Speakers

As Senior Vice President, Corporate Citizenship & ESG, Andrea Barrack is responsible for RBC’s ESG strategy, including performance management, reporting, and scaling knowledge and insights across the enterprise. Andrea is also responsible for RBC’s global Citizenship strategy and serves as the Executive Director of the RBC Foundation, one of Canada’s largest corporate donors. Her mandate includes delivery of measurable social, employee, brand and business impact through community investments.

Karen Chapple, Ph.D., is the Director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, where she also serves as Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning. She is Professor Emerita of City & Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as department chair and held the Carmel P. Friesen Chair in Urban Studies. Chapple studies inequalities in the planning, development, and governance of regions in the U.S. and Latin America, with a focus on economic development and housing.

Chairwoman of the Board and official Ambassador of the Partenariat du Quartier des spectacles. Monique Simard embodies versatility and deep commitment to social, political and cultural causes. During her exceptional career, she distinguished herself as first vice-president of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux. A convinced feminist, she worked for equal pay, maternity leave and abortion rights. She has also distinguished herself as a director of numerous cultural organizations, a documentary producer, director of the National Film Board's French Program and the first woman president of SODEC. Her honors include Commandeure de l'Ordre des arts et des lettres de la République française.

A magistrate at the Court of Auditors since graduating from the National School of Administration in 1998, Alain Resplandy-Bernard also served for three years as auditor of the UN and UNICEF in New-York. On his return to France, he was appointed adviser to the Prime Minister (Jean-Pierre Raffarin and then Dominique de Villepin), in charge of sports, tourism and housing. He then took up a position as Deputy Director General of the CNRS, the main research organization in France, where he oversaw finance, human resources, information systems and real estate. He was appointed Director at the State Real Estate Department in February 2020 where he is pioneering change in the workplace. Among other things, he is working intently on implementing more effective management of state real estate and doing so in a way that is more respectful of the environment. As a passionate advocate for sustainability, he’s piloting a 4 billion euros plan to renovate public buildings throughout France. 

Fanny Tremblay-Racicot is a tenured professor in municipal and regional administration at the École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP) and co-director of the Centre de recherche sur la gouvernance (CERGO). Her research program focuses on institutional reforms, public policy instruments, and management strategies to achieve sustainable urban development goals. With numerous publications on transportation and land use governance, her current research projects delve into the analysis of territorial policies for circular economy, the affordability of transit-oriented developments, and the use of new municipal fiscal powers by Quebec municipalities.