wealth of Product, Project Management & Business Analysis skills, leading teams to develop new products, drive incremental revenue, and streamline national operations. He is the Managing Director at SkillHat – a global tech company launching motivated professionals into dream careers through e-learning and career development. Channeling his passion for education, Mo’ has developed globally accredited training courses with PMI, IIBA & Scrum Alliance. He has trained 400+ Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Business Analysts, and Product Owners, who are now thriving in their mission driven-careers.

Liza Arnason MA , the owner of the owner of Arnason Consulting established in 2005, founder and Chair of the Ase Community Foundation for Black Canadians with Disabilities, founder and Chair of the UCalgary Black Alumni Network, and an UofT Alumni from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; and above all a mom, grandma, and champion of Black talent. Liza’s commitment to the principles of “nothing without us” and “for us, by us”, has always been the cornerstone of her work as an career coach, educator, administrator, and community advocate. Her depth of knowledge and expertise is informed by her lived experiences, progressive senior administrative and teaching experience, critical research and policy initiatives, passion for equity, and an inspirational 35-year career journey as pioneer and visionary. Liza draws on critical pedagogy including Black Feminism, disability justice, and critical race practices that inform her work across public, private, and non-profit organizational structures. She unapologetically brings the lived experiences of of race, gender, and disability to the “table”, identifying nuances, gaps, and disparities within systems, structures, and research. Through collective leadership and wisdom across Canada, Liz continues to design and advocate for new models and systems that will affect real change; particularly those that elevate the talents and growth opportunities for Black people with disabilities.