Public Executive Program

A world in which technology enables businesses to prosper, employees to thrive, and a culture for driving results to flourish is the vision behind Kathryn Brohman’s thought leadership in sustainable execution.

An Associate professor at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, Kathryn has co-authored several books that focus on how today’s organizations can navigate business practices to drive short-term results without compromising long-term success. Her most recent book entitled SHIFT: A New Mindset for Sustainable Execution presents results from her work with over 750+ organizations that helped translate strategy into action. The book provides a pragmatic approach to identifying salient execution barriers, filling gaps to stabilize an execution backbone, and removing distractions to seamlessly adapt to change.

Since arriving at Queen’s University in 2003, Kathryn has pioneered programs in Strategy Execution and Digital Transformation across MBA and executive programs. She has worked with hundreds of organizations in North America to translate strategy into action. Kathryn has received multiple funding grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) as well as the Ontario Research Foundation and published her work in premier journals including MIS Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Harvard Business Review, MIS Quarterly Executive, and Communications of the ACM.

Dr. Lobna Chérif holds the position of Chair in Resilience at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) and serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Military Psychology and Leadership. She is also the founding Director of the Resilience Plus Program. Dr. Chérif earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Laval University (Québec, Québec) and holds certifications as a Positive Psychology Practitioner and Resiliency Trainer from The Flourishing Center in New York. Additionally, she is a certified Professional and Personal Coach from Concordia University in Montréal and a certified Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practitioner from the VIA Institute on Character.

Dr. Chérif has led numerous international and national workshops and webinars on the science of positive psychology. Her current research focuses on mindfulness, character strengths, resilience, and accomplishment, exploring practical applications to enhance leaders' well-being and performance.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Chérif has received several prestigious awards, including the Canadian Psychological Association’s Excellence Award for her doctoral thesis. She has also been honoured with commendations such as the Honourable John Matheson Academic Leadership Award at RMC and the Canadian Armed Forces Chief of the Defence Staff Coin (2023).

In addition to her professional work, Dr. Chérif volunteers her time consulting for various community organizations and supporting her daughter's award-winning non-profit organization, Gnome for a Home, which is dedicated to assisting those experiencing homelessness.

Matt Reesor is a communications expert who has helped hundreds of leaders at top organizations to sharpen their messaging. Since 2013, he has held a professor appointment at Smith School of Business, Queen’s University and designed numerous Masters and MBA level business communication courses. In addition, Matt was approached to design the highly successful Communicating With Impact program within Queen’s Executive Education (QEE) which he continues to deliver multiple times throughout the year. Matt has created custom communications programs for a growing list of clients including, British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, Canada Life, Canada Post, The Canadian Olympic Committee, CIBC Asset Management, Homestead Land Holdings, EY (Consulting), Kellogg’s Canada, the NHL Alumni Association and various government departments and ministries. Prior to teaching at Smith, he spent his early career in Japan as a junior faculty member at Nagoya University of Business and Commerce where he conducted academic research and published the bestselling textbook, Tell Me More: Effective Communication Strategies for the Japanese Student with MacMillan Publishers. In addition to his teaching and consulting duties, Matt served as the Director of the Full-time MBA program at Smith School of Business from 2016-2023.

A former Canadian diplomat, Mr. Robertson is Vice President and Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and hosts its regular Global Exchange podcast. He is an Executive Fellow at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. Mr. Robertson sits on the advisory councils of the Johnson Shoyama School of Public Policy, Conference of Defence Associations Institute, North American Research Partnership, and the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. He is an Honorary Captain (Royal Canadian Navy) assigned to the Strategic Communications Directorate. He is a member of the Deputy Minister of International Trade's NAFTA Advisory Council and the North American Forum. He writes on foreign affairs for The Globe and Mail and he is a frequent contributor to other media.

Michael is an Associate Professor at Smith School of Business. His research focuses on the strategies and performance of firms that expand into foreign markets, and he teaches courses in Global Business Strategy and Strategic International Entrepreneurship. He has been working in the classroom with business executives for more than a decade in Smith’s dual Executive MBA (EMBA) Programs. Michael has taught executive audiences in diverse overseas markets from Cuba to China. He is a multi-time recipient of the Executive MBA Americas Professor of the Year Award and has been recognized internationally by Poets and Quants for Executives as one of the Favourite Professors of Executive MBAs.

Michael received PhD and MBA degrees from the Ivey Business School in London, Canada, and a JD (Juris Doctor) degree from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, Canada. He has ten years of experience working variously in executive and corporate legal counsel capacities for publicly-traded and privately-held enterprises in the telecom and consumer packaged goods industries. Having been employed as an executive in the foreign subsidiary operations of a NASDAQ-listed company, he is intimately familiar with the opportunities and challenges that firms encounter in foreign markets. Michael consults and advises owners, executives and managers in firms that range in scale from new ventures to multinational corporations.

Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the Director of the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She is the co-author, with Eugene Lang, of the prize-winning The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar. She was the Massey Lecturer in 2001 and a Trudeau Fellow. She was awarded the Molson Prize by the Canada Council for an outstanding contribution by a social scientist to public debate.  She is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.  Dr. Stein currently serves as Co-Chair of the International Programs Committee on the Board of Care Canada.