Executive

Colin Jackson Chair, Development Committee, Nominations Committee

Stephen Huddart Secretary

Paul Newhook Treasurer

Cornelia Molson International Festival of Learning Chair and  Development Committee

Directors

Alexander (Sandy) Foote Director

Julie Hobbs Program Advisory Committee Chair

Jeannine Joubert Program Advisory Committee

Monique LaFontaine Program Advisory Committee

Haley Simons Director-at-large

Jon Tupper Director-at-large

Rick Wolfe Development Committee Chair

Jason van Eyk Executive Director, Ex Officio

Alexander (Sandy) Foote is a longtime high-tech entrepreneur and senior strategist who dedicates his time to social entrepreneurism. Sandy believes strongly in the importance of volunteerism and giving back to the community using the experience he has gained from successfully running his own business for 20 years. Over the past 10 years, Sandy has worked at the board and chair level in the not-for-profit sector helping organizations focused on arts-infused education, the arts, festivals, and charitable giving to build sustainable business models, internal capacity and funding to fulfill their long-term visions. Sandy brings a unique perspective to business planning and design. As former president of Systems Interface, co-founder of the aboriginal company Donna Cona, Vice President for Sierra Systems, mentor for business owners and as a CIO for government, Sandy has a broad range of both business leadership and managerial experience. Able to work well at all levels of management, Sandy understands the short and long term planning requirements and issues confronting both the private and not-for-profit sector. Sandy has extensive experience in providing strategic direction, developing the evolving governance models, implementing change management, leading business planning and building collaborative management teams.  In addition, Sandy has a special interest in new media and ePublishing. The former chair of MASC, Ottawa Art Gallery and ArtsSmarts, Sandy sits on the board of the Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation and is a member of the Canadian Public Health Association Finance Committee.

Julie Hobbs  currently works as team leader on a special project for the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sports (MELS), accompanying school administrators in Quebec's English school boards in their organization of  services for students with special needs. Julie retired in 2007 as Assistant Director General of the Riverside School Board after over 30 years in education as a teacher, principal, consultant for students with special needs, Coordinator of Student Services, Director of Curriculum and Student Services and Assistant Director General.  She played a significant role in the introduction of the Quebec Curriculum Reform in both the English and Immersion programs at Riverside and at the provincial level.  Frequently invited to represent the English community of Quebec in the development of the provincial policy and provincial-level reviews of special education for MELS, she is one of the "go-to" people in the province for any topic on special needs. Julie has helped to coordinate the ArtsSmarts approach at Riverside for the last 10 years and continues as a community representative on the Riverside Arts Advisory Committee. As part of her new role with MELS, Julie is coordinating the ArtsSmarts Quebec research intiative with the English school boards and local artists. The initiative looks at the impact of the ArtsSmarts philosophy and approach on student engagement and student behaviour. Projects are underway in 17 schools across the province in the first year of a two-year study.

Stephen Huddart  is the President & CEO at the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation in Montréal. He manages the Foundation's granting program and is the Director of SiG@McConnell. His career includes leadership positions in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked with children's singer Raffi as Executive Director of Troubadour Music Inc. and the non-profit Troubadour Institute. He also co-founded and operated the Alma Street Café, a triple bottom line business that for several years was Vancouver's jazz café of record. Following this he held several executive positions with the BC SPCA, where he introduced innovations in humane education, animal-assisted therapy, and humane food labeling. His community service commitments include advisory roles with Philanthropic Foundations Canada, the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies, ArtsSmarts, Les Amis de la Montagne, and the Canada Council. He has a Masters of Management degree from McGill. 

Colin Jackson  is currently the Chair of the Board of ArtsSmarts. He also is the Chair of imagiNation 150 (Calgary), an organization dedicated to the celebration of Canada's sesquicentennial in 2017, the chair of the Rosebud Centre for the Arts, and a member of the Senate of the University of Calgary, among other boards and organizations. His work history includes being the founding Artistic Director of Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg), being a drama producer for the CBC, Executive Director of the Confederation Centre of the Arts (Charlottetown) and President of The EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts (Calgary).  He has served as a member of the Prime Minister's External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities, a member of the Mayor's Panel on Urban Sustainability, a member of the Executive of the Canada Council for the Arts, as a board member of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Upper Room Food Ministry and as Calgary Chair of Harvard's Schools and Scholarships Committee. He is the recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee medal and a Canada Council Senior Arts Award. Colin Jackson holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from Harvard University.

Jeanine Joubert is a Superintendent of Education responsible for all elementary and secondary schools of Oshawa for the Durham District School Board in Ontario. Jeannine's teaching career began on 1986 as a teacher of French and Drama in the Toronto District School Board. Having taught all elementary grades, Jeannine was seconded for two years to the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) as a Project Director. Having worked for two Ontario school boards, Jeannine has extensive experience and knowledge of all levels of the school system, as well as a deep commitment to fostering creativity and critical thinking. Jeannine has a Master of Education from the University of Toronto OISE, in Curriculum. Her passion is the arts and she is currently working in visual arts, and music. Jeannine has served as a Board member for the Beach Art Center in Toronto for over 15 years.

Monique Lafontaine is responsible for arts education in theatre and visual arts and translation at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, in Prince Edward Island. Monique has a B.A. in translation and has studied theatre and music. She has been involved in the arts as an actress, playwright, director, arts educator and festival organizer. For over five years, she has been a board member of ACT (a community theatre) where she also served as director of theatre. Monique has acted in many plays and directed several productions for ACT. She has also directed productions for school and family audiences, and for the Homburg Theatre of the Confederation Centre of the Arts. For many years, Monique has offered theatre workshops to teachers through the ArtsSmarts program. She is the president of the Acadian festival in Charlottetown that puts on cultural festivals in various locations throughout PEI every year.

Cornelia Molson  received her education at Concordia University in Montreal and has been a venture capitalist since 1973. In 1980, she founded Covan Corporate Consultants to provide planning and financial services to small-to-medium sized businesses. In 1989, she formed Covan Corporate Capital Inc. to manage a limited partnership formed to provide various forms of capital to emerging businesses. In 1991, she formed Covan Contract Capital Inc. to provide transaction financing to these businesses. Cornelia has participated in over 25 startup and over 30 early stage financial and technological companies in North America and Europe. She serves on the Board of Directors and/or Advisors of numerous emerging companies and is Founder and/or Director of many not-for-profit organizations. 

Jon Laughlin Tupper is the Director of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. He has previously held positions as the Director of the Confederation Center Art Gallery in Charlottetown, the Director of the Walter Phillips Gallery and Associate Director of Creative Residencies in Media and Visual Arts at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He graduated from the School of Art, University of Manitoba. After a brief and underwhelming career as an artist Tupper became the Executive Director of the Plug In Gallery in Winnipeg. He was appointed to the position of Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs of the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1986 and while there organized several international touring exhibitions. In addition to Canada he has placed exhibitions in Holland, Switzerland, England, Spain, Turkey, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, New York, Seattle, Columbia, and Brazil. Tupper represented Canada as the Commissioner to the 1998 Sao Paulo Bienial and Co-Commissioner to the 2001 Venice Biennale. He was as co editor of the Canadian edition of the Mexican contemporary art journal entitled Poliester and writes for a regular basis for visual arts journals.  Tupper is the current President of the Canadian Museums Association.

Rick Wolfe is the principal of PostStone Corporation since 1991. PostStone plans and executes dialogue programs for business. Clients include, Art Gallery of Ontario, IBM, Cisco, LG Electronics, Clifford Chance, RBC, TD Bank, United Communities Credit Union, Barclays Bank, Lifelabs, Siemens, SAS and Microsoft. Previously, Rick was a senior account service executive with the advertising agency, McCann-Erickson Worldwide in Toronto, ON and from 1987 to 1991, in Tokyo, Japan. As a regional Account Group Director there, he supervised the development of strategy and the creation of marketing campaigns for use in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and other Asian markets. From September, 1992 until March, 1993, Rick combined his client assignments with the duties of Acting General Manager of the Banff Centre for Management. In Tokyo, he was a member of the board of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan and the moderator of the Japan Marketing Association's International Business Seminar program. At the Schulich School of Business, he has taught International Marketing and Brand Management in the MBA program and was co-director of a research study on organizational innovation for Schulich's Executive Education Centre. He is a frequent guest on BNN and has appeared on CBC's The National and CTV's Canada AM, providing insight on business issues. Rick is a native of Toronto; he has a B.A. from York University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Drama, specializing in Stage Direction, from the University of Alberta.