About

For over twenty years, Rich has provided advice and expertise in both the Life/Health Insurance and Group Benefits Marketplace. Rich began his career with PPI Financial Group, a national insurance brokerage company. He is currently a partner at Vanta Group, which provides group benefits, insurance, risk management, and pension planning services to many of Canada’s most successful business people.
He previously served on the Edmonton Board of ADVOCIS, the association representing insurance and financial advisors and he is a member of CALU, the conference for advanced life underwriters in Canada.

Chris’s passion for family business was fostered at his family’s third-generation cattle ranching business. He now runs BioRefinex, which is commercializing Alberta-developed technology to convert agricultural wastes into high-grade organic fertilizers and renewable natural gas. 
Chris has over 25 years of international energy, environment, and agriculture commodity operations experience. He has held senior management positions with Direct Energy Marketing Limited, Centrica plc, and Enron Europe Limited. He is a board member of family owned and operated businesses McIntyre Ranching Co. Ltd., Tessera Ventures Inc., and SharedKey Inc.

Dean is President of Calvert Home Mortgage Investment Corporation, He has also served as the Founder and Chair of the Private Mortgage Lenders Forum and as director and President of the Alberta Mortgage Brokers Association, member of the Alberta Securities Commission and the Exempt Market Advisory Committee, director of Youth Central and Energy Insurance Group, and director and Chair of a non-profit group cSPACE Projects.

Samantha is the Chief Financial Officer at Boardwalk Properties Company Ltd., a family company that seeded the foundation of Boardwalk REIT, a Canadian multifamily owner and operator that strives to Build Better Communities, where love always lives ™.
Samantha joined Boardwalk REIT as a member of the company’s founding family and Board of Trustees in 2013. She also oversees the Corporate Development Committee, which implements Boardwalk’s strategic initiatives to diversify their portfolio and elevate Resident experience. Prior to joining Boardwalk, Samantha was a Senior Accountant for KPMG Canada.

Casey has led various Hutchinson Acquisitions Corp. (HAC) businesses, beginning with Daytona Self Storage in 2004, followed by A&B Concrete Pumping in 2007 and its scale out to Reach Construction Services Group. He led HAC into commercial/industrial real estate in 2010, next contributing to growing housing partnerships as HAC President in 2016.
Casey has firsthand experience of many aspects of acquisitions, scaled strategic growth, partnership, succession, and governance. As Chief Strategy Officer of Tacada, he ensures consistency in governance, business framework, and performance metrics across all business units in pursuit of long-term strategic goals.

Lesley is a mom of three wonderful kids – Isla, Harper, and Cecelia. Lesley and her sister Jill run Max & Maude, a children’s apparel, footwear, and gift boutique in Sherwood Park. She is a director of By Dr. Mom, which makes functional, educational, and trusted children’s products designed by physicians. She currently serves as board chair of Park Paving Ltd.,  her family’s construction business, and director of several family holding companies.
She is passionate about public education and chairs the Elk Island Public Schools Committee of School Councils.

In 2011 Nigel moved to Canada from the UK where he managed the HSBC North East Region Wealth Management proposition. Nigel joined RBC Private Banking as Vice President in 2017 from HSBC Bank Canada where he headed up the Commercial Business Banking team for Edmonton and Alberta North.
Nigel has previously consulted for firms such as Royal Bank of Scotland as well as education authorities, local government and non-profit organizations. He holds the international designation of Chartered Financial Planner from the Chartered Insurance Institute as well as PFP from the Canadian Securities Institute.

Grant’s passion for family business was first kindled by his parents’ livestock auction mart, followed by his mother’s catering business. In 1981 he joined forces with his mother, Jean Paré, and other family members to form Company’s Coming Publishing Limited, which they operated for 30 years. Since then, Grant founded Epic Legacies Inc., a publisher of large format collector edition history books.

Dean Mehrotra’s work, which deals with family business, corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, ESG, and international financial markets, has been published in leading finance journals, and cited by major international news outlets. He is a member of the Canadian Sustainable Finance Network. 
Dean Mehrotra was a past-President of the Northern Finance Association and served as an inaugural director on its board from 2013-2017. He was a visiting professor at the Institute for Economic Research at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo and a Shimomura Fellow at the Research Institute at the Development Bank of Japan. 

Leah is a corporate lawyer and a partner with Bennett Jones LLP.  She has been an advisor to a broad range of corporate and lending clients on various commercial matters for 30 years. She has advised clients, including many family owned businesses, on mergers, acquisitions, sale transactions, corporate structurings, reorganizations, lending, and commercial transactions. She is routinely involved in negotiating and drafting commercial agreements relating to joint ventures, construction contracts, private financing arrangements, unanimous shareholder agreements and employee stock option plans. She provides corporate and governance advice to private corporations and their boards of directors. She represents clients in the construction, engineering, banking, oilfield service and waste management industries.  She was designated a Family Enterprise Advisor in 2023.

Taylor is passionate about her family, whether raising her own young family or working alongside her family. She works at York Realty Inc., an industrial real estate development company that provides Property Solutions Simplified™ to its clients throughout western Canada. In her role as Chief Operating Officer, Taylor aligns the company’s vision and values with business objectives and strategy.
Prior to joining York Realty, Taylor worked as a lawyer in a regional corporate law firm and taught advocacy courses at the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary.

Matt is an experienced leader splitting his career between strategy consulting with Deloitte, EY Canada, and Productivity Alberta, and working for local family businesses including Ledcor, Umay, and the Latimer Family Trust (Cashco Financial). 
Matt understands the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship shared by ABFI’s members having  been a local business co-founder himself at Polar Park Brewing Company. He also serves as an Entrepreneur In Residence with Spring Activator focused on coaching global entrepreneurs and impact investors. 
Matt has his MBA, and is currently completing is FEA and ICD.D designations. 

Vern focuses on understanding how organizations use analytics, arguments, and analogies to change routines and to create new capabilities. Using qualitative research methods, Vern has conducted studies in the predictive analytics and online display advertising industries. 
Vern earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and BA in Economics from the University of California. He is currently the Academic Director of the Alberta Business Family Institute and and Associate Professor in the department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management at the Alberta School of Business.

Lloyd researches family business, strategic management, organizational theory, and entrepreneurship. He is interested in how entrepreneurs use family as a resource and the strategic advantages conferred by  “family based” approaches to organizing economic activity.
He helped found the international Theories of Family Enterprise Academic conference. In 2020-21, he received the Family Enterprise Research Conference Lifetime Influence and Impact Award. He is a professor in the department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Management and past Academic Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise.