Dr. Barry Colbert (Chair)

Director of Cooperators Centre for Business & Sustainability, Wilfrid Laurier University

Dr. Colbert leads Wilfrid Laurier University’s P&G Centre for Business & Sustainability, which serves as a catalyst to bring together faculty researchers, students, and leaders in industry and civil society in order to build capacity for more progressive, socially engaged organizational leadership.

Dr. Colbert is also an Assistant Professor of Policy & Strategic Management in the School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University, where his research is centred on the ways and means by which organizations align a vision for sustainability, corporate and business strategy, and the strategic development of human capital. His writing has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Human Resource Planning, and the Journal of General Management, along with several recent book chapters, including ‘The Business Case for CSR’ in the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Nathan Henderson (Secretary)

Corporate & Commercial Lawyer, Sorbara Schumacher McCann LLP

Nathan Henderson is an associate in Sorbara’s Corporate & Commercial and Finance & Lending Groups. Nathan maintains a diverse law practice in institutional and private financing, commercial and residential real estate, condominium development, and other corporate and commercial transactions. His practice also includes advising corporations, charities and foundations on corporate and commercial matters, including advice on regulatory compliance and privacy concerns.

Nathan completed his Bachelor of Environmental Studies in International Development at the University of Waterloo and obtained his law degree from the University of Ottawa. Prior to law school, Nathan worked at an NGO in Madrid, Spain, contributing to campaigns for transparency and access to information in the EU. During his studies, Nathan worked at a global law firm focusing on trademarks and intellectual property, was the executive of multiple student groups, and co-founded the Creative Law Collective, a group interested in the issues of law that face creators and in advocacy for creative industries.

Margaret Nanninga (Treasurer)

Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer, Enova Power Corp.

Ms. Nanninga is a CPA (Certified Professional Accountant) with over 25 years of experience in the electricity distribution industry, joining the former Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro in June 1996. Ms. Nanninga holds a Master’s Certificate in Energy Sector Leadership from the Schulich School of Business at York University, a Bachelor of Accounting Science degree from the University of Calgary and an MBA from Laurentian University.

Susan Jantzi

Director, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability at Sun Life Financial

Working with Sun Life’s International Sustainability Council, she is responsible for identifying, and developing strategies to address, social and environmental risks and opportunities that intersect with the company’s business operations. She is also responsible for the Company’s external sustainability reporting, including to the Carbon Disclosure Project and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Climate Risk Disclosure Survey, as well as advocating with a wide variety of stakeholders regarding the company’s sustainability practices.

Ms Jantzi joined the Company in 1998 and since that time has held a variety of Public and Corporate Affairs positions, leading to her current role. She is based at Sun Life’s Canadian Headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario.

Paul Rak

Industrial Properties Owner and Energy Manager, Crayfish Holdings Inc.

Paul Rak is a carbon champion with 116 sustainability projects and initiatives he developed and lead at his company VeriForm Inc in Cambridge, Ontario, making it Canada’s first carbon neutral metal fabrication business and the 4th Canadian firm to become ISO 50001 certified.

Paul started VeriForm Inc in 1997 but in 2006 took his business into a sustainability direction, winning the 2008 Cambridge Chamber of Commerce Sustainability Award.  By 2010 he also became a Certified Energy Manager, helping implement 6 megawatts of energy efficiency projects at Ontario small businesses.   Since then, Paul has given over 100 keynote speeches and lectures across the USA and Canada to diverse groups including accountant associations, universities and Chambers of Commerce, helping businesses cut their GHG emissions while becoming financially stronger.

Paul graduated from University of Western Ontario with a B.Sc and he has held board and committee positions businesses that help build a better world, including a solar financing firm, a nonprofit music school where he helped bring in nearly $800,000 in funding, and as an energy manager at the Guelph Youth Music Center.   Paul resides in Kitchener with his wife and daughter, and he just turned 60 years old in 2024.  He views the next 30 years of his life as his 3rd act and aims to do even more good in the world alongside the team at Sustainable Waterloo.

Dr. Sarah Burch

Canada Research Chair, Sustainability Governance and Innovation

Dr. Sarah Burch holds a Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation, and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada. She is an expert in transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, innovative strategies for making progress on sustainability, and the unique contributions that small businesses can make to this solving this complex challenge. She leads the international partnership-based research project TRANSFORM: Accelerating sustainability entrepreneurship experiments in local spaces, and is the Director of the Sustainability Policy Research on Urban Transformations (SPROUT) Lab.

Dr. Burch holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. She is currently a Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007). She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars in 2017 and was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40TM in 2018. Her most recent book is entitled ‘Understanding Climate Change: Science, Policy and Practice,’ and she has taught the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on climate change, which reached thousands of students in over 130 countries.

Phong Truong

Associate Portfolio Manager at TD Wealth, Private Investment Counsel

Phong’s practice focuses on providing portfolio management, and financial planning for his clients. Having worked in the banking sector for 10 years, Phong and his team are well-versed in lending, tax planning as well as estate and trust planning. Phong graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University with an Honours Bachelor’s in Psychology and has also earned his Master of Business Administration (Rotman School of Business) from the University of Toronto. In addition, Phong has also earned the Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) designation.