Over two decades, Rick George lead Suncor Energy from a small privately held oil sands company worth $1 billion, to being Canada’s largest integrated public energy company valued at $50 billion.

Named “Outstanding CEO of the Year” in 1999, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2007 for his leadership in Canada’s natural resources sector, his efforts to provide economic opportunities to Aboriginal communities, and his commitment to sustainable development.

Ed Clark retired as Group President and CEO of TD Bank Group on November 1, 2014 after 12 years as CEO. Twice during his tenure, Ed was recognized as one of the world’s 30 Best CEOs by Barron’s Magazine.

He now serves Premier Kathleen Wynne in the dual capacity of Chair of the Premier’s Advisory Council on Government and Business Advisor. Additionally, Ed sits on a housing task force set up by Toronto Mayor John Tory.

Ed is a member of the Board of Trustees of US public policy organization, the Brookings Institute. He is also a Director of Thomson Reuters Board.

André Bérard, Former Chairman of the Board of National Bank of Canada, is a career banker. He held various positions within the Bank’s branch network from 1958 to 1972, including accountant, assistant manager and branch manager.

He is very actively involved in the Canada/France Business Relations Club. He sits on the Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister on the Business/Government Executive Exchange Program. Moreover, he is a member of the Policy Committee of the Business Council on National Issues, the Conseil des gouverneurs associes of the Universite de Montreal, the Jeune Chambre de commerce de Montreal and the Chambre de commerce du Quebec. Mr. Bérard was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995, an Officer of the Ordre national du Quebec in 2000 and in 1996 he received the Ordre de Saint-Jean. Mr. Bérard was honoured as a Great Montrealer in 1997.

He also received honorific doctorates from the University of Ottawa and from the University of Montreal. Mr. Bérard, who is committed to serving the community, has chaired many fundraising campaigns over the years, including the campaign for the Montreal Heart Institute Research Fund.

Heather Reisman is the founder, Chair and CEO of Indigo, Canada’s largest book, lifestyle and specialty toy retailer, and co-founder of Kobo, a leading global eReading company. Ms. Reisman was born in Montreal and educated at McGill University.

Ms. Reisman began her career as a Managing Director of Paradigm Consulting, the strategy and change management firm she co-founded in 1979. Paradigm was the world’s first strategic change consultancy and pioneered many organizational change strategies still in use today.

Ms. Reisman is the recipient of Honorary Doctorates from Ryerson University (2006), Wilfred Laurier University (2009), Mount Allison University (2010), and St. Francis Xavier University (2013), as well as several awards including The Order of Canada, The WXN Top 100 Most Powerful Women, Financial Times of London Top 50 Women in World Business, Waterloo Entrepreneur Hall of Fame, University of Waterloo; International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award, University of Manitoba; and the John Molson School of Business Award of Distinction, Concordia University.

Ms. Reisman is married to Gerald Schwartz, Chair and CEO of Onex Corporation. She has four children and nine grandchildren.

N. Murray Edwards was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. He is President and owner of Edco Financial Holdings Ltd., a Calgary based management company.

He is a leading investor in and executive chairman of numerous publicly traded companies including Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Ensign Energy Services Inc., and Magellan Aerospace Corporation, all of which he initially capitalized and has helped grow. He also owns a number of private companies including Resorts of the Canadian Rockies Inc. Today these companies directly employ over 25,000 individuals. He is also the governor,  chairman and a co-owner of the Calgary Flames Hockey Club of the National Hockey League.

After moving to Calgary in 1983 he became a lawyer and later  a Partner with Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer, a Calgary based law firm, which he left in 1988 to start investing in and building Canadian companies. His first investment was in Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

At a community level Murray is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the C.D. Howe Institute.

Walter Hachborn, started his career in 1938 as an employee of Hollinger Hardware. In 1950 he purchased the business with two partners and successfully grew the business from $245,000 in 1950 to $3.5 million in 1963.

The dream that Walter had was to find a way to ensure the survival of the independent retail hardware and building material dealers in Canada. He studied methods where regional dealer groups pooled their buying and distributed the product among themselves, and also the concept of dealer-owned companies where centralized warehouses distributed the products to their dealer members. He visualized this method to be the most effective and started planning the structure of such an organization. Home Hardware Stores Limited came into existence on January 1, 1964.

Through the development of programs and benefits, one hundred and twenty-two dealers were attracted to the program and agreed to purchase Hollinger Hardware which was arranged for January 1st, 1964. Sales in the first year to dealer members were $4,103,140. In 2014 Home has grown to 1,062 stores located across Canada and $5.4 billion in retail sales.

Walter Hachborn passed away in 2016 but the legacy he left will remain through time.

Don Smith– philanthropist, craftsman of buildings and careers, husband to Joan Smith, and father to seven children– was a true pioneer.

Born in Alberta in 1924, Don would prove himself to be a natural entrepreneur, from showing neighbourhood kids Charlie Chaplin movies– at five cents a head– to joining the Foundation Company as a Superintendent at 25.

In 1949, Don moved to London and married Joan McDonald, who had her own ambitions in public service and politics. Neither career deterred the two from their shared dream of a large family, which consisted of seven children, 21 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

In 1951, Don and brother David started EllisDon with a single home renovation prospect, and then worked-up to university, office, and airport projects– expanding across several provinces seeing EllisDon become the $3Billion company it is today.

At 42, Don also fought for the London Club to admit its first Jewish member, a feat for which Don was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews. Notwithstanding this, Don was a great philanthropist, which benefitted The Boys And Girls Club, and many other charities and communities throughout Ontario.

Don led a life well lived, and very generously enabled others to do the same.

Lino Saputo was born in Italy, in 1937, to Master Cheesemaker Giuseppe Saputo and his wife, Maria. The Saputo family immigrated to Canada in 1952, and two years later, founded the Company which bears their name.

In 1969, succeeding his father, Lino Saputo was named Chairman of the Board and President of the Company. In 1997, Saputo completed its initial public offering. Lino became Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in 1998. In 2004, his son Lino A. Saputo, Jr. was appointed to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer, while Lino Saputo remained Chairman of the Board.

Lino Saputo was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in June 2010. In May 2011, he was made an Officer of the National Order of Québec and in June 2012, was appointed Member of the Order of Canada. In November 2012, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal inducted Lino Saputo into the Academy of Great Montrealers.

Peter M. Brown, a third generation Vancouverite, founded Canaccord Genuity in 1968 with a $28,000 investment and built the company, with his partners, into the firm it is today.

Mr. Brown serves as Chair, Fraser Institute and the Vancouver Police Foundation and Vice Chair, Investment Industry Association of Canada.  He is a Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Federal Minister of Finance.  Past service includes boards of the Vancouver Convention Centre and Stadium and the Vancouver Olympic Committee. He was Chairman, UBC and the Vancouver Stock Exchange and Vice Chair, Expo 86.

Mr. Brown is a Member of the Order of British Columbia and recipient of the Ernst & Young Lifetime Achievement Award.  He earned honorary law degrees from UBC and BC Justice Institute and a PhD in Letters from Emily Carr University.  He was named “Person of the Year” by the Brotherhood Interfaith Society, was the first civilian to receive the Chief’s Citation for service to the Vancouver Police, and also received the Vancouver Board of Trade Rix Award for Engaged Community Citizenship. He was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame and the Business Laureates of BC Hall of Fame.

David Mirvish is a Canadian art collector, theatre producer and entrepreneur. A passionate supporter of the theatre and Canada’s artistic community, Mr. Mirvish is the owner and operator of Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, Princess of Wales Theatre, Ed Mirvish Theatre and Panasonic Theatre.

In 1941, Mr. Mirvish’s parents opened the store that in 1948 would become Honest Ed’s. Today, David Mirvish is the owner and operator of the beloved discount emporium and Toronto landmark. David Mirvish began his career as an art dealer when in 1963, at the age of 19, he opened the David Mirvish Gallery.

Mr. Mirvish has received many awards and recognitions for his contributions to the Canadian arts scene, including being named to the Order of Ontario in 2001 and awarded a Member to the Order of Canada in 1995. He is also a recipient of the Brenda Donohue Award for outstanding service and contribution to theatre in Toronto, the Toronto Arts Award for the Visual Arts, and the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Award, honouring outstanding patrons of the arts, worldwide, who have given their time, energy and money in order to encourage cultural life to flourish.

He has been presented with honorary doctorates from Queen’s University, the York University Fine Arts department, the Faculty of Applied Arts at Ryerson University and University College, the University of Toronto. In June 2012, he was installed as the Chancellor of the University of Guelph.

He has given of his time and resources to numerous charitable causes. Mr. Mirvish is the son of the late Ed Mirvish, who was a well-known Toronto business owner, and the artist Anne Lazare Macklin.

Ian Greenberg is President and Chief Executive Officer of Astral, one of Canada’s most dynamic and best-performing media companies with a strong presence in the country’s fastest-growing media platforms: pay- and specialty-TV, radio, out-of-home advertising and digital media.

Born in Montréal in 1942, he is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Ian Greenberg is one of four brothers who founded Astral over 50 years ago. Beginning as a specialty photographic business, Astral evolved under his leadership to become a pure-play media company.

Since Mr. Greenberg was appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer of Astral in 1996, the company has a track record of 16 consecutive years of profitable growth, achieved through a combination of financial discipline, thoughtful planning and rigorous operational practices.

Active in supporting a number of industry and charitable associations, Mr. Greenberg and his brothers were awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award in 1993. In 2007, Mr. Greenberg received the prestigious Ted Rogers and Velma Rogers Graham Award for his unique contribution to the Canadian broadcasting system. In 2008, he was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. He was also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Montreal Jewish Chamber of Commerce in 2010.

He is currently a member of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and a member of the Board of Directors of Cineplex Inc.

Mr. Greenberg and his wife Linda reside in Montréal. They have three grown children and nine grandchildren.