Canadian Chamber Future of Business Centre

Charles Finlay leads the Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst at Toronto Metropolitan University. The Catalyst holds an international reputation as a major global centre for cybersecurity training, entrepreneurship, research, policy development and public education, offering a wide array of cyber-related programs for individuals, entrepreneurs and organizations of all sizes. 

Prior to founding the Catalyst, Charles served as Chief-of-Staff and Director of Policy to Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development and Growth, working with all stakeholders to help make Ontario a global leader in technology innovation and commercialization.

Daina Proctor is a seasoned cyber security executive with over two decades of experience driving secure digital transformation across public and private sectors in Canada and globally. A recognized national voice in cyber security policy and internationally acknowledged as one of the Top 20 Women in Cybersecurity in 2020, Daina’s expertise spans risk management, privacy, compliance, post-quantum cryptography, and advanced threat detection and response, critical areas as Canadian organizations navigate today’s complex threat landscape. She is currently Executive Vice President, Performance and Growth, at The Loomex Group.

Jennifer is the Executive Director of the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange (CCTX), Canada’s preeminent private sector organization for cross-sector collaboration, enabling cyber resilience and preparedness in its members.  She is responsible for advancing the mission and purpose of the CCTX and delivering value to the membership. With extensive experience in the tech sector and with membership-based organizations, Jennifer excels at creating an environment that fosters customer focus and service delivery.

Jennifer has 30 years of experience creating value in emerging businesses, in Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.

John Verdi is Senior Director, Global Privacy (Legal) at PayPal. John previously served as Senior Vice President of Policy at the Future of Privacy Forum, where he supervised FPF’s policy portfolio, and before that, he served as Director of Privacy Initiatives at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Prior to NTIA, he was General Counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. John earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Law from SUNY-Binghamton.

Dr. Pınar Akman is a Professor of Law specializing in competition law at the University of Leeds, where she is also a Director at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Digital Governance. She has published widely in competition law and economics, particularly on abuse of dominance, vertical restraints, and competition in digital markets. Her publications include the sell-out monograph The Concept of Abuse in EU Competition Law: Law and Economics Approaches alongside numerous peer-reviewed publications. She received a Philip Leverhulme Prize (Leverhulme Trust) for her research into competition law in the digital economy. She has presented her research in over 20 countries around the world and advised and/or provided expertise to numerous organisations including the IMF, European Parliament, House of Lords, Federal Trade Commission and World Economic Forum. Amongst others, she sits on the Scientific Committee of the Florence Competition Programme (European University Institute), the Advisory Board of Computational Antitrust at CodeX (Stanford) and the Editorial Board of World Competition. She is a Non-Governmental Advisor appointed by the United Kingdom and by Turkey at the International Competition Network. 

Anita Banicevic is a Partner in the Antitrust/Competition and Foreign Investment practice. She advises domestic and international clients on many aspects of Canadian competition and foreign investment review law, including mergers, criminal and civil investigations, misleading advertising and other pricing, distribution and general compliance matters. Anita has experience advising clients in a wide variety of industries, including airlines, building materials, consumer products, financial institutions, natural resources, pharmaceuticals, real estate, retail and transportation. She has obtained Competition Act and Investment Canada Act clearance for numerous transactions involving domestic and international businesses. Anita has also represented clients in a number of abuse of dominance and criminal price-fixing investigations by the Competition Bureau. She has experience with contested proceedings, negotiated resolutions, and where available, immunity or leniency agreements. Anita is currently an executive member of the National Competition Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), co-chair of the Compliance and Ethics Antitrust Law Section of the American Bar Association and was formerly the chair of the CBA’s fall conference on Competition Law. She is also a non-governmental adviser to the International Competition Network, an organization of international competition law authorities devoted to improving worldwide cooperation and convergence.

Hilary Jennings is an independent competition and regulation consultant and Board Member of the UK Regulatory Policy Committee. Her core work is in providing best practice advice to competition authorities and government departments on competition, regulatory and market access policies in the UK, EU and emerging economy markets, and working with organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank and the European Commission. She is also the Special Adviser on Competition for the EU-Asia Competition Cooperation Project for DG Competition with ASEAN, China, India, Japan and Korea and the Course Director for DG Competition’s new Africa-EU Competition Cooperation project. She previously held senior roles at the OECD and the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, as well as in the private sector. She has a LL.M in EU Competition Law and International Trade Law from King’s College London. 

Paul A. Johnson PhD has over 20 years of experience in competition economics. Paul’s experience spans a wide range of industries and all areas of competition economics including mergers and acquisitions, monopolistic practices, cartels, deceptive marketing practices, class certification, and calculation of damages. He is currently the owner of Rideau Economics, located in Ottawa.

From 2016–2019, Paul served a three-year tenure as the Chief Economist at the Competition Bureau where he worked with case teams and on special projects, directly engaged with stakeholders, and advised the Commissioner of Competition on all significant antitrust matters. He was a principal contributor to the Bureau’s outreach efforts on emerging competition issues related to big data. Prior to opening Rideau Economics, Paul was a Partner in the antitrust practice at Bates White Economic Consulting in Washington, D.C. At Bates White, he worked on civil antitrust litigation and on high-profile mergers before U.S. and European antitrust agencies in a wide range of industries. Dr. Johnson has a PhD in economics from Université de Montréal and a BA in economics from the University of North Carolina. He is bilingual in French and English and can provide consulting services in either language.

Eric Miller is President of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, a consultancy that advises public and private sector clients globally on policy and regulatory matters and business strategy. Key sectors of focus include international trade, natural resources, and tech.

Eric is also a Senior Advisor to the Trade and Geopolitics Practice at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In this capacity, he helps BCG clients to address commercial challenges in a shifting global economy and public policy environment.

Eric has spent more than two decades at the intersection of government and business processes in Latin America, North America, Asia, and the Caribbean. Eric spent eight years as a Consultant with the Trade Division of the Inter-American Development Bank, where he worked with countries throughout the hemisphere. He also served as the first representative of Canada’s Department of Industry in the United States. In addition, Mr. Miller served as Vice President responsible for the United States, Mexico, Latin America, cyber security, and innovation at the Business Council of Canada (the Canadian CEO association).

Eric is a Director of American Critical Minerals Corp, a potash focused exploration company. He is a Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and with the Canadian Chamber Future of Business Centre.

Jorge Padilla earned M. Phil and D. Phil degrees in Economics from the University of Oxford. He is Research Fellow at the Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros and teaches competition economics at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (BGSE) and at the Toulouse School of Economics. He has given expert testimony before the competition authorities and courts of several EU member states, as well as in cases before the European Commission. Jorge has submitted written testimony to the European General Court, and the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal in cartel, merger control and abuse of dominance cases. He has also given expert testimony in various civil litigation (damages), international arbitration cases, and competition cases in non-EU jurisdictions (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Israel, Jamaica, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States).

Jorge has written numerous papers on competition policy and industrial organization in the Antitrust Bulletin, the Antitrust Law Journal, the Economic Journal, the European Competition Journal, the European Competition Law Review, the Fordham International Law Journal, Industrial and Corporate Change, the International Journal of Industrial Organization, the Journal of Competition Law and Economics, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, the Journal of Economic Theory, the RAND Journal of Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the University of Chicago Law Review, and World Competition. He is also co-author of The Law and Economics of Article 102 TFEU, 3rd edition, Hart Publishing, 2020.

Thomas Ross is the UPS Foundation Professor of Regulation and Competition Policy in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. He is also the Director of the Phelps Centre for the Study of Government and Business at the Sauder School. An economist, he earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Western Ontario, his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the University of Chicago and Carleton University before moving to UBC. His research in competition policy, industrial organization, public-private partnerships and experimental economics has been published in scholarly journals. Thomas also served as a consultant to a number of public and private sector organizations.

D. Daniel Sokol is the Carolyn Craig Franklin Chair in Law and Business at the USC Gould School of Law and an Affiliate Professor of Business at the Marshall School of Business, where he teaches in the marketing department. He serves as faculty director of the Center for Transnational Law and Business and the co-director of the USC Marshall Initiative on Digital Competition. Additionally, in a part time capacity, he serves as Senior Advisor at White & Case LLP.

Daniel is among the top 10 most cited antitrust law professors in the past five years. He focuses his teaching and scholarship on complex business issues from early-stage start-ups to multinational businesses and the issues that businesses face regarding competition: antitrust, data breaches, corporate governance, compliance, innovation, M&A, digital transformation, and global business regulation.

He is a member of the American Law Institute. He also serves as academic advisor to the United States Chamber of Commerce and as a non-governmental Advisor to the International Competition Network. His work has appeared in a variety of journals: Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Law and Economics, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Michigan Law Review and Northwestern Law Review, among others.

Mitchell Davidson is Vice President, Policy, at Enterprise Canada. Before that, he was the Chief of Staff at iGaming Ontario, the provincial organization created to conduct and manage the province’s newly legalized online gaming market. Mitchell previously served as Executive Director of the StrategyCorp Institute of Public Policy and Economy, a venture designed to contribute to thought leadership on important public policy issues in Ontario and Canada. Prior to that, Mitchell served in Ontario politics for nearly six years, authoring both recent Ontario PC Party Platforms and culminating as Executive Director of Policy to the Premier of Ontario. Mitchell also serves as a lecturer at the University of Waterloo’s master of public service program, a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, and an Expert Adviser to Toronto Metropolitan University’s Leadership Lab. Mitchell hails from Oro-Medonte, Ontario, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master of Arts in political science from the University of Western Ontario.

As Executive Director of Future Borders Coalition, Laura works with a binational coalition of travel and trade industry leaders to provide consensus-based recommendations and evidence-based conclusions to regulators and policymakers. Prior to FBC, Laura ran the North America office of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Institute to facilitate public sector digital transformation. Other major posts include director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., founder of Dawson Strategic, and Senior Economic Advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Canada. Laura serves on the teaching faculty at the master of public policy program at McGill University in Montreal and is board member of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. In addition, Laura co-chaired the selection committee for the Government of Canada’s 2021 New Frontiers in Research Fund and was named 2020 Person of Distinction by the Public Affairs Association of Canada. Laura holds a PhD in Political Science from Carleton University.

Dr. Jamie Ferrill is a Senior Lecturer in Financial Crime Studies at Charles Sturt University. She has nearly a decade of law enforcement experience, having worked for Canada Border Services Agency prior to commencing an academic career. Jamie holds a PhD in Organizational Behaviour from Loughborough University, a master’s degree in Homeland Security Leadership from the University of Connecticut, and a bachelor’s in criminal justice from Mount Royal University. A political sociologist, Jamie researches threats to national and economic security. Her work focuses on the role of human actors and ideology in organisational processes, as well as in transnational cooperation and collaboration.

A seasoned cannabis industry professional, Omar came to High Tide from one of the world’s leading global communications companies, where he served as National Cannabis Sector Lead. During his tenure, Omar worked with several licensed cannabis producers, retailers and companies involved in the cannabis ancillary space to affect public policy changes and build corporate profile. He has almost 20 years of experience working as a political and communications strategist in Canadian federal and provincial politics, including serving as Chief of Staff to several Ontario Ministers, including, the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade and the Minister of Government Services. With a diverse policy background across healthcare, economics, regulatory affairs, and labour relations, Omar has a proven track record developing complex policy proposals, building stakeholder coalitions, and leading and executing communications plans.

Maureen Maloney joined the Simon Fraser University School of Public Policy as a professor in 2010. Professor Maloney was previously the Chair in Law and Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Dispute Resolution at the University of Victoria. She returned to the University of Victoria following a term as Deputy Minister to the Attorney General (1993–2000) and Deputy Attorney General (1997–2000) of the Province of British Columbia. Professor Maloney is and has been actively involved in international governance, dispute resolution and human rights projects in South-East Asia, Iraq, China, Brazil, Guatemala, and South Africa. She is a board member of the International Commission of Jurists (Canadian Section) and a member of the Education and Training Committee of the Foundation for International Commercial Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution (The Hague). She is a recent board member of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation and of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy. She has also served as a member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal based in Ottawa.

Matt Torigian is the Deputy Minister of the Government of Alberta. He is an international leader in policing and security with a 35-year career involving all aspects of community safety, having served as Ontario’s Deputy Solicitor General and as Chief of Police for the Waterloo Regional Police Service. As a Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Matt leads a global policing initiative, providing advice and assistance to government officials in the United States, South, Central, and Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean on a range of challenging issues in criminal justice. Additionally, as the former Chief Strategy Officer for Niche Technology, Matt reported directly to the CEO on the future needs for police leaders worldwide. Matt is a published author and holds a master of public administration from Western University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, the FBI National Executive Institute, and was invested as an Officer of the Order of Merit of Police Forces in 2012.