Event Announcement: "Rebalancing Society" featuring Henry Mintzberg

The Centre for Social Impact invites members of the Smith School of Business community (students, faculty and staff) as well as members of the larger Queen’s community and Kingston community to participate in a special edition Speaker Series and Workshop on “Rebalancing Society”, facilitated by Professor Henry Mintzberg on October 25^th, 2019 from 9am to 12:30pm. This event will feature a keynote talk from Professor Mintzberg and a panel discussion with representatives of the business, public, and non-profit sectors, including Monika Federau, MBA’88, Chief Strategy Officer, Intact Financial Corporation, Craig Desjardins, MBA’91, Manager of Strategy and Partnerships, City of Kingston, and Mara Shaw, Executive Director, Loving Spoonful.

Audience participants will also engage in a roundtable discussion to reflect on the following questions:

• How do we rebalance society in our local community?
• What are the implications for business education?
• What role can the School of Business and the Centre for Social Impact play in this transition?  

We are excited to offer a limited number of seats for this interactive event. To register, please visit smithqueens.com/speakerseries. If you plan to attend the event, we strongly recommend that you read in advance: Henry Mintzberg's Rebalancing Society. Please see more details on the event and speakers below:

Rebalancing Society” Workshop – With Henry Mintzberg

• When: Friday October 25 from 9am to 12:30pm.
• Where: Smith School of Business, Goodes Hall, 143 Union St, Room 108.
• Register at smithqueens.com/speakerseries 

Keynote Speaker:

Henry Mintzberg, Cleghorn Chair of Management Studies, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

Henry Mintzberg is a writer and educator, mostly about managing organizations, developing managers, and rebalancing societies (his current focus). After working in Operational Research for the Canadian National Railways from 1961-1963, and receiving his doctorate from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1968, he has made his professional home in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, where he sits in the Cleghorn Chair of Management Studies (half-time since the mid 1980s), with extensive stints in France and England. Universities around the world have granted him 20 honorary degrees.

Professor Mintzberg has authored 20 books, including Managers not MBAs, Simply Managing, Rebalancing Society, and Managing the Myths of Health Care, also 180 articles plus numerous commentaries. He publishes a regular TWOG (TWeet 2 blOG: @mintzberg141 to mintzberg.org/blog), a collection of which was published as Bedtime Stories for Managers in February of 2019. He co-founded the International Master’s Program for Managers (impm.org) and the International Masters for Health Leadership (imhl.org) as well as a venture CoachingOurselves.com, all novel initiatives for managers to learn together from their own experience, the last in their own workplace. He may spend his professional life dealing with organizations, but he spends his private life escaping from them—in a canoe (where he collects beaver sculptures), up mountains, and on a bicycle. (See further details on mintzberg.org.)

Panelists:

Monika Federau, MBA’88, Chief Strategy Officer, Intact Financial Corporation

Monika Federau is the Chief Strategy Officer for Intact Financial Corporation where she leads the development of corporate strategies, and also oversees branding, government relations, social responsibility initiatives, and communications. She joined Intact in 2010 as Vice President, Marketing responsible for national advertising, communication and sponsorship strategies, as well as research and digital initiatives. Prior to Intact, Monika lived in Hong Kong working for a global life insurer where she was responsible for developing and executing strategies to enhance the company’s brand throughout Asia. Monika began her career in the insurance industry in product development, sales and marketing. She later held senior marketing and operations roles at software and e-commerce companies where she was responsible for customer acquisition and revenue generation in Canada, the US and Australia. 

Monika holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from York University and an MBA from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University. Monika serves on the Board of the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada, the Board of UNICEF Canada, the Advisory Board for the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, and is the Vice-Chair of the Board of Toronto Finance International.

Craig Desjardins, MBA’91, Manager of Strategy and Partnerships, City of Kingston

Craig is the Director of the Office of Strategy, Innovation & Partnerships at the City of Kingston. In his role, Craig is responsible for the development and integration of strategy and innovation activity across the corporation and in the community. He also leads the workforce development & in-migration strategy implementation & smart cities initiatives and recently became the Accountable Executive overseeing the Kingston Airport. Prior to joining the City of Kingston, Craig was involved in community economic development, where he managed Investment, venture capital and grant funds that supported business startup and scaling of firms in the rural communities west of Kingston. In the past, Craig served more than a decade as an elected municipal politician in the City of Quinte West, and then joined the faculty of the Smith School of Business in 2011, teaching in the Full-Time MBA Program with a focus on new venture start-ups.  He has also taught entrepreneurship at the Royal Military College of Canada. Craig is a graduate of both Western University (BA, Economics) and the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University (MBA).

Mara Shaw, Executive Director, Loving Spoonful

Mara Shaw studied Chemistry at the University of Illinois & Environmental Engineering Science at the California Institute of Technology.  She worked in environmental science across the US for 15 years, from contaminated military bases to watershed management, before moving to Canada.  After 7 years at the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority, Mara took a sharp turn in her career when she saw first-hand the impact that working with good food had on people coping with mental illness.  She has been the Executive Director of Loving Spoonful since 2012.  She is pleased to see the Kingston community recognize the power of good food to feed and connect people.