Join Canadian Club Toronto on May 7th for a discussion about the current state of Canada’s food supply system, what’s been learned during the pandemic, and how it will change our supply systems in the post-COVID era. Learn how Canada’s leading grocers, farmers, retailers, and manufacturers have successfully pivoted to keep our country fed in a time of uncertainty. This expert panel will be moderated by Dalhousie University Professor, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, and will feature:
– Danielle Barran – President, McCain Foods Canada
– Nilam Ganenthiran – President, Instacart
– Garnet Lasby – President, Massily North America
– Cathy Lennon – General Manager, Ontario Federation of Agriculture
This virtual event is free of charge. All you need to access the event is to register.
Please note that all events run on Eastern Standard Time.
Danielle Barran
President, McCain Foods Canada
Danielle Barran joined McCain Foods as President of the Canadian division in 2018. Proudly Canadian and family owned, McCain is the world’s largest producer of frozen potato products and other frozen foods, including appetizers and desserts. McCain products can be found in more than 160 countries, and one in every four French fries around the world is a McCain fry. In Canada, the company operates eight production facilities in 4 provinces and partners with over 130 Canadian family farms who grow the potatoes that go into the McCain products that bring joy to family meals.
Prior to joining McCain, Danielle held a number of marketing and finance positions at PepsiCo, General Mills and most recently The J.M. Smucker Company, where she was the Vice President of commercial strategy (pet division). She has more than 20 years leadership experience in the consumer-packaged goods industry, including a strong record for delivering exceptional results that focused on sustainable top and bottom line growth driving market segment share, sales and profitability.
Danielle currently serves on the board of directors for Food and Consumer Products of Canada and has previously been a member of Women Corporate Directors and an ambassador for the Network of Executive Women. Danielle holds an MBA and HBA from the Ivey Business School. She lives in Toronto with her husband.
Nilam Ganenthiran
President, Instacart
Nilam Ganenthiran is President of Instacart, where he leads the company’s operations, as well as retailer and advertising businesses, which today include relationships with more than 350 retailers across North America and over 1,000 CPG brands. Prior to joining Instacart in 2013, Nilam served grocery, mass merchandise and drug store clients as a Management Consultant with A.T. Kearney’s Consumer Retail practice. Nilam began his career in Shopper Marketing and Brand Management with Procter & Gamble, where he worked on household brands such as Pampers and Iams. Nilam is a graduate of York University’s Schulich School of Business and also holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Garnet Lasby
President, Massilly North America
Garnet Lasby was appointed President of Massilly North America Inc in 2009. He is responsible for all aspects of Massilly’s metal closure business for the Americas. Massilly is a privately held international manufacturer of metal packaging for the food industry, including food cans, can ends, and closures for glass containers. Massilly North America manufactures and distributes billions of metal closures servicing the food and beverage industries across North and South America.
Mr. Lasby has over 20 years experience in the food processing, preserving, and packaging industries, prior to which he was a turnaround and restructuring professional at Grant Thornton LLP in Toronto and Price Waterhouse LLP in Calgary.
Mr. Lasby is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CA) and holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Masters of Accounting degree from the University of Waterloo. He is actively involved in YPO (Young Presidents Organization) locally and internationally.
Cathy Lennon
General Manager, Ontario Federation of Agriculture
Cathy Lennon is the new general manager of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, (2019) bringing with her more than 20 years of experience in the agriculture sector, most recently as general manager of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers.
An early position in her career with the Agricultural Adaptation Council as program & communications coordinator ignited her passion for working for and with farmers. She served as general manager of Ontario Sheep Farmers assisting the board in developing and launching a branded lamb program at retail as well as seeing the organization through a period of significant upheaval and interrupted trade related to the BSE crisis.
She then served as program manager with Agricorp and more than a decade as senior lender with Farm Credit Canada, learning about the opportunities and challenges of agriculture across all sectors and commodities and always driven by the belief of making a positive difference for farmers.
Cathy is a graduate of Fanshawe College, University of Waterloo and Class 9 of the Advanced Agricultural Leadership Program. She’s a lifelong learner, and frequent tweeter at @Cathy_Lennon.
She is a proud mother to an 11 year old daughter and they are both avid travellers, enjoy downhill skiing and horses.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois
Professor, Food Distribution and Policy, Dalhousie University
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Scientific Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. He is as well the former Dean of the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. While at the University of Guelph, he was also the Associate Dean of Research for the College of Business and Economics.
Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world’s most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.
He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.
Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. He also has done some work on social licensing, which include public trust assessments and risk communication evaluations. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. He conducts policy analysis, evaluation, and demonstration projects for government agencies and major foundations focusing on agricultural policies and community development both in Canada and in development settings. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre’s Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces, in the United States, Brazil, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, China, Great Britain, Finland and the Netherlands.
