Linda Angove is a dynamic executive with over 25 years of experience at various levels of management in the Public Sector. Her most recent positions were as Vice President of Prevention and Vice President of Strategic Planning at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.
Ms. Angove is an experienced strategist, analyst and team leader responsible for spearheading several key initiatives. In 2003, Ms. Angove was a member of the Premier’s special project team assigned to investigate, analyze and report on the cause and effects of the 2003 power blackout in Ontario. She has successfully developed and implemented solutions to systematic organizational problems and played a strong leadership role in the restructuring of organizations. She also participated in the establishment of a collaborative initiative on Road Safety, working alongside provincial and federal organizations.
Ms. Angove currently consults on Public and Private Sector Strategic Planning and Project Management and is a member of the Council for Clean and Reliable Electricity.
She has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Toronto and Public Administration from York University.
He sits on the Professional Inspection Committee of the OACIQ (Quebec’s Real-Estate Brokers’ Association), the supervisory structure of the real estate brokerage industry in Québec. The role of the five members on the Professional Inspection Committee is to supervise the activities of the 16,000 members of the Association.
Mr. Benarrous is also a member of the Canadian Delegation on the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) of the NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC); in addition, he also currently sits on the board of Montreal Airports Authority and Montréal Harbourfront Corporation, and is Vice President of the board of Héma-Québec Foundation.
Mr. Benarrous was actively involved with Matthieu Ricard for the construction of a school for 3,000 underprivileged children in Nepal. He is also a member of the Montreal Economic Institute, Civitas, as well as the Banff Forum, a group of approximately 100 young leaders who meet annually to exchange new ideas aiming at improving the life of Canadians. As an accredited expert, Mr. Benarrous often takes part in electronic and printed media interviews to discuss the various issues related to commercial real estate. He is also a frequent speaker at the Montreal Real Estate Forum and gives training in real estate finance in different Montreal law firms.
Glen Wright has had a successful career in both the public and private sectors, spanning the domains of strategic planning, project management, corporate restructuring, health care, health, safety, and disability, and disease management.
Mr. Wright was the founder of Wright Mogg and Associates Ltd. in 1980, building the company into one of the top ten actuarial employee benefit consulting companies in Canada over a 20-year period. He was also the founding chairman of World Access Canada in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of the National Capital Area, Washington, DC. He also has experience with Crown Corporations, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Hydro One Inc. and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (Ontario).
Mr. Wright has won numerous awards, including Honorary Alumnus, Wilfrid Laurier University; Alumnus of Distinction Award, Durham College; and was a recipient of the Canada 125th Anniversary Medal for outstanding community service.
Mr. Wright is currently chairman of PrinterOn Corporation and chairman and chief executive officer of Gpark Consulting, Inc.
Jacques Gauthier has been a member of the National Energy Board of Canada since December 2012. From 2010 to November 2012, he was the senior vice president of Dessau Inc. and president and chief executive officer at LVM, a soil and materials engineering subsidiary of Dessau Inc. that employs 1,500 people.
From 2004 to 2009, Mr. Gauthier was the senior vice president and chief operating officer of Kruger Energy Inc., where he headed a new division dedicated to the development of renewable energy. Prior to these posts, Mr. Gauthier variously held positions as president, chief executive officer, chief operating officer and executive vice president at different times during his career at Boralex Inc., a producer of renewable and green energy and a pioneer in natural gas cogeneration, and Cascades, a multinational pulp and paper company with locations in Canada, the US and Europe. Mr. Gauthier holds a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Sherbrooke and is a member of the Quebec provincial Bar association.
Justin Ferbey is the current chief executive officer of the Carcross Tagish Management Corporation (CTMC), a First Nation-owned economic development corporation. He is a previous federal fiscal advisor in tripartite First Nation treaty negotiations, a former executive of a self-governing First Nation, and sessional business instructor at Yukon College.
Mr. Ferbey was born and reared in the Yukon and is a citizen of the Carcross Tagish First Nation. He holds a bachelor degree in neuroscience, a MBA from the University of Liverpool, and has certified training in dispute resolution/negotiations. He is also an alumnus of Action Canada and the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. His professional efforts resulted in the 2013 Innovator of the Year award from the Yukon’s Tourism Industry Association. In 2013 he received national recognition from the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers and CTMC was a national finalist in the Tourism Industry Association of Canada’s Innovator of the Year award in 2014.
Mr. Ferbey is also a director on the boards for Yukon’s public utility (Yukon Energy Corporation) and the Yukon First Nation Tourism and Culture Association, the Tourism Association of the Yukon. He is president of Skookum Jim’s Friendship Centre, Aboriginal Sports Circle and has published occasional opinion pieces for the Globe and Mail and local newspapers.
Lindsay Brumwell joined Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP) in July 2012 as a trade specialist, Agri-Value. Prior to joining STEP, Ms. Brumwell spent five years working as the Trade Development Coordinator in the Business Development Unit at Port Metro Vancouver (PMV), which is the most diversified port in North America. It trades $172 billion in goods annually with more than 160 trading economies, generating across Canada an estimated 100,000 jobs, $6.1 billion in wages, and $9.7 billion in GDP.
Ms. Brumwell has worked in various roles and industries, including resource extraction and stakeholder engagement. She spent approximately two years working at the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Summits of the Americas Secretariat. Projects on which she worked included providing support to the multilateral negotiations processes and reporting structures in the lead-up to and during the Special Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2004.
Since August 2013, Ms. Brumwell has been the Canadian representative on the Joint Public Advisory Committee for the Canada-Chile Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. This agreement entered into force in 1997 at the same time as the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement.
Ms. Brumwell holds a bachelor of arts from the University of British Columbia (Latin American studies, minor in international relations), and a master’s diploma in international management (Latin America and Asia Pacific), from McRae Institute of International Management, Capilano University.
After almost 20 years working in the private sector, Dave Angus became president and chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce in 1999. Since then he has served as president of the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Canada and represented local chambers on the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Strategic Planning Committee. He currently sits on the board of directors of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives, representing Canadian chambers.
Under his leadership, the Winnipeg Chamber has increased its membership to the highest level in its history (more than 2,060 corporate members) and has not only been recognized by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as an Accredited Chamber with Distinction but has also received recognition by the American Chamber of Commerce Executives for being in the top 10 Chambers for membership growth.
The Winnipeg Chamber has been instrumental in bringing a World Trade Centre to Winnipeg, establishing an international trade conference called ‘Centrallia’, establishing Leadership Winnipeg, and many other new initiatives. The current Manitoba BOLD campaign, a policy designed to mobilize the community behind bold ideas, has stimulated an interest in the area of sustainability and has led to the development of the Chamber’s Clean Energy Policy.
Dean Jacobs, a former chief of the Walpole Island First Nation and the founding director of the Walpole Island Heritage Centre, has over 43 years of experience in public service and in enhancing community-based research capabilities. In 1976, Jacobs was the first Canadian First Nation individual admitted to the Smithsonian Institution’s American “Indian” Cultural Resources Training Program. He has been an expert witness in a number of hunting and fishing rights court cases. Awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Bowling Green State University (1998), University of Windsor (2006), and York University (2008), he was the recipient of the J. Norman Emerson Silver Medal (1998) from the Ontario Archaeological Society and The Commemorative Medal (1992) presented by the Governor General of Canada. He is also a recipient of two Eagle feathers from his peers.
The Walpole Island Heritage Centre he founded is recognized by scholars as one of the best First Nation community research offices in Canada and, in 1995, received the “We the Peoples: 50 Communities Award” from the Friends of the United Nations for its exemplary record in environmental research and sustainable development and has been designated by Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development as a “First Nations Effective Practices” site.
An attorney specializing in environmental law who graduated from Universidad Iberoamericana, Martín Gutiérrez has been known in recent years as the creator of private land conservation schemes in Mexico, including the development of the first ecological easement agreements. Currently general director of Pronatura México, A.C., and consultant to the World Bank in land conservation and transversal integration, he was for 10 years director of Pronatura’s National Land Conservation Program.
Rodolfo Lacy graduated as an environmental engineer from the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) in Mexico City and took a masters degree in environmental planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was awarded a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation in the Leadership for the Environment and Development (LEAD) program.
He is the founding president of the Environmental Engineers Association of Mexico, the former executive director of environment pollution prevention and control in the Mexico City government, and the former head of advisors to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources in Mexico. Currently, Rodolfo Lacy is a researcher and coordinator of strategic studies on energy and environment projects at the Mario Molina Center.
He coordinated and edited the first state of the environment report in Mexico and is the author of the book, Air Quality in the Valley of Mexico (La calidad del aire en el valle de México).
Chief Executive Officer of Arca Continental
Francisco Garza Egloff has been the chief executive officer of Arca Continental (the second-largest Coca Cola bottler in Latin America and one of the largest in the world, and also the main shareholder of PetStar, the world’s largest food-grade PET recycling plant) since 2003. Previously, he served as CEO of Sigma Alimentos, Akra, Petrocel-Temex and Polioles (part of Alfa’s petrochemical division, where he worked for 26 years).
Mr. Garza Egloff holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and management from Monterrey Tech and has taken several post-graduate courses in management at the Pan-American Institute of Business Administration (IPADE). He is a member of the boards of directors of Grupo Industrial Saltillo, Banco Banregio, Banco Holandés Rabobank, and the Monterrey Tech School of Engineering and Architecture.
Gustavo Alanís Ortega received his law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where since 1994 he has taught the environmental law course as a full professor at the law school. Alanís Ortega also holds a master’s degree in international law from the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, DC. Since August 1993, he has been president of the Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Environmental Law Center—CEMDA), a public interest environmental law firm based in Mexico City. He is also active as a columnist for El Universal, one of Mexico’s most widely read and influential newspapers; and columnist for the bimonthly journal Derecho ambiental y ecología published by the Centro de Estudios Jurídicos y Ambientales (CEJA). He is a member of the seventh cohort of the Leadership on Environment and Development Program (LEAD) of El Colegio de México.
Alanís Ortega serves on the boards of directors of the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) and the World Commission on Environmental Law (CEL) of the IUCN Environmental Law Programme. He is also a member of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), the Climate Change Advisory Committee in Mexico, and the Environmental Law Advisory Group at the Department of Sustainable Development of the Organization of American States (OAS). Between April 2008 and January 2015, appointed by the Mexico City Legislative Assembly, he served on the Citizen Board of the Office of the Environmental and Zoning Prosecutor (Procuraduría Ambiental y del Ordenamiento Territorial—PAOT) and, from 2009 to 2016, he was part of the Public Participation Group of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), which contributed to make the company more socially responsible.
In December 2012, Alanís-Ortega was named to the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) for the third time, having previously served from 2001 to 2004 and 2008 to 2011.
Adriana Nelly Correa Sandoval has had wide-ranging professional experience in consensus building, education and research. Correa Sandoval has been awarded the Rómulo Garza Award for Research twice (in 1997 and 2003), the Nuevo León Pro-Wildlife Merit Award (Education, 2008) and the “Women and Sustainability” Award (2011). The Planetario Alfa chose her as an environmental leader for the Green Revolution exhibition (2013).
She was Founding Director of the Andrés Marcelo Sada Chair at the Monterrey Institute of Technology (Tecnológico de Monterrey) (2001–2013) and Director of Strategic Alliances at the Mario Molina Center for Strategic Studies (Centro Mario Molina de Estudios Estratégicos) (2013-2014).
Ms. Correa Sandoval has conducted research, managed projects and been a thesis director on basic ecology, valuation of ecosystem services, planning for sustainable development and land-use management. Moreover, she has made contributions as co-author and co-editor of the books: Tecnológico de Monterrey: un refugio para las aves (2010), Vida, ambiente y desarrollo en el siglo XXI and Ciencia ambiental y desarrollo sostenible (1997).
She participated in developing the Latin American input to the elaboration of the first international standard on sustainable water management (2010–2012). She coordinated, amongst other endeavors, the chapter on adaptative management of ecosystems and biodiversity in the Climate Change Action Program for Nuevo León (2008–2009), the Plan for Comprehensive Coastal Management of the Laguna Madre System of Tamaulipas (2004–2007) and Semarnat’s CCNDS Technical Commission for Environmental and Social Economic Policy for Sustainable Development (Comisión Técnica de Política Económica Ambiental y Social para el Desarrollo Sustentable) (2002–2007).
Ms. Correa-Sandoval has participated in some committees for the Mexico’s National Commission for Science and Technology (Conacyt). She represents academia in the technical board for ecological planning of the Cuenca de Burgos region; she sits on the Citizens’ Advisory Board of the Environmental and Natural Resources Protection Agency for the state of Nuevo León, and is member of the Technical-Scientific Subcouncil for the “Cumbres de Monterrey” National Park. A founding member of Pronatura Noreste, AC, she has been a member of its board of directors since 2008.
Since March 2002, she has been a Mexican representative on the CEC Joint Public Advisory Committee and serves as its chairperson for 2009.
Bárbara Hernández Ramírez is a graduate in economics from Mexico’s Universidad Anáhuac with minors in political analysis and the history of Mexico.
In addition to her career as a businesswoman in the cosmetics industry and hotel and restaurant sector, Ms. Hernández Ramírez has engaged in significant work as an environmentalist, fostering environmental sustainability and financial approaches in the numerous projects and organizations she supports.
She is board chairperson of the Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, devoted to nature conservation and community development in different places in Mexico, especially in Valle de Bravo, northern Veracruz, and the Yucatán peninsula; Fondo para la Comunicación y la Educación Ambiental and Niños y Crías, which was able to restore the Caribbean pink flamingo to the point it could be removed from the endangered species list. She also chairs the Technical Committee of Protected Natural Areas and Yucatán Aquifer Fund; sits on the board of RARE Conservation, an international organization specializing in environmental education and conservation; is a board member of Unión de Empresarios para la Tecnología en la Educación; and is a member of the boards of directors of the Climate Institute in Washington, DC, and Fondo Pro Cuenca Valle de Bravo. She is also a member of the Veracruz Environmental Fund and the Gulf of Mexico Fund.
Paola Hernández Villalvazo graduated with honors from the Universidad Iberoamericana with a bachelor of laws degree; she also holds a certificate in international trade arbitration from the Escuela Libre de Derecho (ELD), a specialty in foreign trade from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and a master’s degree in environmental law (also with honors) from the Universidad del País Vasco (UPV). She has complemented these studies with two postgraduate courses in advanced negotiation techniques from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States).
Hernández Villalvazo began her practice in the private sector, working for two years in the field of telecommunications. Subsequently, she worked for six years in the public sector, representing the Government of Mexico on negotiation and implementation of the unfair trade practices and dispute settlement chapters of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as well as on the WTO’s Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes.
For the last 18 years, she has worked exclusively on environmental issues for Grupo Mexico, a mining company with activities in Mexico, the United States, Peru, and Spain. In addition to representing Grupo Mexico on the board of directors of the Private Sector Commission for Sustainable Development Studies (CESPEDES)—a body of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) that seeks to influence public policy through sustainability proposals with a business-sector thrust—Hernández Villalvazo has worked with Mexico’s most important industry associations on analysis and lobbying in relation to Mexico’s principal environmental laws. She was recently named coordinator of the Environmental Law Commission of Mexico’s National Association of Business Lawyers for 2019–20.
In the academic sector, she has spoken before the World League of Environmental Lawyers and has taught in the master’s program in environmental law at UNAM.
With a master of science degree in arid zone ecology from Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste (Cibnor), a bachelor’s degree in genomic biotechnology from Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), and technical certification in IT programming and system analysis from Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM), Adrián Lozano Garza has also been certified in global environmental education by Cornell University and Wageningen University and Research.
Lozano Garza is currently the director of operations for Sociedad Sostenible (Sosac), which he cofounded, where he develops and implements strategies to facilitate the learning and adoption of sustainable development. He is also a member of the Citizen Engagement Youth Council in Nuevo León and facilitated the launch of the Mexican chapter of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, where he sits on the Global Board of Directors. During 2018, he was selected as a participant in the Global Sustainability Fellows Program at The Sustainability Lab, where he collaborates on the creation on a global sustainability network based on systemic change.
He has worked at organizations such as the Mexican UNESCO Cooperation Commission, the Children’s Science and Technology Commission of the Nuevo León Department of Education, Cinvestav Monterrey and Universidad Iberoamericana. He has coauthored eight articles and scientific notes published in indexed journals, and two chapters in books on genetics in conservation and scientific education. He also collaborates with the Nuevo León Network of Environmental Specialists and Actors and the Cómo Vamos, Nuevo León platform. In the furtherance of his professional and personal goals, Lozano Garza dedicates his efforts to the causes of sustainable development, biological conservation, and biodiversity, as well as to developing free software for use in education.
Irasema Coronado, Ph.D. currently serves as an Associate Provost of The University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Coronado is also an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department and a faculty member in the Environmental Science and Engineering Ph.D. program. Dr. Coronado has served as Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (2006-2008), chair of the Political Science Department (2005- 2006), and Assistant Professor of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies (1999-2003) at The University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Coronado was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico (2004-2005), and a faculty member at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas (1995-1999).
Dr. Coronado has held other academic and visiting scholar positions at the University of Texas at San Antonio (1998-1999), the University of Arizona (1997 and 2001), El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Sonora, Mexico (1992-1995), and Cochise College (1991). Dr. Coronado is currently a Board member of Frontera Women’s Foundation, the Coalition Against Violence Toward Women and Children on the Border, and FEMAP (Mexican Federation of Private Associations). Dr. Coronado holds a B.A. from the University of South Florida and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.
Geoffrey Garver is currently an Adjunct Law Professor at the University of Montreal in Montreal, Canada. Mr. Garver also serves as an independent environmental consultant for the Organization of American States and the Secretariat for Environmental Matters for the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement region. From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Garver served as Director of Submissions on Enforcement Matters at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation for North America. From 1989 to 1993 and 1995 to 2000, Mr. Garver was a trial attorney and then became Acting Assistant Chief in the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division.
From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Garver served as a Special Assistant and Senior Policy Counsel to the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And from 1987 to 1989, Mr. Garver was a Law Clerk to then Chief Judge Conrad K. Cyr in the United States District Court for the District of Maine. Mr. Garver holds a B.S. from Cornell University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Mr. Garver is currently pursuing an L.L.M. and a Ph.D. at McGill University.
Diane Takvorian is currently the Executive Director and a Founder of Environmental Health Coalition (EHC), where over the past 30 years she has built grassroots campaigns to address toxic pollution, discriminatory land use, and unsustainable energy policies in the San Diego/Tijuana region. Ms. Takvorian is also a co-founder of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, a coalition working to address environmental justice issues throughout California. Prior to founding the EHC, Ms. Takvorian managed programs at Community Congress of San Diego (1978-1981), Social Advocates for Youth (1976-1978), and the HELP Center of San Diego (1974-1976).
From 1984 to 2001, Ms. Takvorian served as a faculty member in the School of Social Work at San Diego State University. Ms. Takvorian currently serves on the California Global Warming Environmental Justice Advisory Committee of the California Environmental Protection Agency. In 1998, President Clinton appointed Ms. Takvorian to the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission. In 2008, Ms. Takvorian received the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award and the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association Calver Award. Ms. Takvorian holds a B.S. and an M.A. in Social Work from San Diego State University.
Jonathan Waterhouse is the Director of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC), a non-profit organization made up of 70 Tribes and First Nations, created to preserve and protect the Yukon Watershed and Native cultures.
During his tenure at YRITWC, Mr. Waterhouse worked to develop the BackHaul Program that removed millions of pounds of recyclables and hazardous waste from the Yukon watershed. Prior to joining YRITWC, Mr. Waterhouse had oversight over management, operations, and financial matters for Green Connection (2003-2004), Alaska Airlines (2000-2003), and Pavlof Services, Inc. (1995-2000). From 1997-2000, Mr. Waterhouse served as City Councilman for the City of Cold Bay, Alaska.
In 1995, Mr. Waterhouse retired from a twenty year career in the United States Navy as a decorated Chief Petty Officer. Mr. Waterhouse is an Advisory Board Member and Community Development Director for the Alaska-Sudan Medical Project, which focuses on building medical clinics and installing clean water systems in Southern Sudan.
Jerilyn López Mendoza is an environmental advocate with approximately 20 years of professional experience in a variety of governmental, utility and nongovernmental organizational (NGOs) positions. Currently, she works as a senior policy advocate with the Coalition for Clean Air, a California-based statewide NGO whose sole focus is improving air quality for Californians. In this role, she is responsible for helping reduce pollution from the freight and goods movement industries.
In positions prior to this, López Mendoza served as an appointee of Governor Jerry Brown as Deputy Director for the Office of Public Participation at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, as well as environmental affairs program manager for SoCalGas, coordinating California Air Resources Board (CARB) policy for the utility. In addition, she has served as a commissioner on the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, the California manager for NGO ICLEI -Local Governments for Sustainability, and vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners for five years. During her tenure as Harbor Commission vice president at the Port of Los Angeles, she helped develop and implement the world’s first landmark, port-related “Clean Air Action Plan,” as well as the Clean Truck Program.
For nine years, López Mendoza worked as policy director and staff attorney at the Environmental Justice Project Office of Environmental Defense Fund in Los Angeles, where she helped incubate the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, a successful community-based organization, to create new green space in the urban core, and pioneered the use of community benefits agreements to ensure community assets and reduce environmental impacts from large-scale development projects. López Mendoza earned a law degree from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law and her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University.
She is the recipient of several environmental honors, including the Trailblazer Award from UCLA School of Law’s Public Interest Law and Policy Program and the Los Angeles League of Environmental Voters Smith-Weiss Environmental Champion Award. Born and reared in Montebello, California, López Mendoza lives in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles with her husband and young daughter.