Matthew Mendelsohn, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for Results and Delivery in the Privy Council Office

Matthew Mendelsohn is the Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for Results and Delivery in the Privy Council Office, leading the federal government’s Results and Delivery Unit and Impact and Innovation Unit.

Prior to returning to the federal public service, Matthew was the founding Director of the Mowat Centre, a public policy think tank in the School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Toronto. During that time he published and lectured widely on government transformation, democratic institutions and intergovernmental politics.

Matthew is a former Deputy Minister and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet with the Ontario government and a former Senior Advisor in the federal government’s Privy Council Office.

Matthew received his B.A. from McGill University and Ph.D. from the l’Université de Montréal, and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. He was a tenured faculty member in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University for 10 years and has been an active volunteer board member for many not-for-profit organizations that support community engagement and improved social and economic outcomes.

Chris Boughton, A/Director of Results, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Chris Boughton is the A/Director of the Results division for Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Prior to this, Chris was A/Director in the Results division at Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, helping to implement the Policy on Results across government. He has spoken on results-based management and policy in Canada and internationally, including for the American Evaluation Association and the OECD. Chris Boughton has worked in the fields of evaluation and performance measurement for over 20 years in both the private and public sectors.

Carl Boisvert, Director, Financial Management, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Mr. Carl Boisvert leads the function of resources management and provision of financial advisory services for DFO’s six regional offices, and is the lead financial advisor for the Oceans Protection Plan ($1.5B). Prior to this, Mr. Boisvert was the Director of Accounting and Internal Control at DFO and led a business transformation exercise that consolidated Accounting and Procurement operations in Eastern Canada. Mr. Boisvert is a Chartered Professional Accountant with over 15 years of experience in financial management in both the public and private sectors.

Yves Genest, Vice-President, Canadian Audit & Accountability Foundation

As Vice-President, Products and Services, at the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation, Mr. Genest is responsible for leading the organization’s performance audit products and services, including training, professional development, community outreach, research, and methodology development. Mr. Genest is an experienced audit professional, having worked in a variety of organizations and offices over the past thirty years. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as Chief Audit and Evaluation Executive at Shared Services Canada, where he led the establishment of the audit and evaluation function in the newly created department. Mr. Genest also has extensive experience in the legislative audit community, having worked at the Office of the Auditor General of Canada for over fifteen years, first as a Senior Auditor, then Director of Results Measurement, and finally as Principal, Practice Development.
Mr. Genest holds Masters degrees in Public Administration and Political Science.

Ray Zahab, Inspirational Ultra-Marathon Runner and Adventurer

Ray Zahab wants people to know they are extraordinary. A former sedentary “pack a day smoker”, Ray turned his life around in 1999 when he decided to get in shape and enter the world of ultra-marathons. Since then, he’s gone on to inspire millions of people around the world by completing jaw-dropping journeys, including running 7500km across the Sahara, and the Atacama, Gobi, and Patagonian deserts. He is also the he founder of the non-profit impossible2Possible (i2P), which uses adventure based learning programs to inspire, empower and most importantly educate young people on a wide range of subjects. On stage, Ray takes audiences through his tremendous personal story demonstrating how individuals and organizations can undergo incredible change to break through limits and achieve incredible success.

In 2003, Ray read about the Yukon Arctic Ultra, a 160-kilometre multiday race through sub-zero conditions. Three months later, he won the race and was spurred on to continue competing. Over the next two years, he won four multiday races, either individually or as part of a team, surviving sandstorms, close encounters with poisonous snakes, parasites, infections, chafed legs, and dehydration along the way.

Entranced by the Sahara during one of those races, he decided to cross the whole thing, a gruelling 111 day journey he made in early 2007, chronicled in the Matt Damon-produced documentary Running The Sahara. Upon completing the expedition, Ray was moved to found impossible2Possible, inspired by the realization that we are all capable of the extraordinary.

Incredibly, in between his many adventures, Ray has also found the time to write two successful books, Running for My Life and Running to Extremes, for young readers.

As a speaker, Ray has spoken at events such as TED, IOC World Conference, The Economist World, World Affairs Council, and corporate events all over the globe.

Ray dedicates portions of his time as an advisor to the Ryan’s Well Foundation; as an Athletic Ambassador of the ONExONE.org; and as a representative of SpreadTheNet. He was the recipient of the ONExONE Difference Award in 2007, and the Torchbearers Award in 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Canadian Geographical Society.

In 2012, Ray was invited by H.E. Tsogtbaatar Damdin (Minister of Environment, Mongolia) to join their Internal Advisory Committee. In 2015, Canadian Geographic recognized Ray as one of Canada’s Top Explorers, and was presented with the Meritorious Service Cross of Canada.

John Lark, Risk Management Specialist, Risk Sciences International

John Lark is an accomplished manager with broad experience and has managed research teams, chaired federal-provincial committees, and workshops at the Board level of large-scale organizations with domestic and international operations.

He is a highly regarded global expert and has been an invited keynote speaker at international conferences in Washington D.C., Biel Switzerland and, Sydney, Canberra and Cairns Australia. Mr. Lark was one of Canada’s delegates to the ISO risk management Committee and was a Team Leader of several ISO Working Groups and Subcommittees. Mr. Lark was sole author of the international ISO Guide to implementing ISO 31000:2009 released in January of 2016.

Mr. Lark also has extensive Board experience and is Chair of two Not For Profit Boards. He recently completed the Director’s Education Program that is jointly offered by the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Rotman School of Management and has been awarded the prestigious ICD.D certification.

Greg Paoli, C.O.O., Risk Sciences International

Greg Paoliserves as Principal Risk Scientist at Risk SciencesInternational. He has been providing consulting services in the field of quantitative risk assessment applied to human health, public safety and the environment continuously since 1993. This work was done on behalf of regulatory agencies, or in a regulatory context (regulatory submissions by regulated industry, international trade in regulated products). He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
Greg’s career has spanned a wide spectrum of public risk management domains. This has included the safety of food, drinking water, air quality, consumer products, drugs, medical devices and the blood supply, engineered devices, transportation of dangerous goods, museum collections, emergency management for natural and man‐made disasters, and climate change impacts on infrastructure.
Greg has served on a number of expert committees devoted to the risk sciences. He was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences committee that issued the 2014 report, A Framework to Guide the Selection of Chemical Alternatives, and the 2009 report, Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk
Assessment. He was invited to serve as a member of an expert peer review panel for the US EPA’s Framework for Human Health Risk Assessment to Inform Decision Making. He has served on numerous expert committees convened by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Over the past decade, Greg has led a team at RSI (in collaboration with scientific staff of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration), to develop the FDA‐iRISK on‐line software platform for fully quantitative risk assessment for microbial and chemical hazards in food. The on‐line
platform is available at www.irisk.foodrisk.org.
Greg completed a term as Councillor of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) and served two terms as a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Risk Analysis. In 2011, he was awarded the Distinguished Lectureship Award by the Society for Risk Analysis and the scientific society, Sigma Xi. He has provided training in risk assessment methods around the world, including the continuing education programs of the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Maryland.

Melanie Dubuc, Senior Evaluator,Department of Fisheries and Oceans

Steve Montague, President, Performance Management Network
Steve Montague, partner of Performance Management Network Inc. is a credentialed evaluator, a Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society and has 35 years of experience as a practitioner in performance measurement and program evaluation as a management consultant, an adjunct professor and as an evaluation manager in a major Canadian federal government department. Mr. Montague has managed major and minor projects analyzing a wide variety of programs for Canadian federal, provincial, United States, Scottish and Australian governments, as well as conducting work for the OECD, the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations. He has published articles on measurement and evaluation in journals in Canada, the US and Europe and facilitated numerous presentations, panels and workshops on evaluation, performance management and information management. Steve is also a founding member and three times president of the Performance and Planning Exchange.

Giuseppe De Simone, Strategic Planning Officer, U United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
Giuseppe De Simone is a Strategic Planning Officer at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Since 2017 he has been pivotal in a process of revamping UNIDO towards an improved organizational results orientation. This includes the development of internal policies, performance indicators and other guidance documents. He holds a MSc in Development Economics from the University of Ferrara (Italy), a Master’s degree in International Business Management at the Center for Economic and Trade studies in Madrid (Spain) and a MSc. in Environmental Economics at the University of London (SOAS – United Kingdom). Prior to his work in strategic planning, he worked mostly on sustainable energy issues, from a project management, research and policy perspective, both in UNIDO and at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Nick Kowbel, United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services
Nicholas Kowbel is a programme evaluator with the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, the UN department tasked with providing external evaluation oversight of the United Nations Secretariat organizations. Prior to joining the UN in 2016, Nicholas was a Senior Evaluation Officer with the Department of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), during which time he also advised programmes on results-based management and responding to the needs of Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada policies. Nicholas received his B.A. from the University of Ottawa, and his M.A. in Political Science from Carleton University.

Dr. John Mayne, Independent Advisor
Dr. Mayne is an independent advisor on public sector performance. Over the last 15 years he has focused on international development evaluation and RBM. He has authored numerous articles and reports, including several on contribution analysis, and co-edited eight books on program evaluation. In 1989 and in 1995, he was awarded the Canadian Evaluation Society Award for Contribution to Evaluation in Canada. In 2006, he was made a Canadian Evaluation Society Fellow. Dr. Mayne’s current interests are on approaches for strengthening impact evaluation and useful theories of change in complex settings.

Melanie Winzer, PPX Board Member

Sylvain Laporte, President, Canadian Space Agency
Sylvain Laporte became President of the Canadian Space Agency in March 2015. He is committed to advancing Canada’s presence in space through satellite, exploration and astronaut missions in the service of science and innovation. From 2011 to 2015 Sylvain was Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. Prior to that, he held the position of Executive Director, Industrial Technologies Office at Industry Canada, where he was responsible for managing financial contribution programs in research and development for the aerospace, defence, security and space industries. Sylvain first joined Industry Canada in March 2007 as the Chief Informatics Officer.Before entering the public service, Sylvain held several positions at the Canada Post Corporation in the marketing, retail, logistics and information technology sectors. Sylvain earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in computer engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada. He served with the Canadian Armed Forces for over 20 years, gaining experience as an aerospace engineer in diverse areas, from engineering and maintenance to human resource management. The President is passionate about leveraging space to inspire Canadian youth to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Robert Trottier, Director, Digital Policy Oversight and Reporting, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Robert graduated from the Government of Canada’s IM/IT Management Development Program in 2012. He currently occupies the position of Director, Digital Policy Oversight and Reporting in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS). Before joining TBS, Robert was a Director of Information Management at Correctional Services Canada (CSC) where he where he performed a functional review of the IM division and secured funding for the GCDOCS implementation.
With over 20 years in IM/IT, providing client support, defining business requirements and building strong horizontal partnerships, Robert is excited to share his experience of making performance meaningful.
One of his favorite quotes is: If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough – Mario Andretti (Formula 1 racer)”

Nadine Cyr, Manager of Performance Measurement & Accountability Reporting, National Research Council

Nadine Cyr is the Manager (Acting) of Performance Measurement and Accountability Reporting at the National Research Council with more than 15 years of performance measurement experience in the public sector. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Alberta and currently chairs the PPX Community of Practice for Science-based Organizations. Over the past 8 years at NRC, Nadine has played a key role in developing and implementing performance measures and reports that meet senior management needs as well as central agency requirements. She presented progress made in building a comprehensive NRC performance measurement framework at previous PPX Community of Practice Learning Events and PPX Annual Symposiums. Nadine joined the PPX Board of Directors in late 2018.

Melanie Winzer, Executive Direction of Programs and Integrated Planning Branch, Canadian Space Agency  

Melanie is the Executive Director of Programs and Integrated Planning Branch at the Canadian Space Agency. In this role, she leads the development and implementation of the Policy on Results. Previously she was the Manager of Planning, Reporting, Measurement and Data and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research leading the development and implantation of CIHR’s Performance Measurement (PM) Regime Toolbox, which is heavily based on the CAHS Impact Framework. She has presented at 3 national symposiums, 8 regional events and founded the Community of Practice on Performance Measurement and Evaluation in Science-based Organizations. As a member of the PPX Board of Directors, she chairs the Learning Committee. Melanie has spent close to 20 years in the Federal Public Service in the areas of Planning, Performance Measurement, Project Management and Reporting. Over this time, she has led various departments to be deemed “Leader and Department of Example” in the areas of integrated planning, performance measurement, project management and parliamentary reporting. She has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Ottawa and completed a Master of Arts in Political Science in June 2018.

Greg Richards, Vice-President of Research and Business Development at the Institute on Governance and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa
Gregory Richards, MBA, Ph.D, FCMC, is currently Vice-President of Research and Business Development at the Institute on Government and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa. He was previously Director of the MBA program at the University of Ottawa, a visiting professor at the Western Management Development Centre in Denver, Colorado and a member of Peter Senge’s Society for Organizational Learning based at MIT. At the IOG, he manages the research team exploring all things digital. At the University of Ottawa, he managed the public sector performance management research cluster and continues to manage the IBM Centre for Business Analytics and Performance. His publications appear in the Journal of Public Administration and Research, the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, and the Journal of Computer Information Systems. He has also published an edited book on Big Data and Analytics in government and has delivered 50+ conference presentations on the topic of performance measurement and management in the public sector. Prior to his academic appointment, he was a consultant working with several Departments including Finance, the House of Commons, Treasury Board Secretariat, Public Service Commission, Western Diversification and the Canadian Coast Guard. Early in his career, he worked as a public servant at Transport Canada and Consulting and Audit Canada

Basil Orsini, CIA, CRMA, CGAP, CCAP, CFE,Retired

Basil Orsini has presented at four PPX Symposiums, as well as numerous internal audit and some evaluation venues over the past 30 years.

Katie Brown, PPX President, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions

Katie Brown has presented at multiple conferences, has worked in performance measurement and audit within the Federal Public Service for 10 years, and is the current President of the PPX.

Kelly Skinner, Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo

Kelly Skinner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo where she leads the new online Master of Health Evaluation program. Kelly’s research and evaluation interests focus in two areas: (1) the health and well-being of First Nations populations and northern communities including the evaluation of health programs and food systems approaches; and (2) using evaluation theory and conceptual approaches to operationalize and build evaluation systems, with a continued interest in measuring knowledge uptake and utilization. Kelly has experience with stakeholder engagement, working with communities as an evaluation consultant, and currently teaches several courses she developed to online graduate students on Kelly Skinner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo where she leads the new online Master of Health Evaluation program. Kelly’s research and evaluation interests focus in two areas: (1) the health and well-being of First Nations populations and northern communities including the evaluation of health programs and food systems approaches; and (2) using evaluation theory and conceptual approaches to operationalize and build evaluation systems, with a continued interest in measuring knowledge uptake and utilization. Kelly has experience with stakeholder engagement, working with communities as an evaluation consultant, and currently teaches several courses she developed to online graduate students on evaluation theory, applications, practice, and management.

Jasmin Bhawra is a PhD Candidate whose research focuses on food and nutrition policy. She is an independent evaluation consultant working with non-profit organizations, and co-founder of Active Healthy Kids India.

Steve Montague, Performance and Planning Exchange
Steve Montague, partner of Performance Management Network Inc. is a credentialed evaluator, a Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society and has 35 years of experience as a practitioner in performance measurement and program evaluation as a management consultant, an adjunct professor and as an evaluation manager in a major Canadian federal government department. Mr. Montague has managed major and minor projects analyzing a wide variety of programs for Canadian federal, provincial, United States, Scottish and Australian governments, as well as conducting work for the OECD, the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations. He has published articles on measurement and evaluation in journals in Canada, the US and Europe and facilitated numerous presentations, panels and workshops on evaluation, performance management and information management. Steve is also a founding member and three times president of the Performance and Planning Exchange.

Stephanie Kalt, Evaluation Manager, Natural Resources Canada

Stephanie Kalt is an Evaluation Manager with the Audit and Evaluation Branch at Natural Resources Canada. She has close to 17 years of experience in evaluation and performance audit with the Government of Canada. She has a Master’s of Environmental Applied Science and Management (MASc) and a Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies and Geography. Her current role includes providing functional leadership to the Audit and Evaluation Branch on gender based analysis plus.

Chloe Elias, Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Canada

Chloe Elias joined Natural Resources Canada as a Policy Analyst in August 2018. She has a Master’s in Public Policy and Administration and a Bachelor’s in Environmental and Women’s Studies. She is currently working in evaluation with the AEB and supporting the integration of gender based analysis plus into the Department’s evaluation practice.

Dr. Rob Shepherd, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University
Robert Shepherd is Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy & Administration at Carleton University. He is Supervisor of the Graduate Diploma in Public Policy & Program Evaluation, Past Chair of the Consortium of Universities for Evaluation Education, and Past President of the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA). He is currently working on two SSHRC Partnership grants aimed at evaluating youth program practice on reserves in Northwest Ontario, and examining options for replacement of the Indian Act.

Dr. Isabelle Bourgeois, associate professor at École nationale d’administration publique and Canada Research Chair in Program and Policy Evaluation
Isabelle Bourgeois, Ph.D., is an associate professor at l’École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP), University of Quebec, and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Program and Policy Evaluation. Her research work focuses on the role of program evaluation in improving government decision-making and resource allocation; she is specifically interested in organizational evaluation capacity and evaluation utilization. Before starting her academic career, Dr. Bourgeois was an evaluation manager in two federal government organizations. She was the 2017 recipient of the CES-NCC Karl Boudreault Award and was the Vice-Chair of the Consortium of Universities for Evaluation Education from 2015-2017. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation.

Christine Minas, Director, Results Division, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Christine Minas is a Director in the Results Division at Treasury Board Secretariat and the Champion for the Federal Evaluation Community. She has worked in several federal departments, including many years at Employment and Social Development Canada where she held positions in evaluation, research
and policy. Christine is an expert in socio-economic issues across the policy-program-delivery continuum. In the past three years Christine served on the ESDC Mental Health Framework Implementation Committee providing leadership on progress measurement. Recognized for her leadership, Christine actively builds partnerships to achieve results. As a sociologist of work Christine holds degrees from the Universities of Toronto, Alberta and Cambridge (UK).

Shelley Borys, Director General, Evaluation, and Chief Audit Executive in the Office of Audit and Evaluation, a shared service for the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada.
Shelley Borys is the Director General, Evaluation, and Chief Audit Executive in the Office of Audit and Evaluation, a shared service for the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Waterloo. Shelley is a Credentialed Evaluator, and has received several awards from the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES). She is a member of the CES Credentialing Board and was inducted as a Fellow of the CES in 2014. Shelley worked for over 10 years as a consultant in evaluation, joining government in 2005, and led the evaluation functions at Environment Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada before joining the Public Health Agency in 2011 as the Director General of Audit and Evaluation.

Isabelle Trépanier, Chief Audit and Evaluation Executive, Infrastructure Canada
Isabelle Trépanier is the Chief Audit and Evaluation Executive at Infrastructure Canada, a position she’s held since March 2016.Recruited to the federal public service in 1991, the first 10 years of her career were spent in the field of financial management.

Part of Transport Canada’s Policy Group from 2001 to 2011, she worked on various files in all modes, including the design of the transportation element of the first Building Canada infrastructure Plan. Her last posting in Policy Group was as Director, National Air Services Policy, where she led the development of economic policy frameworks and legislation affecting Canadian air carriers, domestic air services, passenger rights and the environment.

From 2011-2014, Isabelle was the Executive Director, Corporate Planning and Reporting at Transport Canada, a position which supported the alignment of business activities, financial resources, performance and risk management.

She holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Ottawa and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce.

Alexandra Dagger, Director General of Audit and Evaluation, National Research Council Canada.
Alexandra Dagger is the Director General of Audit and Evaluation at the National Research Council Canada. She has extensive experience in evaluation, performance measurement, and internal audit in both the public and private sectors. Her focus in recent years has been on leveraging evaluation and audit capabilities and products to provide evidence and strategic advice for decision making. She is a past board member of the local Canadian Evaluation Society chapter. In recognition of her contributions to the local evaluation community, Alex received the Karl Boudreault Award for Leadership in Evaluation in 2014

Fatima Barros, VP Audit and Evaluation, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation
With more than 30 years of diverse experience at CMHC, Fatima Barros knows how important housing is to Canadians – and how important it is to get it right. This makes her ideally suited for her role as Vice-President of Audit and Evaluation: she understands the complex and broad risks facing the corporation, as well as how Internal Audit contributes to ensuring CMHC is
positioned to help Canadians meet their housing need.“The Internal Audit and Evaluation function has matured at CMHC over the past few years;
we’ve adopted leading practices that are not often seen at organizations of our size. I believe we are a real leader among our peers. We look at business lines as our clients. We’re here to help them do their work well, to provide real-time support and advice as processes are being developed, not just after the fact.”

Fatima reports to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors, giving her team the independence to offer objective assurance, credible assessments on the management of key risks to the corporation, and evidence-based evaluations of the relevance and performance of housing programs. Sitting on CMHC’s Executive Committee and attending Board meetings help her understand CMHC’s strategic priorities and direction, allowing her to focus her team’s efforts on areas of greatest risk and importance to the corporation.

“CMHC’s mission and mandate really resonate with me, which is why I have spent my entire career here. I’m proud of the work we do and the positive impact it has on so many Canadians. I see how employees live CMHC’s values every day.” Fatima holds Chartered Professional Accountant and Certified General Accountant designations. An avid reader and mother of two adult children, she lives with her husband in Ottawa.

Nima Ghomeshi, Evaluator
After 8 years with the Canadian Foreign Service, Nima is now redirecting his public service career towards Program Evaluation. Over the past year, he has worked as an Evaluator with Elections Canada and the National Research Council of Canada, while completing a Graduate Diploma in Program Evaluation (Carleton). He also holds a BSc in Psychology (McGill) and an MA in International Affairs (Carleton). In his spare time, he enjoys acting and spending time in nature.