The Board of Directors is made up of a diverse group of community members who are dedicated to ensuring everyone in Toronto has access to enough healthy food. These members provide the governance for our organization sharing their wisdom, expertise and leadership.
Board of Directors 2024
Christine Farrugia, Chair
John Lee, Secretary/Treasurer
Kelly Jackson
Darrick Li
Robert Vincent
Sheila Chau
Diane Einhorning
Barbara Emmanuel
Katherine Festeryga
Richard Liu
Jill McDowell
Kareen Proudian
Christine Farrugia, Chair
Christine is currently the Vice President, Client Strategy & Experience at Wealthsimple where she is responsible for ensuring all of Wealthsimple’s clients get the exceptional support and service they need as they take steps towards financial freedom. Christine also runs her own business – Christine and Company – where she provides career and leadership coaching to leaders who want to elevate their career and impact. Prior to her current role she spent 10 years at Loblaw Companies Ltd in a variety of roles including consumer insights, mergers and acquisitions, post-merger integration and loyalty. She also has experience at a Big 4 accounting firm doing transaction advisory services and in private equity. Christine received her Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Applied Economics from Queen’s University and her Masters of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
John Lee, Secretary/Treasurer
John is a policy professional with over 10 years of experience in the Ontario Public Service. He has broad social policy and strategic policy/planning experience over a range of cross-government projects and transformative initiatives related to social assistance, basic income, poverty reduction, disability issues and employment services. In addition to his policy experience, John spent five years in California leading fund development and programs at The Bread Project, a bakery and culinary skills training social enterprise. He has a Hons. B.Sc. in Economics and Computer Science from University of Toronto.
Kelly Jackson
Kelly is the Vice-President, External Affairs and Professional Learning at Humber College. Kelly has extensive experience in the government and post-secondary education sectors. Prior to joining Humber, Kelly held numerous roles in provincial politics including Director of Communications to the Minister of Finance and Director of Policy to the Minister of Education. Kelly spent a number of years overseeing strategic and integrated planning, government relations and stakeholder engagement at Seneca College. She also has experience in research project management having coordinated international conference series and academic publications at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo. Kelly holds a Master of Arts in Political Science and a Graduate Diploma in German and European Studies from York University and has studied at Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg and the University of Sheffield. She is co-author of the children’s book Our Canada: A Year With Canuck Kids. Kelly is the Immediate Past President of the Board of Directors for the Empire Club of Canada.
Darrick Li
Darrick is currently the VP Client Partner, North America, at Guideline (formerly Standard Media Index) with 16 years of measurement, advertising, and marketing background. He works with prestigious media platform clients including Apple, Paramount, Google, The Trade Desk, Rogers, Bell, and Corus. His unwavering work ethic and ambition to become a great storyteller led him to previously be a part of the Marketing faculty at Seneca College in North York, teaching in the Social Media graduate program. He is also a regular contributor to advertising trade publications in the US and Canada and is an active member of the Canadian Marketing Association’s Media Council. In 2023, Darrick was named an Emerging Leader by The Peak and was also recognized by the Canadian Media Manifesto for his contributions and support of Canadian local media. Darrick has a passion for food with culinary training from George Brown College and aspires to be the best chef at home to his wife, two children, and Bernese Mountain dog.
Robert Vincent
Robert is a retail and consumer goods professional having worked in and consulted for both industries throughout his career. He has a passion for consumer-facing businesses and currently works at Partake Brewing as Chief of Staff driving strategic projects and supporting the CEO to scale across North America. Prior to his current role he was a consultant with Boston Consulting Group focused in the retail & consumer practice and also worked at Loblaw & Shoppers Drug Mart holding a variety of roles within the loyalty and analytics team. Robert has received his Honours of Business Administration (HBA) from the Ivey Business School at Western University and his MBA from London Business School (UK).
Sheila Chau
Sheila is a seasoned HR professional with over a decade of experience working in the financial services & technology industry. She is experienced in coaching, digital/tech recruitment, organizational development, talent management, performance management, and employee engagement. She is currently the Director, HR Business Partner at Wealthsimple responsible for overseeing and implementing human resources programs and practices that foster growth, innovation, and organizational effectiveness. Prior to this, she held a variety of roles at Capital One and Randstad. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from McMaster University.
Diane Einhorning
Diane brings over a decade of experience as a volunteer and board member of one of NYHFB’s member agencies. She launched a vibrant community kitchen that included a healthy breakfast program, cooking classes and community lunches; as well as fostered partnerships that included a community garden with a local adult ESL learning center. On the board she drove change and advocated for various policy changes that included the development of a strategic plan and moving to a governance model. At the onset of the pandemic, Diane managed food distribution and expanded the food delivery program. Her journey is a blend of dedication to community service with a background in marketing and design.
Barbara Emmanuel
Barbara Emanuel recently retired from working for the City of Toronto for 30 years. As Manager of the Toronto Food Strategy, she led a team that incubated numerous initiatives to promote a healthy, sustainable food system for Toronto. This required collaboration and leveraging resources from multiple City Departments as well as engagement with provincial and federal government and community partners including North York Harvest. Barbara was also responsible for the Toronto Food Policy Council, the longest established multi-stakeholder food council at the municipal level. Throughout her career, Barbara has been active at the global level through multiple organizations. Barbara is the chair of RUAF (Resources on Food and Urban Agriculture), was a member of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact steering committee for several years, helped support the Food Systems Working Group supported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and a number of global food organizations and is currently engaged in developing market related initiatives through GAIN. Barbara is a founding member of the C40 Food Systems Working Group which works with cities across the world to address issues related to food systems transformation.
Katherine Festeryga
Katherine holds nearly a decade of experience in both the public and private sector, helping to shape policy and advocate for policy priorities in Canada. Katherine recently launched an agricultural technology initiative, Edie Farming, focused on food insecurity solutions for urban spaces. Previously, Katherine was on the policy and communications team at Sidewalk Labs – a landmark Google company that applied forward-thinking urban design and cutting edge technology to the world’s biggest challenges. Prior to Sidewalk Labs, Katherine led legislative and strategic policy communications for NAFTA negotiations and Buy American tariffs for the Province of Ontario at the Ministry of Economic Development and Growth. Katherine holds her Master’s of Public Policy, specializing in climate impacts on food supply at Northwestern University and is a University of Western Ontario graduate with a BA in History and double major in Political Science.
Richard Liu
Richard is an accomplished board advisor and executive compensation consultant. He is currently a Principal at Hugessen Consulting where he advises compensation committees and senior executives on designing effective compensation strategies that align performance with organizational objectives. Richard takes a collaborative approach to developing tailored solutions that deliver a competitive and responsible approach to executive compensation. Richard is also an active thought leader and regularly authors briefings and articles on the field of executive compensation and related governance. He is a speaker and co-presenter with the Institute of Corporate Directors in its Directors Education Program. Richard graduated from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University with an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree.
Jill McDowell
Jill joined the City of Toronto in 2000 as a Health Promotion Specialist working at Toronto Public Health advancing knowledge exchange, healthy public policy and community development on a range of topics, including food access & security, air quality, and children’s environmental health. During this time, Jill assumed a 2-year position as a Community Health Officer in many of Toronto’s neighbourhood improvement areas brokering actions and programs based on community need. In 2015, Jill joined Toronto Public Health’s Food Strategy team, focusing on healthy food system change and food programming for newcomers and refugees. When the pandemic hit Toronto, Jill joined the City’s Emergency Operation Centre supporting COVD-19 emergency food access in partnership with organizations working front-line. Her work continued to focus on food-related issues post-COVID as a member of the City of Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Office. Prior to joining the City of Toronto, Jill worked for Pollution Probe – a not-for-profit environmental organization in Toronto. She managed their annual Clean Air Campaign and Children’s Environmental Health program, with a focus on Indoor Air Quality in Schools. Jill left the City of Toronto in early 2024 to pursue other endeavours.
Kareen Proudian
Kareen is a management consultant with nearly two decades of experience in strategy development, new growth, and planning. She has worked with and for a variety of consultancies, and most recently built her own growth strategy firm, Faculty of Change Inc. Her industry experience spans financial services, retail, CPG and hospitality, where she has helped clients successfully define growth frameworks, reimagine customer experiences, and prototype solutions for impact. Kareen holds an MBA from HEC Paris, and a B.Com from McGill University. She is a key contributor to Syllabus, a newsletter highlighting shifts in market and changes in human behaviour that impact strategy development.