Isaac Olowolafe Jr. is an entrepreneur, business owner, and philanthropist. He established The Dream Maker Realty/Olowolafe Family Scholarship Award at the University of Toronto, the largest endowment for African Studies in any Canadian university.
Collins Boakye-Yiadom is a mortgage agent and real estate investor focused on providing value, experience, and resources to his clients (both first-time home buyers and new investors) to build generational wealth through real estate. As an advocate of homeownership, entrepreneurship and wealth-building, he is also a co-host of Dream Talks – an exclusive, intimate real estate Q & A with experts in Real Estate.
In Collins’ downtime, he spends time with his wife and 3 boys playing basketball and reading about all things tech!
Lise Birikundavyi is the principal and fund manager for BKR Capital, the first institutionally-backed black-led VC fund in Canada. Lise is an innovative finance specialist who has worked with several international institutions, most notably the Jacobs Foundation for whom she managed their EdTech impact investment strategy. Lise also mentors and supports highly promising and impactful start-ups in emerging markets.
Lise began her career in the hedge fund industry in Montreal and her interest in mixing attractive financial returns with long term societal impact is what inspired her to transition to the impact finance sector. She has experience across the investment spectrum: from funds of funds and VCs, to being the transition CEO of a tech start-up.
Lise is a CFA charterholder; she also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, where she wrote her thesis on impact investing, and a trilingual BBA from HEC Montreal. Lise is fluent in French, English and Spanish, and has a conversational level of Mandarin. She is a firm believer in using the forces of capital markets as a basis for more inclusive wealth creation and sustainable poverty alleviation.
Alexander Sinora sold his first small marketing agency by the end of his bachelor’s. Currently, he is a technology consultant specialized in the Financial Services industry at Deloitte. He is also a research assistant at McGill University in entrepreneurship & social innovation. He also sits on the youth advisory board at Desjardins.
Involved in his community; he sits on an advisory board as a federal policy advisor at the Black Canadian Youth Approach within the Heritage Department. He also cofounded the black wealth club, where he leads a cohort of 50 young black leaders. Furthermore, he started a community project called MTLGiveback, where he enables the youth to be active in their community. He also hosts a podcast called “Les Généralistes.”
Alexander is a recipient of a BComm in accounting at John Molson School of Business.
Moyo Omole is a dynamic, solution-oriented lawyer passionate about equity, diversity, and inclusion. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at York University, with a major in Criminology and a minor in History. With a desire to further her education, she later attended the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law, and earned her Juris Doctorate degree.
Moyo is the founder of Modell Law firm, a firm that deals with diverse areas of law, such as criminal law, immigration, and family law. Moyo is also the legal counsel and the board relations Manager for Black North Initiative.
Moyo believes in fostering black entrepreneurship across Canada, while she aims at creating spaces for unrepresented groups to learn about financial literacy. She believes that equity, diversity, and inclusion is not just a statement but a collaborative action from a collegial group of people who understands the need to evaluate and develop concrete, strategic action plans that will move us closer to eliminating all forms of racism.
Lin Ferguson is currently the Executive Director for the Rhema Foundation Canada, a global charity that approaches the human condition from a holistic approach. Lin was recently recognized for her leadership by her local MP, Michael Levitt, for her leadership in February during the Black History Month of this year.
Chris Emergui founded BAM Strategy, one of Canada’s first digital marketing agencies, in 1996. BAM has been named one of Canada’s Top Employers multiple times and won several awards for their work. Chris was a winner of the 2000 BDC Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Through “BAM Aid”, BAM has also helped over fifty charities through volunteering time for initiatives like “Shore Clean Ups” as well as donating over 125,000 meals to Breakfast For Learning.
He is heavily involved in various charities including Montreal Community Cares where he sits on the board and the OFC on various committees. He also coaches many sports teams in his community.
Father, Husband, Community builder, Networker, project and event coordinator, Sales and marketing specialist.
Founder of the OneFullCircle Melanated Community Network (The OFC). The OFC was in October 2011, and currently serving a network of over 15,000 members consisting of Individuals, Families, business owners, entrepreneurs and organizations.
Under Pharaoh direction The OneFullCircle Network is created for hosting the United Nations (UN) delegates conducting the study on people of African in Canada, raising over $40,000 for a collective investment project and hosting the 2020 Peace protest that mobilized 150,000 people.
Pharaoh Hamid-Freeman Rouse currently sits on the board of directors for; Afro Summit (VP), International Black Economic Forum (FEIN) (Director), South Shore Black Community Association (Director).
Ike Okafor works at the Office of Health Professions Student Affairs as the Senior Officer, Service Learning and Diversity Outreach.
A central focus of his work at the University of Toronto has been working collaboratively with university divisions, student groups and community organizations to promote access to post-secondary education, particularly the University of Toronto.
Warren G. Salmon founded Black Board International, a software company, in order to provide a variety of technology-based products and services with culturally inclusive content. Black Board currently offers programs that are used by thousands of children and adults in educational institutes and homes around the world.
Paul Green is a community leader, with over 35 years of experience working at a grassroots level in many of the communities across the Greater Toronto Area. He has developed a network of relationships throughout the education, entertainment and business sector.
Paul is also a founder of B.S.A. (The Universal Black Students Association), B.L.O.C.K. Headz (Building Links On Community Korners), and Rush The Vote (a national youth voter turnout initiative), spearheading many projects and initiatives that focus on developing young leaders to see themselves as agents of social change. Paul is currently an educator with the TDSB and a founding member of ONABSE (Ontario Association of Black School Educators), specializing in “edutainment” programming; an arts and entertainment approach to education with a focus on civic and media literacy.
With expertise in youth and community civic engagement, Paul has developed programming for youth, from adolescence to early adulthood. This programming promotes the importance of involvement in the political system as a key and vital component to building prosperous communities and teaches how the political system and government work.
Mr. Green’s previous experience includes working with young offenders in both open and closed custody facilities, developing educational resource material as well as counseling, mentoring and coaching. Most recently, Paul has served as the Vice Chair and Acting Chair for Caribana Arts Group.
Monique Asuquo is the President of Dream Legacy Foundation. In this role, she is in charge of identifying and driving initiatives for the foundation that bridge the relationship between institution and community.
Monique began her career in the Education sector and spent significant time teaching English to newcomers to Canada. She has extensive community experience supporting adults and children that do not speak English as a first language. A graduate of University of Toronto TESOL program, she possesses firsthand knowledge of the significance of community support immigrant communities. More recently, she has transferred her education and operations skills to various projects in the real estate and development space.
Monique is a member of the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) and holds a Master Degree in Second Language Education from the University of Toronto. She wrote her thesis on the difficulties of community assimilation in a second language. She is passionate about helping newcomers as well as underrepresented child and youth.
Yeukai is a strategist who is leading entrepreneurship projects at the Dream Legacy Foundation. She started her career in consulting, but her interests led her into economic development work. More specifically, her work experiences in the entrepreneurial ecosystem span from implementation management for a TIME’s 100 serial edtech and leadership entrepreneur, to advisory work for government agencies that support innovation and entrepreneurship, in her role at the World Bank Group. While completing her MBA at the University of Oxford, Yeukai also supported venture recruitment and corporate partnerships at the Creative Destruction Lab, a global accelerator for early-stage scalable science and technology-based companies.
In addition to her MBA, Yeukai holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Macalester College. Yeukai is a globe trotter and has a comparative lens of early-stage entrepreneurial ecosystems, gained from living in Southern Africa, South East Asia, the USA, England and now Canada. She has been blessed with academic and leadership recognitions, and is a University of Oxford Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust Scholar, a Kofi Annan and Shelby Davis Scholar, a United World College Scholar as well as a World Bank Group Africa Fellow.
Preferred skills, competencies and assets
MP for Vaughan-Woodbridge, Francesco Sorbara, recognizes Isaac Olowolafe Jr. as part of a group of changemakers and trailblazers in the Black community during Black History Month in February 2022.
