Who We Are

Brief History of the Victoria Forum

The inaugural Victoria Forum took place on November 2017, and brought together approximately 500 participants, representing different levels of governments, business, academia and civil society, to take stock of the state of diversity and inclusiveness in Canada on its 150th anniversary, and to look to the future.

The Forum reflected a Canadian narrative that pluralistic societies require inclusive institutions, where power and benefits are widely held, in order to create the conditions for inclusive and sustainable socio-economic progress.

The final report included thirty-eight constructive recommendations and was widely distributed to leaders at different levels of government, business, and civil society.

Executive Team

Saul Klein

Chair

Dr. Saul Klein serves as Dean and Professor of International Business at the Gustavson School. Saul joined the business faculty in 2001 to teach and research in the area of international business. Before taking on the deanship in 2012, he served as champion of the International Business specialization, and directed and oversaw a significant expansion of the school’s Executive Programs.

As Dean, he focuses his energies on enhancing the reputation and expanding recognition of the business school. To that end, he concentrates on differentiating the business school from its competitors and sharpening its global positioning. The school enjoys full five-year accreditations from both EQUIS and AACSB, a distinction earned by only 65 of the more than 15,000 business schools world-wide. He is building additional partnerships to leverage the school’s emphasis on social and sustainable values and its areas of specialization — entrepreneurship, international business and service management. He has spearheaded the development of the Gustavson Brand Trust Index as a way to highlight the School’s role in promoting responsible leadership. As a researcher, his primary research interests are in the areas of marketing management, marketing strategy, global business, and international marketing. He has a particular interest in issues relating to global competitiveness in emerging markets.

Sébastien Beaulieu

Associate Co-Chair

Sébastien Beaulieu is a Canadian career diplomat and executive at Global Affairs Canada. As part of Canada’s public diplomacy, he is engaged with the University of Victoria as Adjunct Professor with the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.

He has served as Chief of Staff to the Associate Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (2010-12), Ambassador of Canada to Tunisia (2012-15), Middle East Relations Executive Director (2015-17) and Syria Envoy (2017-19), and most recently as Ambassador of Canada to Senegal (2019-21). At headquarters, he has worked on Canada-U.S. relations, climate change, international security, trade policy and international trade litigation, and has had postings in Geneva & Paris.

Adel Guitouni

Associate Co-Chair

Dr. Adel Guitouni is an award-winning associate professor of management sciences, operations research and decision support systems at the Gustavson School of Business. His PhD and master-level students benefit from his multi-disciplinary approach to teaching and professional activities, which includes his work with the Canadian government where he directed large scientific teams involved with major events and strategic initiatives such as the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and G8/G20 summits, and a variety of projects with the Canadian Forces. Since 2011, on behalf of the business school, he has actively engaged in several educational activities that support the democratic transition and socio-economic development in the MENA region (i.e., Tunisia and Libya) from providing coaching sessions to senior government officials to obtaining grant funding to develop the country’s leadership capacity. In 2014 in partnership with Tunisian higher education institutions, he established a not-for-profit non-governmental organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship development and innovation. Through his research, Dr. Guitouni’s goal is to help improve the decision-making process at the individual and corporate level. Through his entrepreneurship and leadership project work, he hopes to empower youth and leaders by giving them the tools to change their world.

Chris Horbachewski

Chair Of The Internal Advisory Board

Chris Horbachewski joined the University of Victoria as Vice-President External Relations on February 1, 2020. The external relations portfolio includes alumni relations, fundraising, community and government relations, university communications and marketing, ceremonies and events, the Farquhar Auditorium and the Legacy Art Galleries.

Before joining UVic, Chris served as Vice-President, Advancement at the University of Lethbridge since August 2005. In that role, Chris provided leadership and direction to Alumni Relations, Development, Strategic Marketing and Communications, and Public Affairs and Government Relations. He was also Chair of the Art Gallery Advisory Committee. Prior to that, he held a variety of fundraising and advancement leadership positions at the University of Manitoba between 1997 and 2005 including Campaign Director and Director of Advancement Services.

Chris has held a variety of professional and community engagement roles over the course of his career such as: Chair; and Treasurer, with the Council for Support and Advancement of Education (CASE), District VIII. He has also served as a member of the Board for the Alberta Science and Technology Foundation as well as the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce.

In 1996, Chris received a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from the University of Calgary.

Honourable Jim Munson

Former Senator Ottawa, Ontario

Mr. Munson, a well-respected Canadian journalist, has had an extensive career in journalism both in Canada and abroad. He previously served as a television correspondent for CTV reporting on national events in the public and political arena. He was CTV’s Bureau Chief in Beijing from 1987 to 1992 reporting on events in China such as Tiananmen Massacre of June 4, 1989. He also served as Bureau Chief and senior correspondent in Halifax, Nova Scotia and London, England. He has covered the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf war and the Middle East. Mr. Munson has twice been nominated for a Gemini Award in recognition of excellence in journalism. After journalism Mr, Munson worked as Prime Minister Jean Chrétien Director of Communications.

He was appointed to the Senate in 2003 and was a Senator for almost 18 years. Upon turning 75 last July, he retired from the Senate. During his time in the Senate, the Ontario Senator was the Chair of the Senate Human Rights Committee and Deputy Chair of the Board of Internal Economy. Mr Munson also advocated tirelessly for those with disabilities Jim Munson and his wife Ginette live in Ottawa with their two sons.

Track Chairs

RALPH CHAMI

Co-Chair, Environmental Divides

Dr Ralph Chami is an Assistant Director at the IMF. He is currently on sabbatical from the IMF working on tackling the two risks to humanity – climate change and biodiversity loss. He has developed a model for valuing natural capital, including blue and green nature, flora and fauna, and a framework for developing the natural capital markets for ecosystem services.

Ralph is an expert on fragile and low and middle income states He has served in some of the most fragile and troubled regions, showing his dedication to helping those most in need, and receiving the IMF 2014 Operational Excellence Award for his field work on fragile and LMICs. He was Division Chief for Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen, and was Mission Chief for Libya and Somalia. His book, co-edited with Raphael Espinoza and Peter Montiel on “Macroeconomic Policy in Fragile State,” was recently published by Oxford University Press.

Ralph/s areas of expertise also include banking, financial markets, remittances and migration, climate change and natural capital. He has co-authored many articles in these areas. Ralph is a semi-professional musician https://youtu.be/C-1f0UiT8Gg

Andy Hoffman

Co-Chair, Environmental Divides

Andy Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan; a position that holds joint appointments in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School for Environment and Sustainability. Professor Hoffman’s research uses organizational behavior models and theories to understand the cultural and institutional aspects of environmental issues for organizations.

He has published over 100 articles/book chapters, as well as 18 books, which have been translated into five languages. In this work, he focuses on the processes by which environmental issues both emerge and evolve as social, political and managerial issues, including: the evolving nature of field level pressures related to environmental issues; the corporate responses that have emerged as a result of those pressures, particularly around the issue of climate change; the interconnected networks among non-governmental organizations and corporations and how those networks influence change processes within cultural and institutional systems; the social and psychological barriers to these change processes; and the underlying cultural values that are engaged when these barriers are overcome.

He also writes about the role of academic scholars in public and political discourse. Among his list of honors, he has been awarded the Aspen Institute Faculty Pioneer Award (2016), American Chemical Society National Award (2016), Strategic Organization Best Essay Award (2016), Organization & Environment Best Paper Award (2014), Maggie Award (2013), JMI Breaking the Frame Award (2012), Connecticut Book Award (2011), Aldo Leopold Fellowship (2011), Aspen Environmental Fellowship (2011 and 2009), Manos Page Prize (2009), Aspen Institute Rising Star Award (2003), Rachel Carson Book Prize (2001) and Klegerman Award (1995). His work has been covered in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, Scientific American, Time, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Atlantic and National Public Radio.

David Miller

C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy

David Miller is the Managing Director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy.

Mr. Miller was Mayor of Toronto from 2003 to 2010 and served as Chair of C40 Cities from 2008 until 2010. Under his leadership, Toronto became widely admired internationally for its environmental leadership, economic strength and social integration. He is a leading advocate for the creation of sustainable urban economies.

Mr. Miller has held a variety of public and private positions and served as Future of Cities Global Fellow at Polytechnic Institute of New York University from 2011 to 2014. He has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waterloo in Environmental Studies, an Honorary Doctor of Laws from York University and is currently Executive in Residence at the University of Victoria. He is the author of “Solved, how the great cities of the world are fixing the climate crisis” (University of Toronto Press).

David Miller is a Harvard trained economist and professionally is a lawyer. He and his wife, lawyer Jill Arthur, are the parents of two children.

Sudhir Nair

Co-Chair, Economic Divides

Dr. Sudhir Nair is an Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy in the Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria. His research covers various facets of international business including drivers of international entrepreneurship and the internationalization of service firms. His commitment to engaged student learning has earned him the Gustavson School of Business’s Teaching Award. More recently, he has been researching the newcomer (immigrant and refugee) space in Canada from an interdisciplinary perspective. Externally, he engages with the local community in Victoria as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Community Partnership Network, which is facilitated by the Inter Cultural Association of Greater Victoria. He also represents UVic in a team that is jointly developing a Prosperity Index for the Greater Victoria region, with the South Island Prosperity Partnership (they arefunded by local municipalities). Prior to pursuing his PhD, Sudhir spent 15 years working in large corporations such as Citibank, as well as with entrepreneurial entities that he founded or co-founded.

Dr. Natalie Slawinski

Co-Chair, Environmental Divides

Natalie Slawinski is Professor of Sustainability and Director of the Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation at the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria. She earned her PhD from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on understanding sustainability, temporality and paradoxes in organizations, and has been published in such journals as Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal and Organization Studies. Her most recent research examines these themes in the context of social enterprise. Natalie serves as an Advisor to Memorial University’s Centre for Social Enterprise and is a Research Fellow at the Cambridge University Judge Business School’s Centre for Social Innovation. She is also a member of the editorial review board at Organization & Environment.

Crystal Tremblay

University of Victoria

Dr. Crystal Tremblay is a faculty member in the Department of Geography and Director of CIFAL Victoria at the University of Victoria. CIFAL Victoria is one of several centres around the world and an initiative of the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR) building capacity and leadership to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). She is a social geographer and community-based scholar specializing in participatory community-based research and arts-based methods working across sectors with a focus on social justice and eco-cultural land and water stewardship. She is the academic lead for the Salish Sea Hub, an initiative of the Knowledge for Change Global Consortium founded by the UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education.

Peter Taylor

Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

Peter Taylor is Director of Research at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Previously he was Director, Strategic Development, at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada where he was responsible for leading IDRC’s strategic planning processes.

During his ten years with IDRC, he also served as Acting Director of IDRC’s Inclusive Economies Program Area, and as Associate Director for the Think Tank Initiative, a ten-year, multi-partner programme that supports strengthening of policy research organizations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Peter has more than 30 years of experience in international development. He also worked at IDS as a Research Fellow, Head of Graduate Studies, and Leader of the Participation, Power and Social Change Team; as Education Technical Advisor with the Swiss NGO Helvetas in Vietnam; as Lecturer in Agricultural Education at the Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Department at the University of Reading, UK; and as Head of the agriculture department in a rural secondary school in northern Botswana.

Peter holds a PhD and MSc in agricultural education, and a BSc degree in animal sciences. He has research, teaching and writing interests in the theory and practice of organizational development and capacity strengthening, evaluation and learning, and facilitation of participatory and social change processes in a diverse range of international contexts.