RADIUS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Entrepreneur - in - Residence Mentor
- Equity Centred Accelerator Consultant & Entrepreneur - in - Residence Mentor
Alia is a social entrepreneur and lecturer at Simon Fraser University, where she teaches Sustainable Innovation and Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Passionate about the fields of sustainability, poverty alleviation and impact investing, Alia is the Founder of Luv The Grub, an emerging social enterprise that operates at a number of levels in the food system by capturing produce seconds that would otherwise go to waste, hires newcomer refugees and immigrants through a paid employment training program and produces delicious chutneys and spreads for the local market. In addition, Alia is also the Co-Founder of Liv & Lola, a fair trade home decor business that works with artisans in rural areas of Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Thailand where employment opportunities are scarce in an effort to lift them, their families and their communities out of poverty.
Job Titles:
- Portfolio Manager
- Equity Advisor, Special Projects
Amanda joins the RADIUS Consulting & Training Services as a Portfolio Manager and also advises on Executive Education equity projects such as the Digital Innovation and Leadership (DIAL) program. Amanda is a seasoned project manager with 15 years of experience across the non-profit, public, education, and labour sectors. Previously, at the University of British Columbia, Amanda worked toward building a more diverse campus and managing interdisciplinary pilot projects that brought together participants from around the world. She applied her deep curiosity and collaborative approach to finding creative solutions to complex problems, all of which she is excited to bring to her work with RADIUS.
A white settler, and cis-gender woman, Amanda believes in the power of language and that she should listen more than she speaks. An avid paradigm flipper, she works to disrupt systems of oppression and elevate the voices, knowledge, and priorities of those living at the margins. A lifelong learner - working, studying and living across Canada and the world - she holds an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies from the University of Calgary and a Master of Arts in Sociology from Queens University. Amanda and her family live at the foot of the Rocky Mountains on Treaty 7 lands, the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Piikani, Kainai), Tsuut'ina First Nations, Stoney Nakoda First Nations (Bearspaw, Chiniki, Goodstoney), and Metis Nation of Alberta Region 3.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Operations
Bonnie has been with RADIUS since 2018, generally managing RADIUS' needs in the fields of HR, finance, operations, and organizational project management. Previously, Bonnie spent 10 years in post-secondary education at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity's Leadership Programming area. Bonnie's introduction to high-paced logistics, communications, and operations came from her days as a licensed aeronautical radio operator with the Government of Alberta, spending several wildfire seasons at the Provincial Forest Fire Centre as an Aircraft Operations Dispatcher, and in the northern boreal forests as a Wildfire Radio Operator when crisis called.
Bonnie is new to these unceded Coast Salish lands, and is grateful to call them home. She has a music degree from Western University and sings with Elektra Women's Choir. Bonnie completed her Executive MBA with the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University in 2022.
Job Titles:
- Coordinator, Communications & Digital Media
Caitlin Hill (she/they) is an interdisciplinary creative living and working on undeded Coast Salish territory. With an eclectic background in opera, theatre, dance, design, and digital marketing, they are passionate about bringing stories to life through stage and screen. As a marketing professional and graphic designer, Caitlin has honed their skills in the non-profit and arts and culture sector, most recently working for community arts hub PoMoArts before pursuing a Diploma of Graphic Design as BCIT.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Advisor, Refugee Livelihood Lab
Camille co-designed the Refugee Livelihood Lab at RADIUS. The lab aims to increase the social, political and economic capital of diverse racialized migrant communities. Camille's role includes using the lab's resources to amplify initiatives emerging from communities with lived experience of forced displacement and migration. She also works with an incredible team to surface systemic patterns that cause harm and support new patterns which value the dignity, experiences, skills, and dreams of racialized migrants. She brings 18+ years of experience in community-based facilitation, program design, conflict mediation and healing-centred engagement.
In addition to her work at RADIUS, Camille practices somatic therapy. She has a rich connection to the dreaming world, loves poetry, spontaneous dance parties and her two sisters.
Job Titles:
- Manager of the RBC First Peoples Enterprise Accelerator Program
- Manager, First Peoples Enterprise Accelerator Program
Candice is the manager of the RBC First Peoples Enterprise Accelerator Program (FPEAP). This program works in partnership with Indigenous-led organizations to co-create entrepreneurship programming that will best serve their communities. The FPEAP is committed to delivering entrepreneurship programming with an Indigenous lens, upholding Indigenous knowledge and worldview. Candice believes that an economy that is dynamic, just, sustainable, and resilient is one that supports and is informed by the wisdom of Indigenous entrepreneurs. She wishes to centre this wisdom and strength within the FPEAP, and work with partners who do the same. Candice brings a background in social enterprise development within urban Indigenous organizations to her role, as well as an MBA in Social Enterprise Leadership from the University of Fredericton.
Candice is of Secwepemc, Chinese and European ancestry. Growing up in northern BC has given her a deep appreciation for the wild parts of this province…and within herself She lives for exploring both while on her DRZ400.
Job Titles:
- Registered Clinical Counsellor at Strawberries
Carla Carvalho, a registered clinical counsellor at Strawberries and Sunshine Wellness Collective in Port Coquitlam, B.C., has always been passionate about storytelling as a pathway to empathy and healing. Originally
Job Titles:
- Indigenous Business Stories Project Casewriter
Carnation is a native of Zimbabwe who came to Canada at the turn of the century. She has the privilege of serving and living in First Nations communities delivering health care services and capacity building as a Registered Nurse and a Band Administrator. Through both of these roles, she has witnessed the power of storytelling to heal, reprimand and motivate people. First Nations communities have traditional ways of knowing that are embedded in their culture and she believes it's important to highlight these stories to decolonize dominant frameworks so that minority frameworks are also given the spotlight.
Carnation was drawn to RADIUS because of the principles that the organization upholds - they resonate with her passion for advocating for marginalized groups to have better access to services and equal community development. As a case writer, Carnation will bring exciting skills and experience to the RADIUS team, including a lifelong writing passion since grade school, her ease with writing academic papers since undergraduate studies, and her current studies as part of her MBA program.
During her limited leisure time, she enjoys listening to podcasts and TED Talks, watching period dramas, hiking, and making Jeff Bezos rich bargain hunting on Amazon.
David Dunne is a Senior Lecturer Emeritus of Marketing and Co-Director of Rotman Teaching Effectiveness Centre. David is an award-winning educator, holding the President's Teaching Award at the University of Toronto and the 3M National Teaching Fellowship. He has taught and directed several executive programs on marketing, innovation and strategy worldwide. David co-founded RADIUS and is Board Chair of Academics Without Borders and travels frequently to Nepal, where he is a volunteer professor with a medical school in Kathmandu. He is an avid yoga practitioner and loves to tour by bicycle.
Job Titles:
- Lab Manager, Equity - Centred Accelerator
Job Titles:
- Manager, Health Promotion Lab
Ilhan is a Somali-Canadian whose parents' migration journey brought her to these unceded Coast Salish Lands at a very young age. Stemming from her family's experience of being racialized newcomers, Ilhan has been passionate about addressing social and health inequities and developed a commitment to social justice. Having spent some time in community activism, youth work and health promotion in the Lower Mainlands of Vancouver, Ilhan then moved to Toronto to pursue her Masters in Public Health and gain a critical intersectional analysis on what promotes vulnerability to health inequities. She has recently returned to BC and is ecstatic to get involved in health equity and community work. When she's not working, you can find her embarking on solo travels somewhere in the world.
Job Titles:
- Manager, Communications and Recruitment
Jessie is an empathetic communicator and digital media practitioner supporting RADIUS' communications and programmatic recruitment portfolio. Previous to this role, she spent a decade in marketing and business development at a national LGBTQ2IA+ media organization.
Jessie's interest in growing food and just food systems led her to a board position on a poverty reduction organization in Metro Vancouver, where she provided communications support. In 2019, she launched her own venture, a small-batch kombucha business.
Jessie is an alum of SFU's School of Communication and Women + Gender Studies. She is a mother, daughter, sister, and settler living on Coast Salish Lands and can be found exploring farmers' markets and vintage shops on weekends.
Job Titles:
- Project Director of the Inner Activist
Jorge Salazar works as Project Director of the Inner Activist, a project of Tides Canada. The Inner Activist is a leadership education program that is part of a global movement rooted in social justice, equity, self-awareness and our place in nature. Jorge co-founded, in partnership with immigrant and refugee youth and allies, the Fresh Voices Initiative with Vancouver Foundation, where he worked as Project Manager. Fresh Voices gathers a network of more than 200 migrant youth to address systemic issues via policy change in BC. Jorge came to Canada as a refugee from Colombia in late 2000. He uses his own immigration journey, life experiences, and training to bridge communities and facilitate positive change.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships
- Key Member
Laurel (Oluchi) Sabur was born on the beautiful island of Jamaica. She discovered her love for cultures and communities through her travels and migration to Canada. She enjoys learning about intercultural ways of having a symbiotic relationship with our planet. She loves immersing herself in nature and also exploring herself through movement.
Laurel serves as a key member of RADIUS' leadership team and is responsible for developing and leading partnerships and funding strategies for our work. Laurel has garnered experience in social finance, community economic development, and investment management. Her interdisciplinary career includes mobilizing capital in communities on behalf of investors and funders (family offices, foundations, corporations). Most recently, she worked with one of Canada's wholesalers for the Social Finance Fund (SFF), sourcing and conducting due diligence on investment opportunities and initiating the community investments strategy. One of her interests is exploring more community-owned and led funding strategies. She is also a social entrepreneur and has worked with governments, non-profits, and corporations in Jamaica, Canada, Ghana, and Kenya.
Miranda is a Portfolio Manager joining the growing Consulting Services team at RADIUS. She is an experienced engagement specialist and project manager, from the tuberculosis and housing crises in Nunavut to campus action on the climate emergency. She is passionate about bringing together community, stakeholders, and decision-makers to make more people-centred, equitable and creative decisions, projects and policies. With a Masters in strategic management and planning from University College Dublin and ten years working in and consulting for public sector organizations, her interest is working with the messiness of human behaviour (emotions, power structures, etc.) in social innovation and civic leadership and engagement, and facilitating safe spaces for tough conversations and for underrepresented voices to shape their futures. Her worldview and ways of being have been rooted and influenced as a second-generation immigrant, her lineage of strong Chinese matriarchs, and as a settler born on Algonquin Anishinabe territory and spending the last 15 years on unceded Coast Salish territory.
When not working, she is an avid noodle-eater, runner, road tripper, outdoor adventurer with her little family, and founder and seamstress of a small clothing project nooi (a play on ‘neui' 女, the Cantonese word for daughter) raising funds for community organizations. She is also the co-chair and board member of the hua foundation, a non-profit working towards racial equity and building civic engagement and capacity in the East Asian diaspora to work towards social change.
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- Manager, Refugee Livelihood Lab
- Program Manager, Refugee Livelihood Lab
Nada El Masry (she/her) is a Libyan-born Palestinian who came to the unceded land of the Coast Salish peoples just over ten years ago. Due to her life experiences and education, Nada has fostered a deep passion for social justice and has shaped her life goals around values rooted in that field. She has been working with and engaging newcomers for several years and currently manages the Refugee Livelihood Lab, which aims to build social, economic, and political capital for racialized refugee and migrant communities.
Nada is pursuing a Master's in Equity Studies in Education at SFU and was a recipient of a 2019 BC Anti-Racism Award. She has also been nominated by the Future of Good as a 2020 Top 21 Founders to Watch, and received a 2018 Leadership Award from Voices of Muslim Women. In her free time, Nada enjoys playing and watching soccer.
Paola Ardiles BSc (Hons) MHSc MBA is a public health advocate, an educator and a social entrepreneur. Throughout her career, she has led various collaborative and innovative approaches in research, policy and practice, to enable a broader understanding of our collective role in promoting health and well-being for all. Paola came to Canada as a refugee child in the mid-seventies and formed part of the Chilean diaspora who established itself in Toronto during the military dictatorship. Since then, Paola has been driven to create social change by sharing knowledge and creating space for people's voices to be heard. Today, she serves as a bridge or a "knowledge broker" through her roles as an educator, mentor, advocate, policy analyst, entrepreneur, advisor, facilitator and public speaker. In 2017, Paola was recognized as one of TD Bank's 10th Most Influential Hispanic Canadians.
Born and raised in Ghana, West Africa, Raphael has over five years of experience managing and coordinating community development projects such as Hope For Life, an initiative he co-founded in 2015 that aims to provide mentorship, motivation, and networking opportunities for students in deprived areas in Ghana.
Raphael was the youth program coordinator for DIVERSEcity, where he created youth-led settlement programs for newcomer and refugee youth with a trauma-informed approach, overseeing the growth of the portfolio.
In 2019, Raphael worked with RADIUS' Health Promotion Lab as a research and evaluation officer. He coordinated the work of five health-promoting ventures and supported the Lab with evidence-informed research and analysis, helping to create a theory of change and evaluation plan.Raphael believes that systems change can effectively be achieved with a community-driven, multi-faceted, and inclusive approach that centres equity.
He holds a master's degree in Political Science from SFU, specializing in public policy and international relations, and in his leisure time, loves to watch and play sports, especially soccer, basketball, and table tennis.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Co - Founder and Former Director
Shawn Smith is the co-founder and former Director of RADIUS, an Adjunct Professor at SFU's Beedie School of Business, and Director of Social Innovation at SFU. Having spent the last 15 years working with, in and on social impact organizations on three continents, he is also a founder at several other organizations including IMPAQTO (Ecuador), Global Agents for Change and Education Generation, co-led the ALT/Now Economic Inequality systems change program at the Banff Centre, and speaks and consults regularly on social innovation and entrepreneurship. Shawn is a top rated educator, Business in Vancouver top 40 under 40 recipient, and completed his MBA at the University of Oxford in 2010 as a Skoll Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship.
Simran (she/ her) is a Research Associate at RADIUS SFU, exploring internationally trained physicians' experiences with the medical licensing process in BC and the systemic barriers throughout this process. Simran settled on the traditional, unceded Coast Salish lands over sixteen years ago. Simran completed a Bachelor of Arts in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and is passionate about health equity, im/migrant and community health. Outside of work, Simran leads the SFU Health Sciences Undergraduate Journal and is involved in research examining the health literacy levels of post-secondary students.
Job Titles:
- Project Manager
- Project Manager, Refugee Livelihood Lab
- Research, and Advocacy )
Born and raised in Dubai (UAE), Yara is a Palestinian refugee who had felt detached from her ‘home' in the Gaza Strip for the longest time. Now, having spent years contemplating and unlearning colonial narratives, she considers the meaning of statelessness, as well as how systems of power co-opt and shape refugee experiences. Prior to settling on unceded Coast Salish lands, Yara worked at the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi as a MENA research analyst and as the deputy advisor and project coordinator for the UAE Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development. She completed her MA in International Studies at Simon Fraser University, where she was a Researcher for the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies. In her spare time, Yara enjoys reading sci-fi, listening to heavy metal, and walking for long hours to nowhere in particular.