Change Agent

Linda (Lewis) Cochrane, MBA, ArtSci’77, and six other MBA’79 grads gathered for a September 2017 weekend at Redlands Ranch in Alberta, owned by Harold Roozen, to celebrate 40 years since they met on the first day of MBA class.

James Knowles, BCom, has become a Partner with the Swiss pension and endowment advisory firm, Novarca. James (lower right in photo) lives with his family in Hampstead in London, England.

Robert Inglis, BCom, worked for Price Waterhouse for about nine years until joining a small mortgage brokerage company in downtown Toronto in 1997. The company had about 30 employees but was led by two highly entrepreneurial individuals. Nine years later the company, First National Financial Corporation, went public and, in 2015, co-founder Stephen Smith pledged $50 million to the business school at Queen’s. Today, Robert is CFO of First National and competes weekly with Mr.

Kerry Lee, BCom, joined Squire Patton Boggs as a partner in the Intellectual Property and Technology Practice in the Manchester and London offices. Prior to this, Kerry was the Head of Group Intellectual Property of Walgreens Boots Alliance.

John C. Taddeo, MBA, Vice President, Portfolio Manager and Investment Advisor at TD Wealth in Toronto, has taken up a new hobby: Formula One car racing at the Bridgestone Racing Academy.

Tracey Bissett, BCom, has launched Bissett Financial Fitness Inc. As President and Chief Financial Fitness Trainer, she says she’s passionate about helping people, notably young adults and businesses, become more financially fit. Bissett also launched a podcast, Young Money, that gives advice to young millionaires in the making, on iTunes.

David McKinnon, EMBA, is Canada’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Ambassador to the Maldives. He was appointed in August 2017 by Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland. In his long career working for the Department of External Affairs, David has had many overseas posts, including ones in Thailand, Australia, India and Nepal.

Ewan Moir, EMBA, was named President and CEO of the Nanaimo Port Authority in September 2017. He says he and his wife, Lesley (pictured here in Namibia celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in 2017), are looking forward to moving to Nanaimo, BC from the Vancouver area, where Ewan had been President and COO of Pacific BioEnergy Corporation.

D. Glen McLaughlin, EMBA, TechEd’93, was awarded an Emmy Award for Technical Supervision for his contribution to NBCUniversal’s coverage of beach volleyball during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Grace Hui, BCom, and Eric Tang were married on May 20, 2017 at Grace Church on-the-Hill in Toronto.

Ashok Raghupathy, MBA, and his wife, Maha, welcomed the arrival of their daughter, Anusha, in July 2017.

Robbie Mitchnick, BCom, ArtSci’13, completed his first year of the Stanford MBA program, achieving top one per cent distinction, which he attributes in large part to his time at Smith. He continues to serve as Chairman of Q4Q Beer Company, alongside a board that includes graduates from BCom’11 through BCom’15. The company recently launched its Naughty Otter beer in California, building on the success of the brand in Ontario.

Augusta White, BCom, as part of her role on the Ontario board for the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards, met His Royal Highness Prince Harry during his recent visit to Canada. In addition, Augusta was selected to be mentored by TD Bank's CEO, Bharat Masrani, through TD's Women in Leadership chapter and was recently promoted to a new role directly reporting to the SVP of Human Resources and Talent at TD.