Board of Directors
The David Suzuki Foundation's work is guided by a team of dedicated volunteer governors. They bring knowledge and expertise from a wide range of backgrounds, including education, public engagement, broadcasting, law, finance, economics and social justice. In addition to considerable time commitments, our board members contribute financially to the Foundation. Read more about each of the Foundation's board members below.
Dr. Tara Cullis, President and Co-Founder
An award-winning writer and former faculty member of Harvard University, Dr. Cullis is president and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. She has been a key player in environmental movements in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and British Columbia. Dr. Cullis has been adopted and named by the Haida, the Gitga'at, the Heiltsuk and the Nam'gis First Nations. An active campaigner and remarkable organizer, Dr. Cullis founded or co-founded nine organizations before starting the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990.
James Hoggan, Chair
President, owner and founder of Hoggan & Associates, James Hoggan is one of Canada's most successful public relations firms, specializing in managing difficult issues for government, industry and not-for-profit organizations in North America, Europe and Asia. As principal of a longstanding research project on the subject, Hoggan is also a leading expert in Canadian attitudes toward sustainability. A law school graduate with a long-standing interest in social justice, he is also a trustee of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education, chair of the Canadian chapter of Al Gore's organization, The Climate Project, and co-founder of the influential climate change website DeSmogBlog.com, and of the sustainable energy website, EnergyBoom.com. He has written and released two books in the last year, including, Do the Right Thing: PR Tips for a Skeptical Public, a compilation of public relations tips and theory; and Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, an expose of the questionable PR campaign and tactics used to sow international confusion about the causes and implications of climate change.
Pauline D'Amboise, Secretary
Ms. D'Amboise has worked for Desjardins Group in a variety of capacities for some 25 years. As Secretary General and Vice-President of Cooperative Support, she's responsible for coordinating the development, implementation and improvement of cooperation, governance, organizational ethics and sustainable development programs for Desjardins Group, the largest cooperative financial group in Canada, the 6th worldwide. Ms. D'Amboise has an M.A. in Applied Ethics from the Université de Sherbrooke and a wealth of expertise in the areas of corporate governance, corporate social responsability and sustainable development. She is a trained climate change presenter with Al Gore's organization, The Climate Project.
Since 2010, she has been a member of the David Suzuki Foundation Board of Directors and Governance Committee and president of its Advisory Committee for Quebec. Ms D'Amboise has also been a member of the Board of Directors of Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche et d'information sur les entreprises collectives — Canada (CIRIEC-Canada), Éco Entreprises Québec (ÉEQ), École Polytechnique de Montréal's Interuniversity Research Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services, the Chaire Éco-conseil de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, and the Université de Sherbrooke's Chaire Desjardins en gestion du développement durable. She has been Vice-President of the fundraising campaign for the Quebec Environment Foundation since 2004 and president in 2010.
Elaine Wong, Treasurer
Elaine A. Wong joined Westport in September 2001 as director, corporate performance, responsible for the company's financial planning and analysis, and as director of finance for CWI. Ms. Wong is currently an executive vice president and our chief financial officer. She is also a director of CWI. Until March 2009, she served as Westport's representative on the board of directors of Canadian Business for Social Responsibility, a non-profit, national membership organization of Canadian companies who have made a commitment to operate in a socially, environmentally, and financially responsible manner. Prior to joining Westport, Ms. Wong was the director of corporate performance for TELUS Enterprise Solutions, an information technology company with offices across Canada and in Asia, where she was involved in strategy, planning, mergers and acquisitions, and other corporate development projects. Ms. Wong has her Chartered Accountant (1993) and Certified Public Accountant (Illinois 2001) designations, as well as a Bachelor of Commerce Degree with Honours (1990) from the University of British Columbia.
Stephen R. Bronfman
Stephen Bronfman is a private business executive with world-wide interests in sports, entertainment, broadcasting and communications. He carries on his family's tradition of important philanthropic contributions as governor of the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, director of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, the CRB Foundation, president of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation and president of the Stephen R. Bronfman Foundation.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki
Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been active in environmental and social justice since she was a child. At the age of 12, Severn closed a Plenary Session at 1992's Rio Earth Summit with a powerful speech to the political representatives, and in 1993 she received the UN Environment Program's Global 500 Award. She is well-known for her work as a writer, speaker and television host, and is co-founder of the Skyfish Project.
David Miller
David Miller is a leading advocate for the creation of sustainable urban economies. In addition to being a strong and forceful champion for the next generation of jobs through sustainability, David advises companies — and governments — on practical measures to make this happen. In addition to his work at Aird & Berlis, David also works with The World Bank, the OECD, the Club de Madrid and has recently been named the Future of Cities Global Fellow by Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly). David Miller was Mayor of Toronto from 2003 – 2010, and was Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group from 2008 – 2010. He is a Harvard trained economist.
Dr. Samantha Nutt
Samantha Nutt is a medical doctor with more than fifteen years of experience working in war zones. Committed to peace, human rights and social justice, she has worked in some of the world's most violent flashpoints with War Child Canada, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Burundi, northern Uganda, Ethiopia and the Thai-Burmese border. Over the course of her professional career and as the Founder and Executive Director of War Child Canada, Nutt has spearheaded efforts to provide direct humanitarian support and long term programming to war-affected children and their families, and to promote greater awareness in Canada concerning the rights of children everywhere.
Nutt's work on behalf of war-affected communities around the world has been widely recognized. Nutt is a recipient of Canada's Top 40 under 40 Award (Globe and Mail). She was designated by Time Magazine as one of "Canada's Five Leading Activists."
Dr. Samantha Nutt is bilingual, and is also on staff at Women's College Hospital in Toronto and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Miles Richardson
Raw courage and conviction are dominant personal characteristics of British Columbia Chief Treaty Commissioner Miles Richardson. Born in Haida Gwaii in 1955, Mr. Richardson attended the University of Victoria and earned a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Economics in 1979. He became politically active at university and returned to his home community after graduation. In 1984, Mr. Richardson was elected president of the Haida Nation and served for 12 years. When loggers threatened to destroy the old-growth forest on Gwaii Hanaas, also known as South Moresby Island, Mr. Richardson and the Haida people marshaled environmentalists to protect their land. Against the odds and with personal risk, he led the Haida and the environmentalists in successfully convincing the federal government to designate Gwaii Hanaas as Canada's first national park reserve and a Haida heritage site and to name the Haida people co-managers of the park. In 1996, Mr. Richardson was appointed British Columbia Treaty Commissioner. He continues to serve as a bridge between Aboriginal people and governments to assist in bringing the land question in British Columbia to resolution.
George Stroumboulopoulos
George Stroumboulopoulos is the host of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, Canada's late night talk show. George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight is unlike any program on television. Smart, funny and unpredictable, it is a conversation about the world with the people who shape it. George has interviewed many of the most influential and recognized people in the world, and is one of the most respected journalists in Canada. He is a broadcast veteran in television and radio. He began his journalism career in 1993 at a radio station in Kelowna, British Columbia. He has worked at Toronto sports radio station The Fan 590, at rock radio station 102.1 The Edge, and in TV at MuchMusic — as producer and host of The NewMusic, and MuchNews. In 2007, George returned to radio, with a three hour weekly and nationally syndicated music and talk radio show on the Corus radio network called The Strombo Show. George has traveled to the Arctic for a special on literacy, youth culture and the loss of Inuit identity. He has been to Sudan with War Child Canada and to Zambia for a World AIDS Day special documentary. George is a three time Gemini Award-winner for best host in a talk program or series for The Hour. George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight is broadcast Monday through Friday, at 11:05 p.m. on CBC Television and taped in front of a live studio audience.
Dr. Peter Victor
Peter Victor is one of the pioneers of ecological economics. He is an environmental studies professor at York University, as well as a former Dean of the faculty. He has also served as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Sciences and Standards Division in the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Dr. Victor was the founding President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics and chairs the Great Lakes Innovation Committee and CFI Ecology Committee. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, the Advisory Panel of TruCost, the City of Toronto's Environment Roundtable, the Advisory Committee on the National Accounts for Statistics Canada, and the Ontario Government's Advisory Committee on Transboundary Science. Dr. Victor has served on the Boards of several prominent environmental organizations and he has appeared as an expert witness on environmental economics before various Commissions and Committees.
Sarika Cullis-Suzuki
Sarika Cullis-Suzuki is passionate about oceans, fish and the conservation of biodiversity. After earning her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, she completed an MSc with Daniel Pauly at the UBC Fisheries Centre. She is currently working on her graduate research at the University of York, focusing on the effects of anthropogenic noise on fish along the BC Coast. Away from school, Sarika works in environmental media, hoping to inspire viewers and listeners to effect change. She currently stars in "The Suzuki Diaries," part of the CBC series The Nature of Things.
Stephanie Green
Stephanie is a chartered accountant with 24 years in public accounting as a partner with KPMG. She has extensive experience serving on the boards of not-for-profit enterprises, governmental organizations, and commercial entities.
Honorary Board Members
Margaret Atwood
John F. Bankes
Robert Bateman
James Burke
Raffi Cavoukian
Wade Davis, PhD
Paul Ehrlich, PhD
Peter Garrett
Gordon Lightfoot
Mike Robinson
Gordon Roddick
Peter Steele
Sting
Maurice Strong
E.O. Wilson, PhD
In Memory of Jim Fulton, Executive Director (1993-2004)
When Jim first stormed into the tiny office that contained this then-fledgling foundation, he injected an air of energy, of possibility and, often most important, of bonhomie, that came to define the DSF. With Jim in the room, there was always a sense that, whatever we did, things would probably turn out for the better.
The David Suzuki Foundation is, today, the most influential environmental organization in the country — one of the most influential on the continent — and this is in large part due to Jim's legacy of credible, compelling and unquestionably intelligent policy analysis and advice. It's a legacy that will continue to serve this organization as we seek to serve all Canadians and, through the pursuit of sustainability, all the citizens of the world.
On behalf of those people — all the beneficiaries in all the years to come — the Board of Directors of the David Suzuki Foundation would like to say that we are deeply grateful: we are thankful to have called Jim Fulton a friend and colleague, grateful for his leadership and, perhaps above all, hopeful that his legacy will help guide us into a more truly sustainable future.
