John Hull is the Maple Financial Professor of Derivatives and Risk Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He is an internationally recognized authority on derivatives and risk management and has many publications in this area. Dr. Hull is a respected researcher in the academic field of quantitative finance. He was, with Alan White, one of the winners of the Nikko-LOR research competition for his work on the Hull-White interest rate model, which is widely used by practitioners.

In 1999 he was voted Financial Engineer of the Year by the International Association of Financial Engineers. He has acted as consultant to many North American, Japanese, and European financial institutions. He has won many teaching awards, including University of Toronto's prestigious Northrop Frye award, He has written three books: “Risk Management and Financial Institutions” (now in its 4th edition), "Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives" (now in its 9th edition) and "Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets" (now in its 9th edition). The books have been translated into many languages and are widely used in trading rooms throughout the world, as well as in the classroom.

Dr. Hull is co-director of Rotman’s Master of Finance program and Rotman’s new Master of Financial Risk Management program. In addition to the University of Toronto, Dr. Hull has taught at York University, University of British Columbia, New York University, Cranfield University, and London Business School.

Rita Achrekar is an accomplished financial services leader with nearly 30 years of experience in global capital markets, risk management, governance, and business transformation.

Ms. Achrekar held several senior executive positions at Scotiabank. As Senior Vice President - Compliance Transformation, she spearheaded an enterprise-wide program to modernise compliance risk management across four business lines and 30 countries. As Senior Vice President - Corporate Credit, she was responsible for a USD 300 billion credit portfolio covering public and private companies and was involved in several M&A transactions globally. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, she was appointed Senior Vice President - Trade Floor Risk Management, and executed a mandate to strengthen the governance and market risk oversight of Global Capital Markets businesses across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Prior to joining Scotiabank in 2000, she held senior treasury and trading roles with American Express Bank and ING Bank in Mumbai, India.

Ms. Achrekar has significant governance experience through her work with Scotiabank’s board and Scotiabank subsidiaries across 50 countries.

In 2015, Ms. Achrekar was appointed to the board of Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and served on the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee. In 2018, she was appointed to the board of Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) where she serves on the Industry Risk Committee and the Governance, Nominating & HR Committee. Ms. Achrekar was a board director of Scotia Commodities Inc.

Ms. Achrekar is a passionate advocate for diversity & inclusion and for over 15 years has contributed to related committees at Scotiabank. Her community involvement includes United Way, Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, Shaughnessy School Association and serving as an adjunct professor at a business school.

Ms. Achrekar holds Bachelor of Technology (Electrical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; MBA (Finance) from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute, Mumbai University and Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Wharton Business School. She was awarded the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation by the Global Association of Risk Professionals.

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Hugh O’Reilly is an experienced business leader with excellent strategic skills and has strong knowledge of human resource best practices for the development of an inclusive workplace culture. As the former President and Chief Executive Officer of OPTrust, he oversaw all aspects of operations including the investment of its assets and the administration of pension benefits for the 92,000 members and retirees.

Currently, he’s a Senior Fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute and on the Boards for Vancity Community Investment Bank and Namerind, a not for profit aboriginal housing corporation. In the past he has served on the Boards of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society, the Regent Park Community Health Centre and the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (“CCGG”). Hugh was also a member of both the Audit and Finance and Governance Committees of the CCGG Board and was Chief of Staff to an Ontario Provincial Government Cabinet Minister.

Having practiced law prior to his assuming the role of President and CEO of OPTrust, he was recognized by his peers as one of Canada’s foremost legal experts in pension law. Hugh previously was a Partner at Torys, a leading corporate law firm, and at Cavalluzzo, a leading labour law firm. Hugh has an in-depth understanding of investments across all asset classes.

Hugh holds a B.A. (Great Distinction) from the University of Regina and an LLB from the University of Calgary where he was the Silver Medalist in his law class. As well, he has been awarded the Industry Leadership Award from Benefits Canada and the Pension Defender Crystal Globe Award. Show less

Jason Stewart worked for more than two decades in senior debt capital markets roles with three major investment dealers. He is the author or co-author of more than 30 articles, reports and studies of economic, financial, and policy issues.

Jason lead or joint lead managed over $100 billion of government and corporate debt issues in domestic, global and international markets. His expertise includes over 27 years working with or for governments, regulators and authorities at the federal and provincial levels.

Jason began his career as an economist on Bay Street. His research, market and policy analysis experience includes working at the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, the Bank of Canada, Queen’s Park, RBC Dominion Securities and the C.D. Howe Institute. He is the primary author of the OSC’s report on behavioural finance and its insights, applications and use in regulation.

Jason is a Senior Fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute, and the president of a private philanthropic foundation. His volunteer work includes being a board member of an international conservation charity and a smart cities non-profit organization. He also co-chairs the advisory council of a local land trust in Ontario.

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Michael Stramaglia was appointed as the Global Risk Institute’s first Executive in Residence in January 2014. He is the President and Founder of Matrisc Advisory Group Inc. (a risk management consulting firm) and serves as Program Director for the SEEC Centre of Excellence in Governance, Risk Management and Control at the Schulich School of Business.

He is currently an independent corporate director for the Equitable Bank, the Economical Insurance Group, Foresters Financial and Munich Re Canada. He also serves as an independent member of the Province of Ontario Internal Audit Committee.

Mr. Stramaglia has over 30 years of professional and leadership experience, including over 10 years with Sun Life Financial (SLF) where he served as a member of the International Executive Team and led the development of one of the insurance industry’s leading ERM practices as Executive Vice-President and Chief Risk Officer for SLF’s global operations. He joined SLF in 2002 following its acquisition of Clarica, where Mr. Stramaglia held the position of Executive Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and was also head of the International Reinsurance Business. Prior to joining Clarica, Mr. Stramaglia worked for over 13 years with the Canadian operations of the worldwide Zurich Financial Services Group, where he held a number of senior executive positions including Chief Actuary, CFO and President & CEO of the Zurich Life Insurance Company of Canada.

He has also provided interim senior executive services, and his mandates in this area have included serving as Co-Interim President & CEO of an international life insurance and asset management organization and an extended consulting assignment serving as the acting Chief Risk Officer for one of Canada’s largest credit unions.

Mr. Stramaglia is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst. He holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors and an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics Degree from the University of Waterloo.

Lois Tullo has been an Executive in Residence since January 2017. She is a Canadian expert in the research and management of non-financial risk. She is CRO & CCO at Novera Capital Inc. Novera Capital is a Virtual Currency capital firm focusing in the area of providing liquidity to the market through synthetic derivatives. She has been teaching risk management and financial services at the Schulich School of Business for the past 22 years at the executive, MBA, and undergraduate level. She is the author of “Back to the Future: 2007 to 2030”, “The Global Risks and Trends Framework” and “Risk Management – Canadian Best Practices, How did they get there?” Schulich has awarded her the John Peace Prize for outstanding contribution to teaching.

Ms. Tullo was previously CRO & CCO at Smart Contracts Capital Inc. and BlockMine Development Inc. SSC/BMD was developing a blockchain platform to issue Regulated Security Tokens (STO’s). She was CFO at CIBC Finance Inc, responsible for Finance, Treasury, HR and interim risk management. Director of HR, Finance and Business Process Redesign at Unitel Communications. She was a management consultant at Nolan, Norton Canada/KPMG where she consulted on the link between business strategy and information technology architecture. Ms. Tullo worked in Ethiopia with Food for the Hungry, a relief and development organization. At TCPL, she provided systems design and data analysis.

Ms. Tullo is a CPA, C.A. and she articled with Clarkson Gordon Toronto (E&Y) and PWC in Calgary, she has an EMBA from Ivey School of Business, a B.Comm from the University of Saskatchewan, and holds her C.C.O and ICD.D designations. Ms. Tullo is currently the Chair of Urban Promise, JLT & Associates, vice chair of The Richview Residence Foundation, and a former board director for Jameson Bank, The Boulevard Club, and the Girl Guides of Canada.