Board of Directors.

 Dr. Phil is a full professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Her areas of expertise include Gender and Higher Education in Africa, and African International Migration. Her research, teaching and other professional activities contribute to a wide array of scholarly forums, embracing a broad network of academic institutions, scholars and international agencies, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA). 

Dr. Okeke-Ihejirika is also actively involved in community building as a resource person to many community organizations, service providers and public agencies in Alberta. She belongs, among others, to the Women Advocacy Voice of Edmonton (WAVE), a 15-member advisory committee on gender issues to the city’s Mayor-and-Council. She has earned many academic, professional and community awards locally and in international circles.

  Hon. Josephine was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta on April 16, 2019, as the MLA for Calgary-Beddington, and was appointed as Alberta’s Minister of Seniors and Housing on April 30, 2019.

Pon has a wealth of work experience in banking. For more than 20 years, she worked with three major chartered banks – HSBC, Royal Bank and Scotiabank. Her appointment with these banks includes experience in Personal/Commercial Banking and her last appointment was the Regional Manager, Business Development responsible for Multicultural Banking and working with over 3,000 staff in the Prairie Region for Scotiabank. During her career in the banking industry, she also worked at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), a crown corporation in mortgage insurance, as an International Trade Consultant and in the Assisted Housing department for the Prairie Region.

Pon has been active in volunteering with numerous non-profit organizations in Calgary and Edmonton throughout her life. She was a member of the working group on the Edmonton Mayor’s Task Force to Eliminate Poverty, the Board Chair of Immigrant Services Calgary (ISC), Chair of the ISC Immigrants of Distinction Awards Gala, Vice President of the Hong Kong Canada Business Association and Cultural Advisor for the Glenbow Museum.

Pon graduated holds a Master’s of Science degree in Management from the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.

Christa is a Co-founder of Tacit Edge Product Leadership where she uses her industry expertise to fuel our economy with empowered, innovative, and diverse product leaders that embody the entrepreneurial spirit. The core of her work in the technology eco-system has the goal of advancing women and marginalized groups towards equitable access to emerging role and education we need for the digital economy of the future.

She is a proud member of the 2SLGBTQI+ community and at the forefront of creating award-winning Product Management curriculum for beginner levels to advanced through educational institutions such as SAIT, and Athabasca University as well as corporate institutions such as TEKsystems and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. 

Christa started her career in the early days of online banking and money transfer services, while also working in various compliance roles in the financial services industry. She then took on a passion project in the not-for-profit sector to revitalize a local community recreation centre. Upon her return to tech, she discovered a path from Product Ownership at Getty Images to Product Management at Benevity. At Benevity, now a $1.1B unicorn tech company, her work was instrumental in scaling the platform to onboard and vet over 2 million global not-for-profits and disburse over $2 billion in funds, while elevating the grants application process in collaboration with Microsoft USA. She then led the vision of Benevity’s content API, which is designed to become the engine of Benevity's end-user experience.

Christa returned to FinTech with Morgan Stanley At Work as Vice President, Global Private Markets Product Management. Christa was instrumental in moving money around the globe through purpose-built services that facilitate liquidity events within employee stock plans for private Fortune 500 companies and start-ups. Additionally, she used her extensive API experience to create the first-ever public-facing API that scales the administration of a corporation’s lifecycle from private ownership to IPO. This ground-breaking work secured Morgan Stanley’s position as the premier product for Private Markets liquidity activities. Together with her technology partners, they rose from millions to billions of dollars in activity within 12 months.

Now, Christa is a PCC-ICF level executive coach most known for supporting early and established Product Managers, as well as their executive leaders. Helping them deepen their expertise and thrive in their careers. She brings empathy and humour while tackling the grey areas of the role, with the goal of creating future product leaders for our increasingly digital world.

is an avid volunteer, who volunteered for Action for Healthy Communities [(AHC) a  non-profit organization that offers programs and supports tailored to facilitate community development and boost the capacity of individuals, families and communities] and Edmonton Food Bank, when she lived in Edmonton. 

Mary is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Business Technology Management (BTM) at Athabasca University and is a recent resident of Calgary.

Mary is happily married with two beautiful daughters.