Eric Hughes, Calgary, Alberta

Mr. Hughes has held a number of senior financial executive level positions over the past 15 years and currently works as Chief Financial Officer of Coral Hill Energy Ltd. He also served as Chief Financial Officer of Wave Energy Ltd during its rapid growth and subsequent sale; Optimal Payments PLC, a global leader in internet money transfer; and Burnco Rock Products, Canada's largest independent miner of aggregate products. Mr. Hughes graduated with a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Calgary and is a Designated Chartered Accountant with the Alberta Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Lisa Pankratz, CA and CFA, Vancouver, British Columbia

Lisa Pankratz is a Chartered Accountant (CA) and a Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder (CFA).

She was President of Mackenzie Cundill Investment Management Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada from October 2006 until March 2010. Prior to October 2006, she was the President of Cundill Investment Research Ltd., a global investment counsel firm and Chief Compliance Officer for The Cundill Group (2002-2006); an independent Corporate Advisor and Consultant (2000-2002); Chief Financial Officer/Turnaround Specialist of Evans Forest Products Ltd., a BC-based forest products company (1997-1999); and an investment banker, specializing in public and private financings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic analyses and risk management advisory services for a variety of clients worldwide with Bankers Trust (BT Bank of Canada), Swiss Bank Corporation and Ernst & Young (1991-1996).

In 2009, Ms. Pankratz was appointed Trustee of the Board for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights; she currently chairs the Audit Committee. In 2005, she became an advisor to the investment committees of Pacific Blue Cross and BC Life & Casualty Company. Ms. Pankratz served as a member of the Board of CanWest Global Communications Corp. (2005 – 2010) and served on the Audit and Pension Committees (Chair of the Pension Committee since 2008). From 2001 to 2007, she was a member of the Board of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) and served as Chair of the Investment Committee (2004-2007), member since 2001, was a member of the Audit Committee (2001-2007) and served on the Governance Committee (2001-2004). Between 2002 and 2004, Ms. Pankratz was also a member of the Accounting Policy and Advisory Committee advising the Ministry of Finance for the Province of British Columbia.

Since 2007, Ms. Pankratz has been Co-Chair of the BC Fundraising Campaign for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

In 2007, Ms. Pankratz was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia. In 2008, Ms. Pankratz received the Women’s Executive Network Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award as well as an Influential Women in Business Award from Business in Vancouver. In 2005, she was awarded the Peak Award for Performance and Excellence from the Association of Women in Finance.

Ms. Pankratz attended the University of Western Ontario and achieved an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business. She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accounts of British Columbia, the Institute of Chartered Accounts of Ontario, the Vancouver Society of Financial Analysts, and the CFA Institute.

J. Pauline Rafferty, Victoria, British Columbia

Pauline Rafferty is the former chief executive officer of the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM), a position that she held from 2001 to 2012. Trained as an archaeologist, Pauline’s work first centred on archaeology, then on heritage interpretation, and later on meeting the marketing and financial needs at provincial sites such as Fort Steele and Barkerville. Throughout her career, Pauline held various high-level positions in government, and was appointed assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Women’s Equality in 1990. After retiring from the RBCM in March 2012, she has continued to be active on the boards of both national and provincial organizations. She serves on the board of the British Columbia Government House Foundation, and The National capital commission Program and marketing committee. She is a former board member of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, Tourism Victoria, Advisory Committee for the University of Victoria Cultural Resource Management Program and the Board of Variance, as well as former president of the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada. Pauline has also been honoured for her work at the RBCM, with Queen Elizabeth 11 Diamond Jubilee Medal, and awards from the Canadian Museum Association, Tourism BC and other organizations.

Dr. Wilton Littlechild, Hobbema, Alberta

For more than 30 years, Dr. Littlechild has worked to build bridges between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people through athletics, politics, and law. An accomplished lawyer, he is the first Indigenous person appointed to Queen's Council by the Alberta Law Society. He brought Native issues to public attention while serving as one of the first Aboriginal Members of Parliament.

Dr. Littlechild has been active with a number of organizations both within Canada and abroad, including the Indigenous Parliament of the Americas, the United Nations, the National Indian Athletic Association, and the Canadian Council of International Law. He has given lectures on various occasions, including recently at the Human Rights Institute of the University of Hawaii.

For his participation in Aboriginal and athletic endeavours, Dr. Littlechild has been honoured with several awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award as an Aboriginal Role Model and the Order of Canada. He graduated from the University of Alberta with a Master's Degree in Physical Education, a Bachelor of Law Degree, and a Doctorate at Law.

Dr. Littlechild is serving as one of three Commissioners on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

Lindy Ledohowski, Ph.D., Ottawa, Ontario

Lindy Ledohowski completed her B.A. (Hons.) at the University of Manitoba, and her B.Ed., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral dissertation theorized Ukrainian Canadian identity politics in post-multicultural Canada using fifty years of English-language Ukrainian Canadian literature as her key case study. She then completed a SSHRC-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ottawa. After two years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at St. Jerome’s University in the University of Waterloo, she is now an Adjunct Research Faculty member of Carleton University.

She has published numerous academic articles on the notion on Ukrainian Canadian-ness in contemporary Canada and presented on her research in countless academic venues. Her most recent article, forthcoming in a University of Toronto Press anthology of scholarly essays theorizing redress movements in contemporary Canada, analyzes the politics of victimization in Ukrainian Canadian literature and culture. She presented this work at Carleton University in March 2010, and this presentation was co-hosted by the Department of Law’s Jurisprudence Centre and the Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture, and the Humanities. As well, currently she is collaborating with Dr. Lisa Grekul to co-edit an anthology of critical and creative pieces to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. This publication will be launched in 2011