Welcome to the June edition of our Profound Connections newsletter.
In this month’s Impact story, we feature Deborah MacLatchy, president of Wilfrid Laurier University, an academic leader committed to inspiring women in STEM and promoting diversity and inclusion. The full story can be read here.
We are excited to announce that nominations are now open for the Profound Impact™ Impactful Actions Award. This annual awards program honours individuals who are making a profound impact using collaborative approaches to solve difficult problems. We look forward to the nominations and welcome all to participate. Please feel free to nominate someone or even nominate yourself!
Our progress continues at Profound Impact and we look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months.
Thank you for your ongoing support and engagement,
President and Vice-Chancellor, Wilfrid Laurier University
An academic leader committed to inspiring women in STEM and promoting diversity and inclusion, Dr. Deborah MacLatchy has been at the helm of Wilfrid Laurier University (Laurier) since 2017.
MacLatchy made the journey to Waterloo Region in 2007 after spending the early years of her academic career at the University of Winnipeg and University of New Brunswick. MacLatchy, who grew up in Nova Scotia, is no stranger to Southwestern Ontario. Her father is from Preston, now part of Cambridge, and she did her postdoctoral research at the University of Guelph. “It’s motivating to have returned to my dad’s roots,” MacLatchy said.
She was first hired at Laurier as Dean of the Faculty of Science. In 2009, MacLatchy was appointed to the role of Vice President, Academic and Provost. She also served as Acting Vice President of Research from December 2014 to November 2015. “I’ve just fallen in love with Laurier and being a part of what happens in Southwestern Ontario,” MacLatchy said. “We’ve seen changes in cities rethinking themselves, going from an industrial age to being leaders in a new tech economy.”
MacLatchy has a research lab at Laurier, where she studies the effects of industrial contaminants on fish health. “I look at how fish reproduce and how they grow,” she said. Her research examines how fish are affected by operations like sewage treatment plants or pulp and paper mills, along with working with industries and municipalities on water quality to find solutions for any concerns at the source.
As a female leader of a major post-secondary institution, MacLatchy says it’s important for women to have role models. “They can see themselves being able to see those opportunities are real and if they have an interest or a passion for particular areas, that there will be opportunities for them,” she said. MacLatchy said there were very few female role models when she started university back in the 1980s. “There weren’t many women university professors in the sciences, maybe one per department,” she said. “For women of that era, we made our own role models.”
MacLatchy says women, and white women in particular, have greatly benefited over the past few decades. Now, she says she wants to see more diversity across all disciplines. That’s one goal of Laurier’s strategic plan for the future, focusing on thriving communities and future readiness. “What do the scientists of the future need to have, or the business people or the social workers of the future, the educators of the future?” MacLatchy said. “There’s an understanding that it’s not just what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it.”
As women break into STEM, MacLatchy encourages them to find their passions and connect with others in their chosen field. “I hope that you find the support that you need,” she said. “But, if you aren’t finding the support, know that you’re probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time and that there are other supports out there, there are other people who are able to support you. Maybe reach out a little bit wider than the circle that you’re in.”
MacLatchy hopes to inspire the next generation of women in STEM, leaving behind a legacy of increased diversity and inclusion across all academics.
You can view some of MacLatchy’s accomplishments in the images below.
Do you have an impact story to share? Let us know at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter!
Welcome to May’s edition of our Profound Connections newsletter. Over the last month, our team at Profound Impact™ has been busy with the release of our first Social Impact Report, participating in our yearly Earth Day activities, and championing important discussions about supporting women in STEM careers.
The release of our first annual Social Impact Report was an exciting feat for Profound Impact. As a startup, it can be a challenge to navigate commitment to corporate social responsibility while also acknowledging the financial constraints that come with being a smaller company. It was our goal to evade this limitation and find ways of making a social impact without having to invest immense amounts of money. Many of our activities required no cost whatsoever! The full report detailing the ways in which our team members contributed to social, economic and environmental causes throughout 2021 can be found below.
April 22, 2022 was Earth Day — and each member of the Profound Impact team used this as an opportunity to spend at least 30 minutes doing something to benefit the environment. From planting pollinator gardens to picking up litter at a local park, the highlights of our team’s pursuits are shared in this month’s newsletter.
Finally, I was honoured to be interviewed by the Accelerator Centre’s CEO Jay Krishnan on the inaugural Waterloo Grit podcast, where innovators are called upon to answer the question, “What does the global future of entrepreneurship look like?” Continue reading to learn more and listen to our conversation!
Stay connected with us on social media and through our upcoming Profound Connections newsletters for more information on upcoming events!
Thank you for your ongoing support and engagement,
Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo
May 14, 1917 – May 2, 2002
A world-renowned codebreaker and mathematician, William “Bill” Tutte left an indelible mark on Waterloo’s mathematical community. Twenty years after his death, he still has a profound impact on students studying combinatorics at the University of Waterloo.
Born in 1917 in Newmarket, England, Tutte came from a modest background but would go on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was an active member of the Trinity Mathematical Society. “For him to make that rise is the stuff of storybooks,” said Dan Younger, Retired Professor Emeritus, Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo, who was a Faculty colleague of Tutte.
Before Tutte made his way to Canada and helped shape the University of Waterloo into the institution it is today, he accepted an invitation to join a team of codebreakers working to decipher German codes in the Second World War. At Bletchley Park in 1941, Tutte was tasked with using samples of messages to uncover the structure of the machine generating German ciphers named “Fish”. Tutte successfully determined that structure without ever seeing the machine. Tutte then focused on developing an algorithm to decipher Fish codes, an algorithm that necessitated the creation of COLOSSUS, the world’s first programmable, electronic, digital computer, which was built in 1943. COLOSSUS played an essential role in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Tutte’s codebreaking work was used to decipher Fish codes until the end of the war. It is believed that breaking those codes meant the war ended two years earlier, saving countless lives.
Tutte moved to Canada in 1948 and spent 14 years at the University of Toronto. He joined the University of Waterloo in 1962, just five years after the institution first opened its doors. He was part of a group who went on to found the Faculty of Mathematics in 1967 and was a founding member of the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization.
Tutte played an integral role in building the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics. He helped establish the reputation of the school and attracted combinatorialists from around the world.
“He came when it wasn’t a fully developed university and it became a primary place for scholars in mathematics to come,” Younger said.
Throughout his time at the University of Waterloo, Tutte stayed quiet on his role as a codebreaker during World War II, as he was bound under the Official Secrets Act of Britain. Younger, who first met Tutte at a conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1963, said Tutte didn’t share much of his experience at Bletchley Park.
“He never did talk about what he did in the war,” Younger said.
Younger joined the Faculty of Mathematics in its inaugural year and was promoted to Professor in 1975. He became good friends with Tutte outside of work, often on weekends hiking on trails in and around Waterloo Region. “It was just a nice relationship in which we really didn’t have to talk unless we had something to say,” Younger said.
Tutte retired in 1985, but stayed on with the Faculty as Professor Emeritus. He acted as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Combinatorial Theory until he retired. Tutte died on May 2, 2002 at the age of 84.
The University of Waterloo awards the William Tutte Centenary Undergraduate Scholarship every year, the highest scholarship given to a student interested in combinatorics. The scholarship, which is worth $1,500, is funded by donations from people inspired by Tutte’s work. The scholarship isn’t just a financial gift, though. It also comes with an homage to Tutte’s childhood in England.
“If one gets the scholarship, one gets a bicycle,” Younger said. The bicycle represents Tutte’s journey as a youngster to a high school in the town of Cambridge. He bicycled 18 miles to and from school every day starting at the age of 11.
William Tutte Way was named in Tutte’s honour at the University of Waterloo in 2017. The road connects the three Faculty of Mathematics buildings at the university.
Tutte was one of the foremost scholars in combinatorics. In addition to numerous awards throughout his career and into his retirement, Tutte was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2001. The Canadian government founded the Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing (TIMC) in 2009.
“He certainly was the man,” Younger said.
Tutte’s academic legacy includes many students, including prominent scholars Dr. Ron Mullin, Dr. Scott Vanstone and Dr. Alfred Menezes.
Four generations of Mathematicians/Cryptographers. From left to right: Ron Mullin, Bill Tutte, Scott Vanstone, Alfred Menezes.
You can view some of Tutte’s accomplishments in the images below:
Profound Impact™ academic ancestry graph for Bill Tutte.
William “Bill” Tutte had a long, impactful career as a professor, codebreaker and mathematician. A Profound Impact™ career trajectory visualization details some of his most significant accomplishments.
Do you have an impact story to share? Reach out to us at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to have your story featured in an upcoming newsletter!
With the arrival of Spring, Profound Impact enters into the second half of our fiscal year with plenty of highlights to share from a productive March and a view into what’s planned for April.
This month, in celebration of Earth Day on April 22, 2022 — our team will once again take on the responsibility of spending at least one hour doing something to benefit the environment. We invite our Profound Impact network to follow suit and participate in making a difference by doing something to help the environment — such as going for a walk, clearing the trash in your community, or even planting a tree. Whatever you choose to do this Earth Day, our collective impacts will make a real difference.
Speaking of making a difference, Profound Impact is proud to release our first Social Impact Report! We set a goal for our organization to be an early adopter of social impact programs and you can read all about our first year of activities here.
Last month, Profound Impact powered the second annual International Women’s Day celebration events in collaboration with WCT Waterloo Region, which attracted over 450 participants from our community and around the world — all coming together to #BreakTheBias. We had a productive time celebrating the successes of women entrepreneurs, professionals, and community leaders from the Waterloo Region and beyond. A big thank you to our inspiring panelists for sharing their stories and advice — and of course, our valued sponsors and partners for their support in making this event possible. If you missed the event or want to re-watch the insightful panel discussions, you can access them on our Women Empowering Women Digital Community platform here.
As we head into the warmer months, Profound Impact is looking forward to continued collaboration as we strive to create a community that empowers positive change. Stay connected with us on social media and through our upcoming Profound Connections newsletters for more information on upcoming events!
Thank you for your ongoing support and engagement,
Distinguished Emeritus Professor, University of Waterloo
Co-founder, Certicom
A humble, dedicated professor and mathematician who is modest about his successes, Dr. Ron Mullin has made invaluable contributions to combinatorics, academia and cryptography. His career has spanned over 50 years with notable successes in both commercial and academic ventures. Along with Scott Vanstone and Gord Agnew, Ron Mullin co-founded Certicom, a leading cryptography company whose technology was licensed by the US National Security Agency (NSA), among many others, and later sold to Research In Motion (RIM), now known as BlackBerry. Mullin was also Professor and Chair of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo and boasts one of the largest lineages in the Mathematics Genealogy project, with 20 PhD students and 180 descendants.
“Teaching as a whole and getting good students and working with them, it’s a wonderful thing,” said Mullin.
Even as a student, Mullin’s impact was profound. He was the first ever University of Waterloo graduate to receive an MA in mathematics in 1960. A bright and promising young mathematician and cryptology student, Mullin was recruited by the University of Waterloo to lecture while he completed his graduate studies. His skills were so impressive that the University’s head of mathematics used Mullin as bait to lure world class mathematician, who later was acknowledged as the World War II codebreaker and cryptography expert, William Tutte to the university with the intention of building out the department and recruiting top-tier talent.
“It was quite an honour,” Mullin reflected, when asked about his role in attracting Tutte to the university.
After completing his PhD under Tutte, Mullin went on to pursue a career as a professor at the University of Waterloo until 1996, rising the ranks from lecturer to distinguished professor emeritus and adjunct professor. Described by two of his former students as brilliant, encouraging and easy going, Mullin always left a lasting impression on those he taught, as well as his colleagues.
“Ron taught my first computer science class,” said Alfred Menezes, one of Mullin’s academic grandchildren and professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo. “To him, the little details didn’t matter. He thinks about the big stuff – the important stuff…he realized the value of ideas.”
One of those ideas became the foundation for Mullin’s commercial venture – Certicom, a leading supplier of wireless security solutions. Mullin was heavily involved in the company’s patent program. Certicom’s signature product was Elliptic Curve Cryptography, which speeds up the encryption process, utilizing shorter encryption keys without loss of security. This technology played a crucial role in the advancement of smartphone and other mobile devices and accelerated the growth of a number of companies including RIM.
“One good thing about it – it’s fast and secure for certain kinds of encryption processes. And these turned out to be the ones that are very helpful in smartphones,” said Hugh Williams, retired computer science professor and Mullin’s academic son. “So in a sense, Scott, Gord and Ron realized this was a coming thing and they were quite skillful in introducing this company.”
After retiring from the University of Waterloo as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and stepping away from his commercial ventures, Mullin went on to enjoy a second career at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He established a Cryptography Group at the university, a position he held until his “second retirement”, at the age of 75. Mullin also became the first recipient of the Stanton Medal, which is awarded by the Institute for Combinatorics and its Applications to honour significant lifetime contributions promoting the discipline of combinatorics through advocacy, outreach, service, teaching and/or mentoring. In addition, Mullin was awarded a doctor rerum naturalium honoris causa (Honorary Doctorate Degree) from the University of Rostock in Germany.
While Mullin’s professional accomplishments are impressive, his legacy cannot be fully understood without including his mathematics genealogy. A number of graduate students that studied under Mullin became very prominent in cryptography and computer science including: Hugh Williams, who was instrumental in establishing one of Canada’s leading research centres in cryptography and information security; Scott Vanstone, world-renowned cryptography and co-founder of Certicom; Douglas Wiedemann, who designed an algorithm for linear systems of equations before joining the NSA; Bimal Roy, head of R C Bose Centre for Cryptology and Security in India; and Evi Nemeth, engineer, author and teacher who played a prominent role in the development of the Unix computer operating system.
“He has had many students and ultimately, for an academic, that’s your impact – your students. What they end up doing and how they add to what it was that you did,” said Williams.
You can view some of Dr. Mullins’ accomplishments in the images below:
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Do you have an impact story to share? Reach out to us at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to have your story featured in an upcoming newsletter!
Happy Women’s History Month! March is a time to celebrate the countless women who have made significant contributions to our society. This year, we’re honouring women in a month-long celebration who #BreakTheBias and have a Profound Impact™ on communities globally. From scientists and entrepreneurs to artists and activists, women have broken barriers to inspire the next generation of leaders and prove that the possibilities are limitless.
The first event of this month-long celebration was held on March 1, 2022, in collaboration with the Women in Communications and Technology Waterloo Region (WCT-WR) and 15 other organizations from across the Waterloo Region including Perimeter Institute, Vidyard and OpenText. This event was hosted on WCT-WR’s Women Empowering Women’s Digital Community powered by Profound Impact. Highlighting this year’s theme – #BreakTheBias, the opening event featured several esteemed speakers: Bardish Chagger, MP Waterloo, Jean Becker, Associate Vice-President, Indigenous Relations, University of Waterloo; Deborah MacLatchy, President, Wilfrid Laurier University; Madhu Ranganathan, EVP, CFO, OpenText and Kate Paul, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Manager, Bruce Power on how they have overcome bias in their respective industries.
Don’t worry if you missed the March 1st event (watch the recording here!); the second will be on March 8th, International Women’s Day, beginning at 12:00 PM EST (register here). Last year’s successful online event drew nearly 400 participants from all across Waterloo Region and demonstrated how virtual gatherings can be a powerful tool for learning and connecting people.
We will conclude the month-long celebration with an event on March 22nd, beginning at 12:00 PM EST (register here) with a conversation about a topic that is extremely important to me – Angel Investing and Early Stage Funding for Women Owned/Founded Businesses . To discover more about these upcoming events, discussion subjects, and panelists, I encourage you to visit the Women Empowering Women platform for the most recent information. To further participate in the discussion and share your impact, register on the platform here.
Our March Impact Story highlights a woman who is breaking barriers for women in the world of crypto, Web3 and NFTs — Janelle Hraiki Chalouhi, Co-Founder of Venuseverse. Please continue to read the rest of our Profound Connections newsletter to learn more about the first Canadian female-founded, female-focused educational program, incubator and NFT collection as well as how Janelle is using this opportunity to help women increase their digital financial literacy.
An entrepreneur and innovator on a mission to promote gender equity and digital literacy, Janelle Chalouhi is committed to empowering women to advance in the next-generation wealth economy. Chalouhi is the CEO and co-founder of Venusverse, Canada’s first female-founded, female-focused educational program, incubator and NFT collection, with the goal of closing the gender gap and removing barriers to entry for women in the Web3 domain. Through educational and networking sessions, a Web3b incubator platform, and their own collection of NFTs, Chalouhi believes that Venusverse will provide women with valuable insights and opportunities to participate in the emerging digital economy with confidence.
“Only five per cent of women in Canada are in the crypto and NFT space…that’s a big Canadian problem,” said Chalouhi, who co-founded Venusverse with Natalie Dumond. “The whole digital economy is being created with very few women engaging in it. This is a fundamental equality issue that has to be solved.”
Prior to launching Venusverse in early 2022, Chalouhi worked in fundraising and business development for archdioceses, universities, hospitals and non-profit organizations. She was the Director of Community Counseling Service (CCS) Fundraising, working with the archdiocese of Washington and Boston on fundraising campaigns. She also worked in senior management positions at Hofstra University, the Westchester Medical Center, Saint George Hospital University Medical Center, University of Balamand and the University of Waterloo. In these roles, Chalouhi was responsible for fostering strong relationships and partnerships that contributed to infrastructure upgrades, new programming, and other operational improvements.
Chalouhi also served as the Vice President of Business Development at Communitech, a Waterloo-based innovation center helping companies start, grow, and succeed. In her role with Communitech, Chalouhi helped co-create and lead Canada’s first ever $1-million Leaders Prize, a competition that explored the use of artificial intelligence to identify “fake news” and limit the spread of misinformation across the globe. She has also been a big advocate for shining a light on the people and technologies that are making the world a better place, which aligns with Communitech “Tech for Good” mandate that Chalouhi contributed to as a part of her role with the True North Conference.
“It’s about helping companies figure out how they can make a difference and align to something meaningful to them in the process,” said Chalouhi. “I think every single company should build in an ESG (environmental social governance) component into the work that they are doing. At its core, it’s giving back — and that’s the only way we’re going to be able to help make a broader dent and impact.”
The founders are leading by example by collaborating with Profound Impact™ Corporation and CivicAction Leadership Foundation, to build a community where women are empowered with the knowledge required to advance successfully in the next-generation wealth economy. Ten per cent of revenue from the Venusverse NFT collection will be donated to CivicAction in support of women in the organization’s leadership programs including the DiverseCity fellows and the Emerging Leaders Network.
“I really hope we get to a point where this (gender) gap is closed significantly,” said Chalouhi, referring to the NFT and cryptocurrency space. “Building the confidence of women is really what we want to see happen. Ideally, we want women to be more aware of the digital world that’s being created in Web3. We also want them to be more confident and independent with their finances, making their own money and feeling good with not having to hustle day in and day out — running from dropping off the kids to their job, back and forth. Ultimately, we want more women to be in a place of peace.”
Chalouhi’s approach to cultivating an environment that embraces women’s involvement in the digital economy ties directly into this year’s International Women’s Day theme, #BreakTheBias. This theme celebrates the potential for a gender equal world, free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination that can hold women back in their personal and professional lives — an experience that Chalouhi is all too familiar with in her life. “I’ve seen a lot in my life…I have experienced quite a bit throughout my life and career — everything you can think of, name it, but at the end of the day, those experiences have helped shape me and have brought me to where I am right now, helped me grow as a person and allowed me to have very different perspectives than many others,” she said. “Of course I’ve experiences discrimination anywhere I have lived in the world, however, due to my vast experiences and perspectives, the discrimination has never gotten in my way and for that I’m grateful”.
Chalouhi will be joining the Profound Impact team as an advisor in partnership engagement. You can view some of Chalouhi’s accomplishments in the images below:
Do you have an impact story to share? Reach out to us at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to have your story featured in an upcoming newsletter!
Welcome to our February edition of Profound Connections!
Our team at Profound Impact™ has been busy working on our upcoming webinar in partnership with Wilfrid Laurier University. I’m pleased to let you know that on Tuesday, February 22, 2022, at 12:00 pm EST, we will be hosting our first Profound Insights webinar of 2022: ‘How to Effectively Communicate and Match Research Funding Opportunities’.
Towards the end of 2021, our team partnered with Wilfrid Laurier University and their research department to better understand how Research Service Offices (RSO) across Canada communicate grant opportunities, partnerships and research policies. Searching for insight into how research across Canada is conducted effectively, we surveyed 23+ universities and research institutions and received 40 responses from across the country!
Our upcoming webinar will be able to provide insights into how RSOs can more effectively communicate and match research funding opportunities. Moderated by our very own Sherryl Petricevic, Account Executive, we will be discussing the findings of our Research Matching Survey and highlighting key takeaways from the report with our panellists Dr. Jonathan Newman, Vice President of Research, Wilfrid Laurier University, Shawna Reibling, Knowledge Mobilization Officer, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Rob Darling, Strategic Advisor, Profound Impact.
Know someone who might be interested? Please invite them to attend and RSVP through our registration page here. Webinar attendees will be provided with a free copy of the final Research Matching Survey report.
Thank you for your ongoing support, and I look forward to seeing you all on February 22nd for our first Profound Insights webinar of the year. Additionally, our team, in partnership with WCT Waterloo Region, looks forward to hosting you for a series of virtual events held exclusively on our Profound Impact platform throughout the month of March to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022: #BreakTheBias and the women in our Waterloo Region community. For more information, read on and check out the IWD 2022 WR webpage hosted on WCT WR’s Women Empowering Women Digital Community to stay up to date with all of the latest information about panelists, conversation topics and entertainment.
A dedicated team builder with a passion for data and analytics, Cindy Forbes has cemented her legacy as an innovator and strategic thinker, challenging the status quo to facilitate growth in all facets of her professional life. Before retiring last year, Forbes was the first female Chief Actuary at Manulife Financial, tasked with leading a global actuarial team responsible for ensuring the financial stability of the company. She was also the company’s first female Chief Financial Officer for Manulife Asia, leading the finance, risk management and actuarial functions across 11 countries.
“I always want to make a positive impact, meaning that I want to leave the department or the organization better than I found it,” she said.
From digitization to integration of data and analytics into Manulife’s operations, Forbes was an invaluable asset to the modernization of Canada’s largest insurance company. She initiated a project to move the company’s valuation into the cloud – a first among insurance companies in Canada. The same project rewrote Manulife’s liability valuation systems to reduce the amount of manual work required by actuaries, significantly improving quality control over the valuation of the companies liabilities, which at the time were close to $300-billion. Forbes also built the company’s global artificial intelligence and advanced analytics function from the ground up. Within four years, that “function” has become a global organization of over 200 people responsible for building and embedding advanced analytics models into the business, delivering insights and driving financial impact.
Forbes’ motivation for her work stems from a number of factors, including her desire for continuous improvement, as well as her commitment to mentorship for young professionals.
“I like to help young professionals achieve their potential, be a positive role model, coach them, remove obstacles, show them how to get things done,” she said. “Largely it’s about creating a high performance team – a team that pulls together, that’s based on trust, and can make the very difficult look quite easy.”
Many of the talented team members she has hired have been students from the University of Waterloo, where Forbes obtained her Math degree, specializing in actuarial science. Forbes was in the co-op program, which allows students to gain paid work experience, completing six work terms during her five years at Waterloo. She credits the program for providing the necessary professional experience to help her find a job in the field post-graduation and to make more intelligent, informed career decisions.
“It really sets you up for success in terms of learning about the workplace and putting into focus what you were learning at school,” she said.
Forbes remains a fervent supporter of the University of Waterloo, having served as Chair of the Board since May 2017. In her role as board chair, Forbes successfully led the recruitment of a new President for the University, engaging a large group of external governors, faculty, staff and students. She is currently leading a review of the university’s governance framework, identifying opportunities for the board to be more effective and have greater impact and oversight of the university’s strategic planning.
In addition to her role as board chair at the University of Waterloo, Forbes also serves on the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board. She additionally held the role of Special Advisor to the Premier of Ontario from February to January 2022, providing advice and guidance on creating more digital, responsive and flexible public services. This includes the digitization of court proceedings and enabling on-line renewal of drivers licenses and health cards.
A natural innovator and life-long learner, Forbes remains highly attuned to global, economic and technological trends that will impact businesses and corporations worldwide. The pandemic accelerated trends that were already in place in terms of digitization, use of data to customize experiences and growing concerns about the implications of the same. Her prediction is that the acceleration of these trends will continue against a backdrop of growing geo-political tensions.
“It is going to be interesting to see how this all plays out and how global corporations navigate the changes ahead,” she said.
You can view some of Forbes’ accomplishments in the images below:
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Do you have an impact story to share? Reach out to us at connections@profoundimpact.com for a chance to have your story featured in an upcoming newsletter!
