Sheila Ritson-Bennett

Head of Environment & Sustainability
Corus Entertainment

Sheila Ritson-Bennett joined Corus Entertainment as its first Head of Environment and Sustainability. Sheila works closely with groups and leaders across Corus to advance its ESG program, and provides legal and industry expertise on a variety of related ESG-related matters and policies.

Sheila is a collaborative leader and industry-recognized expert in the ESG space.  Most recently, she worked within the Canadian banking sector as sustainability and climate counsel and helped build out an environmental and climate-related risk framework and measurement programs.  She has also worked as legal counsel in regulatory, environmental, trade and Indigenous legal matters with the Government of Ontario and holds an LL.B from the University of Ottawa and an LL.M in Global Environment and Climate Change Law from the University of Edinburgh.

Jennifer Addison

Senior Vice-President, Sustainability, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
EPCOR

Jennifer Addison is SVP Sustainability, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at EPCOR Utilities Inc., based in Edmonton, Alberta. Jennifer oversees the delivery of legal services for EPCOR, as well as compliance, ethics and privacy; public and government affairs; EPCOR’s sustainability strategy; and supply chain management. As Corporate Secretary, Jennifer works closely with EPCOR’s Board of Directors. She is Vice Chair of the board of Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre, and serves on the board of Women General Counsel Canada and the Queen’s Law Alberta Advisory Council. Prior to joining EPCOR, Jennifer held progressively more senior roles in a global engineering and design firm helping to grow the business by acquisition.

Janet Bobechko

ESG, Climate Change, Sustainability, Certified Specialist Environmental Law, Partner
WeirFoulds LLP

Janet Bobechko is a Certified Specialist in Environmental Law and a nationally recognized senior practitioner with extensive experience in all aspects of environmental law, climate change and sustainability.

Janet’s environmental law practice is focused on climate change and sustainability, Environment Social Governance (ESG), real estate and brownfield development and environmental dispute resolution.

She routinely provides sophisticated and strategic advice on environmental compliance, mergers & acquisitions, real estate and portfolio acquisitions and dispositions, leasing, financings, and environmental management systems. She has significant experience in construction contracts and lien matters as they relate to contamination, remediation and excess soils. Her dispute resolution work includes, providing advice on environmental aspects in complex civil litigation for legacy contamination, migration of contamination, environmental regulatory inspections, defence of charges, orders, and strategic due diligence advice.

Janet supports her clients with advice on environmental approvals (all media), chemical management and importation of new substances into Canada, transportation of dangerous goods, hazardous products, pesticides, stewardship, producer responsibility and the circular economy. She advises on risk management, emergency planning and spill response, storage tanks, Federal E2 Regulations and strategic communication. She is routinely consulted on issues related to sewage works, waste/process water management and treatment, source water protection and sustainable water supply.

Janet advises on climate change issues including climate risk, climate resilient infrastructure and the impacts to supply chains. She provides support to clients as they look to diversify their businesses with investments into new, low carbon asset classes and technologies.

She advises boards of directors regarding environmental compliance, corporate reporting strategies and risk mitigation and environmental insurance, and advises clients on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) matters. Janet sits on the external advisory committee for Ryerson’s Corporate Social Responsibility Institute and co-chair’s the Ontario Environment Industry Association (ONEIA) Climate Change Committee. Janet is also on the Province of Ontario’s Excess Soils Engagement Group. She is a sough after speaker at industry events.

Janet received a career achievement award from the Canadian Brownfields Network as a person who has had a profound impact on the brownfield industry in Canada.

Bindu Dhaliwal

Vice President Environmental, Social & Governance
CIBC

Bindu Dhaliwal, is the Vice-President, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), at CIBC. She leads the Enterprise ESG team, responsible for: CIBC’s ESG strategy &  governance,  identifying and evaluating emerging ESG issues; and, ESG engagement activities with CIBC’s stakeholders.

Bindu joined CIBC in the Spring of 2021, bringing over 15 years of experience to this role, having previously – led a sustainability team at another FI ; managed a global whistleblower program and acted as an Advisor to academic programs on sustainability and social finance. She is a frequent speaker on sustainability trends in the financial services sector and diversity & equity issues in the legal profession.

Bindu has also been a longstanding community leader and advocate for diversity and equity issues. She has served on the board of a number of not-for-profit organizations including: Street Kids International, Girls Action Foundation and the Students Commission, and has co-authored educational tools on equity issues. For these and other efforts Bindu has received the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.

She currently sits on the Board of the Child Development Institute, a children’s mental health agency in Toronto, and Community Knowledge Exchange (CKX), a social change agency that supports community leadership through learning experiences, fellowships and platforms for knowledge exchange.

A lawyer by training, Bindu began her career in the litigation department of a major Canadian law firm and clerked at the Ontario Court of Appeal. She has a B.Comm from the University of Toronto, obtained her law degree at Queens University, a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability from the University of Toronto and a Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation from the Waterloo University.

Rustam Juma

General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Privacy Officer
Eckler Ltd.

Rustam Juma is General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Privacy Officer of Eckler Ltd., Canada’s largest privately owned actuarial consulting firm with offices across Canada and the Caribbean. In this role, Rusty provides corporate strategy, governance, legal, and risk management advice to the Board and senior management. Rustam co-founded the National GC Network whose mission is to help General Counsel and in-house lawyers advance ED&I values in their organizations and the legal community. He is a Director of Newcomer Women’s Services Toronto and was recently on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association.

Yonni Fushman

Chief Legal Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer
Aecon Group Inc.

Yonni Fushman is Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer and Corporate Secretary. He holds executive responsibility for managing a broad portfolio for the Aecon group of companies, including legal, corporate secretarial, sustainability, ethics and compliance, insurance and bonding, privacy and strategic procurement. Prior to joining Aecon in 2005, Mr. Fushman practiced law in the United States. Mr. Fushman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, in Economics from the University of Southern California in 1997 and a Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Boston University School of Law in 2001. He completed the Duke University Continuing Studies Certificate in Sustainable Management, has received the Envision Sustainability Professional credential and is a Sustainability Accounting Standards Board FSA credential-holder. He is called to the bar in Ontario, California and Massachusetts.

Mr. Fushman is a Past Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Construction and Infrastructure Law section.

Winston Gee

ESG Counsel
TD Bank Group

As ESG Counsel at TD Bank Group, Winston Gee is a core member of the team advising the Bank on the design and execution of its ESG strategy. This includes matters such as ESG disclosures, corporate governance, stakeholder relations, and the management of environmental and social risk.

Winston was previously a litigator and regulatory lawyer at Torys LLP, where he represented a range of clients in both the public and private sectors, including governments, First Nations, and public companies.

Outside of his legal practice, Winston is the chair of the board of directors of Blueprint, a Toronto-based public policy consulting firm that works with all levels of government across Canada as well as the private sector.

Ijeoma Madueke

Executive Director, Sustainable Finance
CIBC Capital Markets

Ijeoma has a career spanning sustainability, project finance, corporate and investment banking. As Executive Director, Sustainable Finance at CIBC Capital Markets, her focus is on providing subject matter expertise and advising clients on strategies to overlay ESG into their capital structure.

Ijeoma joined CIBC in April 2022 from Sustainalytics where she was Regional Lead for the Americas Opinions team delivering second party opinions on green, social, sustainable and transition finance frameworks across use of proceeds and sustainability-linked instruments across a variety of sectors and geographies.

As an advocate for diversity and inclusion, she has authored various pieces on equity and is a mentor with the Black Business Ventures Association.

She holds an MSc. in International Business and Finance from the University of Dundee as well as a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance from Carleton University. She is also a CFA Charterholder.

Mayur Mukati

Associate Director
Sustainable Finance Sustainalytics

Over the last four years in the company, Mayur has supported global institutional investors with sustainable finance research, including technical assessments and methodology development, and leading projects on second-party opinions for green, social, sustainable (GSS), and transition finance. As part of the Sustainalytics Corporate Solutions (SCS) team, Mayur serves as a technical expert for discussions with leading financial institutions and corporate clients on ever-growing and complicated sustainable finance transactions and represents the team within industry working groups, such as the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), UN Global Compact (UNGC), Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), and Structured Finance Association (SFA), on novel financial structures and hard-to-abate sectoral criteria developments.

Prior to Sustainalytics, he worked in several industries, including chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing and clean energy research. Mayur holds Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering with an MSc in Sustainability Management. He was one of the Nominees for Canada’s 2021 Clean 50 Emerging Leader Awards and 2016 Top 10 Global Leaders in Sustainability by Amsterdam-based B-Corp (Nudge). He is also a LEED Green Associate from 2014 and has completed the CFA Level 1 exam in 2019.

Sunita Mahant

Head of Social Impact and Inclusion, Sustainable Investments
Ivanhoé Cambridge

In her role as Head of Global Initiatives, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Sunita Mahant acts as a catalyst for the development and execution of the corporate DEI strategy by positioning Ivanhoé Cambridge as a real estate industry leader in these three areas. In addition to this role, Sunita provides strategic value-oriented solutions for projects related to the Office and Industrial North America platform in her capacity as Senior Director, Legal Affairs. As lead counsel for CIBC SQUARE – new transformational office development downtown Toronto, she was instrumental in the negotiation of the CIBC lease-approx. 1.75M sf. – one of the largest office leases in Canadian history and winner of the 2018 Rex Award.

Sunita has over 15 years of experience in legal affairs and real estate. She joined Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2008 as Legal Counsel and rose through the ranks to become Senior Director, Legal Affairs, in 2016. Sunita holds a Bachelor of Political Science and a Bachelor of Laws and is a member of the Ontario Bar. She received her Mini-MBA from the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). She was named one of Canada’s Leading Lawyers under 40 by Lexpert Rising Stars.

Recognized for her leadership qualities and keen mind, Sunita is actively involved with several organizations dedicated to workplace diversity, equity and inclusion, serving as Co-President of the Ontario Promotion Committee of Women in Governance and a Director of the Commercial Real Estate Equity and Diversity Council (CREED). She was the initiator and ambassador of the first Women’s Forum at Ivanhoé Cambridge.

Sunita speaks four languages: Hindi, Punjabi, French and English.

Robert R. Rooney

QC, Executive Vice President & CLO
Enbridge Inc.

Bob was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer on February 1, 2017. Bob leads Enbridge’s legal, ethics and compliance, security and aviation teams across the organization.

Bob has over 30 years of energy sector experience. He has held roles of senior executive, advisor, founder, director, and chairman of public and private entities. Bob has significant experience in strategic planning and execution, capital allocation, leadership and management, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, domestic and cross border transactions, business functions and operations, enterprise risk management, corporate governance, and government and stakeholder relations. Before joining Enbridge, Bob was Managing Director of Rimrock Oil and Gas. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President, Corporate of Talisman Energy Inc., then served as Vice Chairman and director of Repsol Oil & Gas Canada Inc. In addition, Bob was a partner at Bennett Jones LLP where he was a member of the executive committee and co-leader of the Energy and Natural Resources Group.

Bob is currently a board member of RimRock Oil & Gas and Chair of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. He attended the University of Calgary, earned a LL.B. from the University of Western Ontario, is a member of the Law Society of Alberta and was awarded a Queen’s Counsel designation in 2012.

Jo-Anne Matear

Special Advisor to the Executive on Sustainable Finance and Emerging Regulatory Issues
Ontario Securities Commission

As a member of the Ontario Securities Commission’s Senior Management Team, Jo-Anne is the Special Advisor to the Executive on Sustainable Finance and Emerging Regulatory Issues. She has led several significant policy initiatives, including those focused on environmental, social and governance issues. For example, she co-leads the Canadian Securities Administrators’ (CSA) climate-related disclosures initiative and leads the CSA’s initiative regarding diversity on corporate boards and in executive roles.

Jo-Anne was previously a Manager in the Corporate Finance Branch, where she led a team of lawyers, accountants and geologists in the oversight of public companies, including the review of prospectuses, continuous disclosure documents and applications for exemptive relief.

Prior to joining the Commission, Jo-Anne practised corporate and securities law in Toronto, Ontario and London, England. Jo-Anne received her Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Queen’s University and her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Toronto.