Board of Directors

As President of the Digital ID & Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC), Joni builds on 15 plus years of experience in Digital Identity innovations and standards development. She helps DIACC to fulfill its vision of unlocking interoperability of public and private sector capabilities through the establishment of an identity trust framework that will grow Canada’s economy. Joni builds impactful relationships and formalizes strategic partnerships between organizations. She has participated in committees and initiatives around the world including: OECD-ITAC, ISOC, IEEE, OASIS-SSTC, ISO SC27 WG5, and she has testified before the US Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Security and Privacy (ONC HITSP).

Dave was appointed the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Natural Gas Development on September 15, 2015. Previous to his current role Dave was the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and was the Associate Deputy Minister of the Environmental Assessment Office in 2012. In July 2005, Dave was appointed as Chief Information Officer for the Province of British Columbia and was appointed Associate Deputy Minister in October 2010. Earlier in his career, Dave spent two years as the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for the Network BC initiative. Through his leadership in this project, Dave played a pivotal role in bridging the digital divide by connecting many rural and remote communities in British Columbia to high-speed broadband. Dave has a strong technical background and spent nearly 20 years working in management positions with progressively more responsibility, both in the B.C. government and with SaskTel in Regina, Saskatchewan.

As Vice President, Digital Channels, Franklin leads the effort to “mobilize” TD Bank on a North American basis, with a focus on both employees and customers. In his role, he is responsible for strategy, design, and oversight of solutions to digitize the Bank and empower employees and customers to take full advantage of mobile capabilities. Prior to this role, Franklin held various Risk Management roles in Direct Channels and Business Banking and also led several Branch Services Centres in Canada.

Prior to joining TD in 2008, Franklin was a consultant with McKinsey & Company where he served as a leader in the North American Financial Institutions Operations practice. He has also worked with L’Oreal, as a Project Engineer and in various General Management roles in manufacturing plant operations in France.

Franklin is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University with a Masters of Business Administration. He also holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ecole Superieure D’Electricite.

Andre is responsible for positioning SecureKey’s growth strategy, cultivating opportunities in new and existing markets, and promoting demand for the company’s solutions globally. He serves as SecureKey’s digital identity evangelist. Prior to joining SecureKey, Andre co-founded and served as chief technology officer of 724 Solutions Inc. Previously, he served as chief technology officer for Footprint Software and as chief executive officer for the company’s Asia Pacific business. In 1999, he was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in recognition of his vision and accomplishments. From 1990 to 1994, he served as chief executive officer of Open Systems Limited. Andre has also served on the boards of 724 Solutions Inc., Dexit Inc., Footprint Software Pty. Ltd., and 305 Management Services.

Eros has the overall responsibility for TELUS integrated wireless and wireline technology strategy, network spectrum, development architecture and vendor management. He is also responsible for the planning and engineering of TELUS network; identifying opportunities, establishing long-term direction and implementing new technologies and services. Prior to this role, Eros served as the executive vice president and chief technology officer of TELUS Mobility, where he integrated TELUS Mobility’s network operations after the acquisition of Clearnet Communications in 2000. During his tenure at Clearnet, Eros held the executive positions of chief technology officer and chief information officer. He was responsible for the initial launches of both the company’s Mike iDEN network and its national PCS CDMA network. Before joining Clearnet in 1995, Eros held senior management positions in engineering and marketing at Bell Mobility. Eros holds a Bachelor of Applied Science, Electrical Engineering from the University of Windsor in 1984 and a Masters in Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business in 1995.

Colleen Boldon is a 30 year veteran of the Information Technology Industry with leadership roles in Private Sector, Academic and Government. Her extensive experience in the public sector includes ICT Investment and Sector Development, the Information Highway, Employment Development and IT Operations. Most recently, as Director of Information Management and Technology at Department of Transportation, she was seen as a Change Agent leading one of government’s largest most complex IT organizations through a multi-year restructuring program achieving significant budget and headcount reductions while increasing project and program efficiency.

In her current role, she is responsible for the Digital Lab and Digital Identity Programs under a new Service New Brunswick initiative called Smart Province. As Director, she leads a diverse team of highly motivated, public and private sector, resources in an open lab environment with a mandate to leverage technologies to accelerate the integration, development and growth of Digital solutions in the public sector.

Colleen currently represents New Brunswick on the Joint Councils Identity Management Sub-Committee (IMSC) and the Digital Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC) Trust Framework Expert Committee (TFEC) where she is seen as a key contributor to the development of national standards to support the Digital Economy called the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework (PCTF).

Marc leads the Government of Canada’s Information Technology policy, strategy and oversight functions. He has had a long and successful career as a senior public and private sector executive in information management and technology. Prior to becoming the GC CTO, Marc served as deputy departmental CIO and acting departmental CIO at Treasury Board Secretariat. Prior to joining the Government of Canada, Marc was VP of Business Development for a local eCommerce Services start-up. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at MONTAGE IT Services, a division of MTS/Allstream, where he held numerous positions in technology consulting and business development.

Neil Butters has been an executive, innovator and a journeyman in the identity and payments market for more than 25 years. For the past 9 years he has held various leadership roles at Interac Association and Acxsys Corporation in both new product development and technology strategy and innovation. Through his leadership, industry knowledge, and expertise, Neil has helped Interac to advance its leadership role in the Canadian payments landscape through the development and widespread adoption of Interac Flash, Interac’s Token Service Provider, Interac Debit on ApplePay, and Mobile Pay. Neil continues to lend his expertise to international industry standard organizations including EMVCo as a Technical Associate. Prior to this, Neil was a solution architect and subject matter expert in the North American public and private sector identity issuance and authentication market and was instrumental in architecting, developing and implementing more than 15 government identity solutions in Canada and the USA at both the Federal and Provincial/State levels. In addition, he has contributed to several leading-edge identity proof of concepts including International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Machine-Readable Travel Document Electronic Passport and the Israeli Border crossing solution for migrant workers (Basel).

Susie De Franco is a veteran business leader in the secure communications market space with over 20 years’ experience in leading the creation, development and management of electronic products and services for Canadian businesses. In 2000, she joined EPO Inc., Canada Post’s subsidiary that operated the epost service in the position of Vice-President, Client Services and Product Management. In her current role as General Manager Digital Channel & Products, Susie De Franco is responsible for leading the organization into the twenty-first century with the creation of a new suite of digital solutions to securely connect every Canadian business to their customers in a reliable and trusted manner from any internet enabled device. This includes canadapost.ca as well as epost.ca sites and mobile. The cornerstone of this transformation is epost, Canada Post’s free digital mail service that lets you receive, pay, manage and store your documents all in one place. Used by over 18,000 companies, epost is the Canadian market leader in electronic document delivery. Epost Connect is a product that offers a better way to securely transmit large files and time-sensitive information between parties. Prior to joining Canada Post, she held progressively responsible positions in Technology, Client Services and Product Management across multiple industries including finance, public sector, oil and gas, and technology.

Since joining DCS in 1991, Mr. Dagenais has developed extensive expertise in the Canadian payment industry, in both the issuer and acquirer components. As Director of Product Marketing for Business services, he created the first retail financing product (linked to a credit card solution) called Accord D (generating several billions of dollars in consumer financing).Mr. Dagenais has been involved in product development, marketing, sales and business development. He has contributed to the creation of innovative products and partnerships, including the early adoption of EMV in Canada in 2005. He was an international marketing advisor for VISA from 1992 to 2007. He was chairman of the board of Interac from 2007 to 2013. Interac is the Canadian PIN debit network. He’s also a member of the Payments Canada Advisory Committee.Mr. Dagenais has been instrumental in building a partnership between financial cooperatives, Desjardins Group and Credit Mutuel. He is the founding force behind the creation of Monetico and continues to lead this joint venture. Monetico is the 14th largest payment processor in the world with 400,000 merchant accounts and over $4 billion transactions. Most recently, Mr. Dagenais has been the leader of the Desjardins Payment group that has been mandated to establish the vision for the future of payment in Desjardins. His leadership has permitted to gain consensus among Desjardins senior executives on a common goal and action plan for the future.

Rob has been leading and motivating the teams behind key transformation projects within the Government of Ontario since 2010. In his current role as Assistant Deputy Minister, Platforms within the Ontario Digital Service, Rob is helping execute on the vision of how modern technology platforms can help enable simpler, faster and better government services. Key platform initiatives include Digital Identity as a component of digital infrastructure that will enable the next generation of public and private sector services.

Rob brings extensive business and technology experience transforming front-line service delivery and back office operations across both the private and public sector. He has more than 20 years of experience developing and supporting large scale information technology solutions across the government, telecom and financial sectors. During his career in Government, Rob has also served as Assistant Deputy Minister of Enterprise Digital Services and Chief Information Officer within the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.

Allan is currently VP Community at ForgeRock Inc. As one of the founders of ForgeRock, he has helped build ForgeRock into a multinational Identity Management software vendor with offices on four continents. Having served in multiple positions during its startup, Allan is now responsible for leading the worldwide ForgeRock community. This includes the contributing developer community, as well as the representation of ForgeRock on multiple standards committees. In the twenty years prior to ForgeRock, Allan founded and ran a successful small consulting business focusing on the Identity Management space, with clients all over the world. With a small and dedicated staff, Guru Associates built a reputation for delivering projects on time, and under budget. Allan currently serves on the Board of Directors of the IEEE-ISTO, Allan is a sought after speaker at international technical conferences where he has spoken on various technical topics.

Louis is at the forefront of Manulife transformation to become a digital, customer-obsessed market leader. He is responsible for building core digital capabilities across web, mobile, channels and relationship management as well as key foundational enablers such as Identity Access Management, Data, DevOps, Automation. Louis is also responsible for Manulife’s engineering transformation including Manulife’s own internal engineering academy. Prior to this, Louis led the technology team supporting two of Manulife’s largest businesses in Canada; Group Benefit and Group Retirement Solutions.

Prior to joining Manulife, Louis held a number of progressively senior roles in engineering, architecture, account management and sales at Zero-Knowledge Systems / Radialpoint focused on building solutions for privacy on the internet, SaaS internet security and premium technical support. Louis holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Sherbrooke.

Hugh McKee is Head of BMO Partners, BMO’s Enterprise partnership team accountable for using strategic partnerships and investments to help accelerate innovation and growth across BMO. He is accountable for developing partnerships with Fintechs, Bigtechs, financial services consortia and innovation accelerators. Prior to his current role, Hugh was the Vice President of Enterprise Strategy in the Office of Strategic Management where he led Enterprise strategic initiatives.

Hugh has also held a number of operating roles within BMO including President and CEO of BMO Mutual Funds and Vice President of Customer Segment Management. Before joining BMO in 2007, he was a Global Account Manager for Monitor Group, a management consulting firm, where he was a leader in the financial services practice. Hugh holds an Honours BA in Economics from Queen’s University and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario.

CJ Ritchie began her BC Public Service career in 1995 with the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Since 2008, CJ has held Assistant Deputy Minister postings with five agencies in various portfolios including the Premier’s Office, the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism, Skills Training and Labour and the Ministry of Jobs, Trade and Technology. In January 2018, CJ was appointed to the role of Associate Deputy Minister and Government Chief Information Officer. In this capacity, she leads the strategy, policy and standards for telecommunications, information technology, IT security and the management of the IM/IT investment portfolio for the Province. Her recent accomplishments include fostering a strong and competitive investment climate driving job creation, business opportunities and growth in B.C.; leading the development of a Mental Health Strategy on behalf of seven ministries; leading the development of the #BC Tech strategy launched in 2016; and creating the Strategic Partnerships office which provided corporate leadership to a $5.8 billion portfolio of the Province’s high value technology contracts.CJ holds a Master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Management from Royal Roads University, two Bachelor degrees from the University of Victoria in Social Work and Psychology, and has taken Advanced Negotiation courses with the Harvard School of Business.

In his current role, Aayaz oversees all things digital for the bank including client experience, enterprise innovation, sales and banking. Under Aayaz’s leadership, CIBC Digital has been recognized as the top mobile bank in Canada for six consecutive years, the top Consumer Digital Bank in North America and one of Canada’s 50 most innovative workplaces.