OCAD University’s Board of Governors welcomed four new external members at its December 6 meeting: Colleen Baldwin, Mark Hanrahan, Abel Juarez and Virginia Trieloff.
Meet the new Board members
Colleen Baldwin
Elected to the Board, effective October 4, Colleen Baldwin currently serves as the Vice-President, Head of Global Design Strategy & Transformation at Scotiabank. In this role, she is responsible for all design and architecture for the bank’s 26 million square-foot portfolio of office and retail space. Previously, she was a Founder and Partner at Straticom Planning Associates Inc., a major commercial design practice based in Toronto, where she focused on real estate and workplace strategy for their corporate clients.
She has served as a director on the boards of The Design Exchange and Camp Oochigeas (now Campfire Circle) as well as the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Toronto (ARIDO), where she held several positions before being named President in 1997. She obtained her Bachelor of Interior Design (BID) from the University of Manitoba and has the NCIDQ designation.
She is a member of ARIDO, IDC and CoreNet. Baldwin founded a women’s group in 2020, WiRED (Women in Real Estate Department) and has recently been appointed the Co-Chair of Council of Chairs of Women’s Initiatives at the bank.
Mark Hanrahan
Mark Hanrahan was appointed to the Board by the Government of Ontario, effective October 20. He is a strategy and finance executive with a track record of developing and implementing winning competitive and corporate strategies; designing and implementing global financial processes, capital allocation and performance management systems; and delivering multi-country performance transformation programs for the world’s leading companies.
He currently serves as Senior Vice-President, Global Head of Strategy at SNC-Lavalin. Prior, he held strategy and finance roles with Synaptive Medical, Just Energy and Barrick Gold Corporation. He also worked as an Associate Partner with the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He has served on many boards, including the Ecobee Board of Directors, the Granting Committee for the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation and advisory boards for small ventures in Toronto. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a Bachelor of Computer Science from Acadia University.
Abel Juarez
Elected by the Board, effective, October 4, Abel Juarez serves as the VP, Compliance and Risk Management at FirstService Corporation. FirstService is North America’s largest manager of residential communities and one of North America’s largest providers of essential property services.
Prior to joining FirstService, Juarez held senior roles at Orvana Minerals and George Weston Limited. He began his career at Gossler/Crowe and EY in Mexico, performing external financial audits at a variety of industries in the public and private sectors. He has more than two decades of experience performing audit and risk projects in Canada, USA, Mexico, Spain, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina.
He holds a Chartered Professional Accountant designation, a certification in Risk Management Assurance, a Bachelor of Public Accounting and a Master of Business Administration, graduating with honours from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico.
Virginia Trieloff
Virginia Trieloff, current President of the OCAD U Alumni Association, was elected by the association as its representative on the Board, effective November 4. As a practising visual artist/curator (Surrey College of Art & Design, UK; Industrial Design, OCAD University BFA), she has been a member of the OCAD University Alumni Association since 2010 and previously served as its p resident from 2016 to 2019. She curates ArtWorks, the OCAD U alumni exhibition held every two years.
A Canadian citizen of German and Scottish heritage, her early education in Barbados, Switzerland and England honed her somewhat peripatetic nature, landing her on Newfoundland’s Southern Shore to rescue and restore invalided saltbox houses and, of course, “hang out” with the St. John’s Arts and Literary communities in the summers.
Trieloff is a professional member of the Toronto Arts & Letters Club (est. 1908) and Women’s Arts Association of Canada (est. 1892).
Thank you to outgoing board member — Maggie Broda!
OCAD U thanks outgoing board member Maggie Broda for her service on the Board of Governors. A strong advocate for the University and its students, she served on the Board from May 1, 2019 to November 3, 2022. She was the Board representative on the OCAD U Senate and served on the Chair of the Board’s Human Resources Committee.
About the Board of Governors
The 28-member OCAD U Board of Governors is responsible for governing and managing the affairs of the University, including approving the budget and establishing policies and institutional priorities.
The Board’s 18 external members include six appointees from the Government of Ontario, 10 elected by the Board and two elected by the OCAD U Alumni Association.
The remaining eight members are drawn from the OCAD U internal community, including three faculty members who are cross appointed by Senate; one staff and manager who are elected from their respective constituencies; and three students (two undergraduate and one graduate). The President and Chancellor are ex-officio members of the Board.