Speakers

Tony Ruiz is the Foundeer of Beacon Flight, a Toronto firm that builds smart websites, advertising campaigns and automated AI-powered systems for small and mid-sized businesses.

Nancy, a lawyer by profession, was formerly the Manager, Appropriate Technology Enabled Development program for PIND, an NGO in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. She earned doctorate from Royal Roads University researching  sustainable sanitation in Niger Delta (Nigeria) riverine communities.

Nancy practised law for 8 years in Ontario and 2 years in New Brunswick before starting an advertising agency with her husband Paul. Subsequently she worked in marketing communications and brand strategy consulting until settling into her real passion – water, sanitation, and hygiene development. Having joined Rotary in 1994, Nancy served as District Governor of Rotary District 7810 in 2003-2004. She was the inaugural Rotary Coordinator for Zone 24 east in 2008. She also served as a member of the WASRAG board.

Nancy and her husband Paul live in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada), have a blended family of seven children and eleven delightful grandchildren.

Alan Middleton is an independent consultant, author and speaker in marketing and mentorship.  He is a member of Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends and is an advisor to the Mentor Exchange run by AMA Toronto.

Middleton, who earned his MBA at Schulich in 1977, came back to the school in 1991 to earn his PhD after a 25-year career, during which he worked as a marketing practitioner with Esso Petroleum, UOP Inc.; the executive vice-president of J. Walter Thompson (JWT) worldwide; and president/CEO of JWT Japan. Before becoming an assistant professor at Schulich in 1998, Middleton taught at Rutgers Graduate School of Business in the U.S. and at business schools in Argentina, China, Russia and Thailand.

In September 2001, he took over as executive director of the Schulich Executive Education Centre (SEEC), which trains more than 16,000 managers and executives domestically and internationally.  As an educator, Middleton taught in Schulich’s MBA and BBA programs, with a focus on international marketing, marketing communication and brand management until 2020.

Middleton is the author of several publications, including the books Advertising Works II and Ikonica – A Fieldguide to Canada’s Brandscape, and published papers for the ACA/ICA on marketing communications ROI, client-agency compensation strategies and client-agency relations.

He is a co-founder of the ‘CASSIES’ advertising awards, a member of the Academic Committee of Leger Marketing and was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends in the mentor category in 2005.

In 2015, Middleton received the International Association of Business Communicators Toronto Communicator of the Year Award. He is also the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award for services to literacy in 2012, the same year he received a gold medal from the Association of Canadian Advertisers.

John Fraser is a Canadian journalist, author, and academic.  He was elected the fourth master of Massey College at the University of Toronto in 1995, a post he held until retirement in June 2014.  He retains an office at Massey College and is the founding patron of its innovative Quadrangle Society as well as president of the newly-founded Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada. He continues his extensive journalism and book writing.

As a journalist, John Fraser has received multiple national and international awards. A former columnist at the Toronto Star and the National Post, his work has also been published in many leading international newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Maclean’s, The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, Paris Match, and New Republic. In his career, he twice became part of the story: first when he assisted the Russian ballet star, Mikhail Baryshnikov, to defect from the old Soviet Union to the West in 1974; and later as a correspondent in China when he addressed a crowd of over 20,000 people in Tienanmen Square during the short-lived 1978 Xidan Democracy Movement.

From 1972 to 1987, Mr. Fraser served at different times as the dance and theatre critic, China correspondent, Ottawa bureau chief, national columnist, national editor, and London correspondent at The Globe and Mail. From 1987 to 1994, he was the editor of Saturday Night magazine, where he pioneered the use of mixed circulation with inserted copies in the Globe and Mail and other newspapers across Canada.

Until mid-2008, John Fraser was the chair of the Canadian Journalism Foundation. He is the author of twelve works of non-fiction and fiction, as well as an editor of three anthologies. A recipient of four honorary degrees, he was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2001.

In 2015, John Fraser was appointed the founding President & CEO of the new National NewsMedia Council of Canada, formed from five former provincial press councils. In 2020, he was named its Executive Chair. In 2021 the Michener Foundation awarded him the rarely bestowed Michener-Baxter Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service Journalism.

John Fraser's latest book, " The Governors General:  An Intimate History of Canada's Highest Office", is a delightful account of the Canadians who have been chosen to represent the Sovereign in Canada since 1952.

Phil Craig is the Co-Founder, Chief Historian and Master Storyteller for Liberation Tours:  The Canadian Legacy.

Phil is a professional actor with numerous credits in film, television and stage, including several sessions with Stratford's Shakespeare Festival.  Phil has been leading battlefield tours for over 10 years where his combination of story-telling skills, knowledge and passion for history takes you inside the battle in a way  few battlefield historians can .  He has been studying military history since his teenage years and has made numerous trips to the battlefields of Europe to investigate, research and remember.

Phil is also the Co-Founder of the Georgina Military Museum in Keswick, Ontario and has won many awards for his military historical work including the prestigious Ontario Heritage Trust Award. He is the proud recipient of the Minister of Veteran Affairs Commendation, awarded to individuals “who have contributed in an exemplary manner to the remembrance of the contributions, sacrifices and achievements of Veterans."

Howard Green is a three-time bestselling author and was one of the founding team at Business News Network (now BNN Bloomberg) where he anchored for 15 years. In addition to writing books, Green has provided communications advisory services to corporations, pension funds, universities and regulatory agencies. His three-decades in broadcast journalism give him the singular experience required for transformational C-Level presentation coaching, facilitating board and executive committee meetings, moderating C-Suite and expert-level conversations, building institutional narratives and conducting storytelling workshops.

His latest book, "Gimme a Crisis:  In the Room with Global Banker Rick Waugh", profiles former Scotiabank CEO and sketches an unprecedented and upclose picture of what it is like to run a global bank, often during financial chaos, while leading more than 80,000 employees in more than fifty countries.

As long-time host of BNN’s flagship show, "Headline with Howard Green", Green conducted some 14,000 interviews; from Richard Branson to Tony Blair to Alan Greenspan. In 2013, HarperCollins published his first book, "Banking on America: How TD Bank Rose to the Top and Took on the USA", an immediate bestseller. In 2016, he released his second book, co-authored with Charles Bronfman. "Distilled: A Memoir of Family, Seagram, Baseball and Philanthropy" was also a bestseller and finalist for the National Business Book Award.

In addition, Green is a prize-winning documentary maker. He directed, wrote and co-produced "The Investigation of Swissair 111", a film about the multi-year inquiry into an air crash that cost 229 lives. For that, he won the top TV prize in Canada, The Gemini Award and was nominated for two Emmys for a version that aired on PBS’s NOVA. The film was broadcast worldwide.

In 2006, Green was awarded a prestigious Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia University, where he earned his Master’s. He is also a graduate of Carleton University’s School of Journalism. Green served on the board of directors of the Canadian Journalism Foundation and is currently a special advisor to the Chair of Dyslexia Canada.