Speaker Information

Patricia Callon, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel, Sun Life Financial Canada

Patricia Callon is Senior Vice-President and General Counsel, Sun Life Financial Canada. Appointed to this role in 2014, she is responsible for the legal affairs of the Company’s Canadian and investment businesses and leads the legal team that supports those businesses.

Her legal and executive experience spans private practice, in-house and regulatory roles across all major fi nancial services sectors. Her career began at Blake Cassels & Graydon, LLP followed by in-house roles at Sun Life and Seaboard Life (now part of Industrial Alliance). She joined CIBC in 1998 where she rose to Vice-President and Associate General Counsel, Wealth Management and in 2005 moved to the Ontario Securities Commission where she led policy development for segregated and mutual fund disclosure. From 2009, Ms. Callon was Chief Legal Officer and Director, Stakeholder Outreach and Communications at the Canadian Securities Transition Office, the organization that is working with participating governments to create a new common capital markets regulator for Canada.

Ms. Callon has served on several corporate and community boards, including Meridian Credit Union, Toronto Hydro Corporation and the MicroSkills Community Development Centre. In 2013, she was awarded Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 – Corporate Directors award. She is currently a director of the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada.

Ms. Callon earned her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario along with an Honours B.A. in French Language and Literature.

Cecile Chung, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Samuel Group of Companies

Cecile Chung is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Samuel Group of Companies, a leading metals distributor and manufacturer with operations in Canada, US, Mexico, China and Australia. As General Counsel, Cecile is responsible for all legal, governance and compliance matters across the organization. Cecile also oversees Samuel’s expansion strategy into Mexico as well as the organization’s sustainability strategy.

Prior to joining Samuel, Cecile was General Counsel for Carillion Canada, one of Canada’s largest integrated provider of highway maintenance services, construction services and public-private infrastructure partnerships. As part of her responsibilities, Cecile was responsible for Carillion’s legal and compliance matters and also led Carillion’s IT strategy, supporting more than 3,000 end users.

Prior to joining Carillion, Cecile was Director, Business and Legal Affairs for Astral Television, one of Canada’s largest broadcasters. At Astral, Cecile was responsible for legal and regulatory matters relating to Astral’s English and French pay-television and children’s specialty channels. Cecile began her career at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, one of Canada’s leading national law fi rms, where she practiced corporate and securities law.

Cecile is a member of the board and the Audit Chair of the 2017 Invictus Games, the largest international adaptive sport competition in the world featuring ill and injured soldiers and veterans.

Most recently, Cecile served on the board of The Stop Community Food Centre, an organization that strives to provide access to healthy food and build skills, health, hope, and community to confront the underlying issues that lead to poverty and hunger. Cecile is also an honorary board member of the Michael Garron Hospital Foundation.

Paula Davis-Laack, Burn-Out Prevention and Resilience Expert

Paula Davis-Laack, JD, MAPP, is a former practicing lawyer, speaker, consultant, media contributor, and a stress and resilience expert who has designed and taught burnout prevention and resilience workshops to thousands of professionals around the world.

Paula left her law practice after 7 years and earned a master’s degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. As part of her post-graduate training, Paula was selected to be part of the University of Pennsylvania faculty teaching and training resilience skills to soldiers as part of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program. The Penn team trained resilience skills to more than 30,000 soldiers and their family members.

Her articles on stress, burnout prevention, resilience, and thriving at work are prominently featured on her blogs in The Huffington Post, Forbes, Fast Company and Psychology Today. She is the author of two e-books, Addicted to Busy: Your Blueprint for Burnout Prevention and the latest one titled, STRONG: Stress Relief Strategies When You Have 10 Minutes or Less. Her chapter on resilience will be included in a forthcoming book about well-being in the law to be published by the American Bar Association.

Her expertise has been featured in and on O, The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Time.com, Today.com, The Steve Harvey TV show, Huffington Post Live and a variety of media outlets. She has also been featured in and on the Lawyerist, Law360.com, various ABA webinars, and the Women’s Law Journal.

She is the Founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, a training and consulting fi rm that partners with law fi rms and organizations to teach resilience skills to lawyers and key stakeholders so they can be more effective at managing the challenges and setbacks connected with business development, leading under stress and pressure, and innovation (www.pauladavislaack.com). You can reach Paula at paula@pauladavislaack.com.

Deborah Greenberg, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, CMHC

Deborah Greenberg is the Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). She is responsible for the development and oversight of the overall legal and governance framework for CMHC’s operations including managing commercial, claims, litigation, labour and employment, and general regulatory matters as well as supporting and partnering with the different areas of the business including Policy, Insurance and Underwriting, Capital Markets, and Assisted Housing. She is also responsible for leading the corporate secretariat function. She is a member of the Management Committee.

Prior to joining CMHC, Deborah was the General Counsel at Aimia. Deborah started her law career at Davies Ward Philips & Vineberg LLP specializing in general commercial, securities and privacy law. After seven years, Deborah left private practice to serve as legal advisor for various businesses, including Air Canada. In 2007, she left Air Canada to join Aeroplan. Prior to her career in law, Deborah held various positions in marketing and advertising, including several years as the director of marketing for a private-label health and beauty manufacturer, where she researched trends, developed products, priced raw materials, led customer service, and managed quality control.

In 2014, Deborah won the prestigious Global Counsel Award in the General Commercial Law Category. In 2016, Deborah was listed among the top 100 Canadian general counsel on the GC Powerlist, which recognizes corporate counsel who drive the legal business forward. Deborah holds Bachelor’s degrees in Civil and Common law from McGill University, a Graduate Management diploma from McGill University, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Carleton University. She has also obtained her ICD.D designation, which is granted after following a well-known rigorous accreditation program that provides corporate directors with the knowledge and tools to encourage and enable good governance practices.

Peggy Hazard, Associate Client Partner, Korn Ferry Hay Group

Peggy Hazard is Associate Client Partner at Korn Ferry Hay Group. She specializes in executive coaching, individual and team development to help organizations achieve business results through improved global talent strategies and more culturally astute and agile leadership. She has worked with leaders from more than 80 countries across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. She serves major MNCs across industries, with a concentration on technology, life sciences, industrials and finance.

In addition, Ms. Hazard is a leader in Korn Ferry’s Advancing Women Worldwide Practice and 100x2025 Women CEO Pipeline Initiative. She led the development of Korn Ferry’s gender intelligent analytics and accelerated development solutions that achieve measurable results in retention, engagement and advancement of women and other talent underrepresented at senior levels.

Ms. Hazard She served as Managing Editor of a Global 100 Corporation’s online Inclusion University serving 197,000 employees in more than 160 countries, as an adjunct professor for Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School, a guest lecturer at Columbia University, India Institute of Management, and the Mercedes Leadership Institute, and an advisor for the Avon Global Women’s Think Tank, the Global Diversity Benchmarks and The Chief Global Diversity Officer Competency Model. She is a published author of articles and white papers including contributor to the CEO Women Speak 100x2025 Study, Best Practices Women in Leadership, Cross Cultural Agility: The Global Talent Solution; Fixing the Real Gap: the Gender Pay Divide; How to Develop a Global Mindset. She has presented at numerous conferences including The Conference Board, Global HR Forum, Diversity in Asia, The Executive Leadership Council, as well as at many clients’ leadership summits.

Ms. Hazard has 30 years of experience, including management positions at Polo Ralph Lauren and Warnaco at which she managed international teams.

Ms. Hazard holds a degree from The University of Pennsylvania, where she studied at The Wharton School. A Master Coach and member of ICC, she is certified in KFALP,KF4D, Hogan, ViaEdge, Voices, IDI, Styles and Climate and HBDI Assessments.

Kikelomo Lawal, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary, Interac Association/Acxsys Corporation

Ms. Lawal is Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Interac Association/Acxsys Corporation, a recognized world leader in debit card services. She leads a high performing team of lawyers, law clerks, and compliance professionals and regulations writers. She also serves on the Board of a non-profit legal services organization. Ms. Lawal is a Harvard-trained, Ontario- and New York-licensed lawyer with a unique mix of both corporate commercial and litigation experience gained in over 20 years of private practice and in-house positions. Her primary areas of practice are corporate commercial, regulatory compliance, competition/antitrust, employment/benefits/ executive compensation, litigation and internal investigation, corporate communications and government affairs.

Colleen Moorehead, Chief Client Officer, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

Colleen is Chief Client Officer at Osler. She is responsible for implementing Osler’s client-focused business development strategy. Colleen works closely with the Managing Partner and the members of the fi rm’s Client Relations Committee to deepen and strengthen existing client relationships and also provides advice and guidance on new markets and business development opportunities.

Colleen has extensive experience building successful companies and valuable brands. She is a respected business leader with senior management experience in financial services, technology, business and web-based services. Colleen has held a variety of corporate leadership positions and has a deep understanding of business development strategy in the services sector.

Colleen has had a long successful career in the financial services industry that spans over 20 years. She began her career at Merrill Lynch and CIBC. Colleen was a co-founder and President of E*TRADE Canada – building the fi rm from its pioneering roots as an e-commerce start-up to its position as the largest independent on-line investment fi rm in Canada. She also served as Vice President and General Manager of E*TRADE Financial Global Corporate Services. In her role as President and CEO of Nexient Learning Colleen successfully restructured and recapitalized this company, transforming it into Canada’s leading corporate learning and skills development provider. As Entrepreneur in Residence at the private equity fi rm Signal Hill Equity Partners she worked to identify and evaluate new Canadian mid-market investment opportunities and also assisted portfolio companies with strategy execution. Prior to joining Osler, Colleen was Head of Marketing at East Coast Fund Management, a hedge fund fi rm launched by the former heads of TD Securities and Scotia Capital.

Colleen is Chair of the Governance Committee and Board member of Solium Capital (SUM-TSX).

Julie Parla, Partner, McCarthy Tétrault LLP

Julie Parla is a partner in the Litigation Group of McCarthy Tétrault in Toronto. Her practice focuses on infrastructure litigation, construction disputes, disputes related to energy sector infrastructure projects, procurement, and real property litigation including various contractual and transaction disputes.

Julie has represented clients in both the public and private sectors including AFP authorities, Crown agencies, municipalities, educational institutions, healthcare entities, and owners in land development, energy, and other private sector industries. Julie’s practice also includes corporate/commercial litigation, class actions, contractual disputes and competition law. She is a member of our National Class Actions Group and has assisted with the defence of Ontario, national and cross-border clients. Julie is an experienced trial advocate, and has conducted both jury and non-jury trials. She has appeared before courts at all levels in Ontario, including the Ontario Court of Appeal, and also represents clients in complex commercial arbitrations. Julie is a guest instructor for the Osgoode Intensive Trial Advocacy Workshop. She is a contributing author to the book, Defending Class Actions in Canada: A Guide for Defendants, 4th Edition, published by LexisNexis in 2016.

Julie was recently recognized in the industry for excellence in client service, receiving the 2017 Lexology Client Choice Award for Litigation, Ontario.

Cheryl Satin, Partner, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP

Cheryl’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, private equity investments and corporate reorganizations. She has substantial experience in negotiating and advising in connection with acquisitions and divestitures for both public and private companies, with a particular focus in the fi nancial services, insurance and life sciences industries.

Cheryl also has extensive experience in assisting clients in the life sciences and insurance industries in connection with their commercial outsourcing arrangements. For financial institutions and insurers, she regularly advises in connection with the implementation of insurance programs and national and international reinsurance arrangements.

Cheryl has been recognized for her expertise in Who’s Who Legal: Life Sciences and The Lexpert Guide to the Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Corporate Lawyers in Canada.

Cathy Singer, Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP

Cathy Singer practises corporate and securities law, with an emphasis on related party transactions, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and corporate governance, including advisory mandates for issuers, investment dealers, managers and independent committees.

Ms. Singer also practises and has extensive experience in the area of investment funds, advising on all legal and related aspects for investment management and investment fund clients and assisting clients in navigating the evolving non-fund fund area that spans the investment fund and corporate issuer categories of issuer.

Prior to joining Norton Rose Fulbright in November 2001, Ms. Singer practised at another major law fi rm in Toronto. From mid-1996 to 1999, she was seconded to the Ontario Securities Commission as general counsel, and was involved in a broad range of securities transactions and the development of several significant policy initiatives. While at the commission, she had extensive involvement with take-over bids, mergers and acquisitions, related party transactions and investment funds from the regulatory perspective.

Ms. Singer has been a frequent speaker on securities law related matters. She is a past member of the Securities Advisory Committee to the Ontario Securities Commission.

Deirdre Stanley, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Thomson Reuters

Prior to joining Thomson Reuters as General Counsel in 2002, Deirdre held various legal and senior executive positions, including Deputy General Counsel, at IAC (previously USA Networks, Inc.). From 1997 to 1999, Deirdre served as Associate General Counsel for GTE Corporation (a predecessor company to Verizon), where she headed the mergers and acquisitions practice group. She began her career as a corporate associate with the law fi rm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Deirdre is a director of Consolidated Edison, Inc. She also serves as a Vice Chair on the Board of Trustees of the Hospital for Special Surgery, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Executive Leadership Council.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a JD from Harvard Law School, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review.