Emerging Leaders Program 2025
Sonia Baxendale
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sonia Baxendale is President & CEO of Global Risk Institute (GRI), a premier organization that defines thought leadership in risk management for the financial industry globally. In this role, Sonia brings together leaders from industry, academia and government to focus on emerging risk management issues.
Sonia is an active corporate director and sits on the boards of Laurentian Bank, Foresters Financial, The Bank of N.T. Butterfield Ltd., Definity Financial Corp. and Intermediate Capital Group (ICG). She is also past Chair of the Board of SickKids Foundation.
Prior to joining GRI, Sonia held senior roles at CIBC, including Senior Executive Vice President and President of CIBC Retail Markets, where she led the Retail & Commercial Banking and Wealth Management businesses. She played a key role in developing strategy and direction for CIBC. Prior to CIBC, she also held various positions with American Express Canada and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Sonia is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where she was named the Victoria College Alumni of Distinction in 2017. She was named one of the “Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada” for three years in a row and then joined the ranks of the Top 100 Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2000, she was recognized as one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.
Karrie Van Belle
Chief Operating Officer
Karrie Van Belle is Chief Operating Officer (COO) and serves as Corporate Secretary to the GRI Board of Directors. In the role of COO, Karrie helps to guide strategy and execution of GRI’s mandate, addressing challenges and developing and implementing policies and procedures to enhance operational effectiveness.
A seasoned business executive and strategic leader with over 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry, Karrie has held roles leading marketing, communications, digital operations and investment product teams. Before coming to GRI, she was Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer at AGF Investments, where she led the relaunch of the firm’s brand, and was a strategic driver of its digital transformation agenda and product innovation growth plans.
Karrie previously held progressively senior roles at BlackRock Canada, Saint Elizabeth Health Care, Edward Jones and Canada Trust. She holds a degree in Communications from Simon Fraser University, and Ivey Business School’s Digital Leaders Advanced Impact Certification.
Marlene Lenarduzzi, Guest Speaker
CRO, EQ Bank
Marlene Lenarduzzi is the Chief Risk Officer, EQB Inc. and EQ Bank. She has more than 25 years of experience in risk management and banking strategy development, regulatory affairs, risk quantification, operations, and execution. Prior to joining Equitable, Marlene was the Head of Counterparty Credit Risk Management at the Bank of Montreal. Previously, Marlene served as Interim CRO for BMO Ireland, lending critical strategic advice and oversight as operations grew because of Brexit. She also served as the Head, Model Validation, where she was instrumental in transforming the Model Risk Management frameworks to better enable teams to make sound decisions.
Marlene is deeply committed to giving back to the community and holds several prestigious board positions. She currently serves as President of the Toronto Chapter of the Risk Management Association and is an active board member of the Dean’s Advisory Board for the faculty of Engineering at McMaster University. She has previously held board positions with Young People’s Theatre and the Ontario Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse. Marlene graduated from McMaster University with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering, earned a Master of Applied Science from the University of Ottawa, and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business.
Anthony Peccia
Executive in Residence
Anthony Peccia is a highly respected expert in the field of risk management and capital markets, with a distinguished career as a senior executive and educator. He has held key Managing Director positions at several leading global banks, including Citibank, CIBC, BMO, and RBC, where he was responsible for chairing the Risk Committees and the Cyber Risk Committees and for overseeing the management of credit, market, liquidity, operational, and pension fund risks. He has led the creation and management of new departments, including those focused on Market Risk, Operational Risk, the Option Hedging Group, Strategic Investment Group, and Treasury Strategy Group.
Mr. Peccia has held leadership roles in asset liability management, capital market financing, corporate insurance, structured derivatives, and securitization at several global banks, and as a consultant has provided expert consultation to major international banks in the development of risk management frameworks and strategies. He started his career as a US equity trader at a major asset management firm.
He developed the first industry operational risk measurement model and founded the Industry Working Group on Operational Risk, which included 15 of the largest global banks. The group provided consultation to the Basel Committee as it developed a regulatory approach to operational risk management, and most of its recommendations were incorporated into Basel II.
Mr. Peccia is also an accomplished educator, teaching advanced risk management and financial innovation MBA-level courses at leading universities and executive programs in Canada, the US, the UK, Italy, and China. He has published articles and chapters on risk management and is a frequent keynote speaker at major risk management and fintech conferences. He has also produced two conferences on Machine Learning Startups and Innovation in Financial Services.
He holds an MBA and MSC in Theoretical Physics
Michael Stramaglia
Executive in Residence
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 is currently an independent corporate director for the Equitable Bank, the Economical Insurance Group and Foresters Financial. He also serves as an independent member and Chair of the Province of Ontario Internal Audit Committee.
With over 30 years of professional and leadership experience, Michael spent over 10 years with Sun Life Financial (SLF). There 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. Michael joined SLF in 2002 following its acquisition of Clarica, where he held the position of Executive Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and was also head of the International Reinsurance Business. Prior to joining Clarica, Michael 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.
Michael 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.
A Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, Michael is also a 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
Executive in Residence
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.