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Perry Spitznagel is Vice Chair of Bennett Jones, a former longstanding Managing Partner of the Calgary office and a senior corporate lawyer with extensive national and cross-border experience in a broad range of matters. Perry has acted for clients in some of the largest transactions in Canada, including many of Canada’s and North America’s largest national and cross-border financings and mergers. He has been recognized by Financial Post Magazine as one of the 25 most influential people in corporate Canada. He is also widely recognized as a leading lawyer in his areas of expertise.
Perry is a director of a large private holding company and is a director and past Chair of WinSport which manages the legacy assets and programs of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. He is also a director of the Calgary Zoological Society and a member of the Advisory Board of the Samara Centre for Democracy, a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening Canada’s democracy. He is a past member of the Alberta Securities Commission Advisory Committee, a past Co-Chair of the Pipestone Securities Law Conference and a past director of Alpine Canada, the governing body for alpine ski racing in Canada.
A former international ski racer, Perry remains active in skiing.
Perry is a graduate of McGill University, BA (Economics), 1979, with great distinction, and Osgoode Hall Law School, LLB, 1982.
He is a frequent speaker and has chaired national and international conferences on a variety of topics. Perry speaks French and German.
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg researches the smartest ways to do good. With his think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, he has worked with hundreds of the world’s top economists and seven Nobel Laureates to find and promote the most effective solutions to the world’s greatest challenges, from disease and hunger to climate and education.
He is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media, for outlets including the Wall Street Journal, FOX, the BBC and the National Post. Dr Lomborg appears regularly on global lists of influential people, including the Time 100 as well as annual rankings compiled by Esquire and Foreign Policy.
Throughout his writing, his optimistic tone on humanity’s potential to manage challenges like climate change distinguishes him from the “doom and gloom” outlooks that often dominate much of the public dialogue. Dr. Lomborg’s numerous books include ‘Best Things First’, ‘False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet’, ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’, ‘Cool It’, and ‘How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place’. His monthly column is published by dozens of influential newspapers on all continents.
Nancy Southern is Chair & Chief Executive Officer of ATCO Ltd., and Chair & Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Utilities Limited, an ATCO Company. Reporting to the Boards of Directors, she is responsible for the leadership, strategic direction, and operations of both companies. She also serves as Executive Vice President of Spruce Meadows Ltd. and is a founding Director of AKITA Drilling Ltd., a Director of Sentgraf Enterprises Limited, an Honorary Director of BMO Financial Group, and a Director Emeritus of the Rideau Hall Foundation.
Ms. Southern has long played a prominent role in advocating on social issues of global importance—most notably, the rights of Indigenous peoples and the role of women in business. She is an Honorary Chief of the Kainai (Blood Tribe of Alberta) who bestowed the name Aksistoowa’paakii, or Brave Woman, upon her in 2012.
Over the course of her career, Ms. Southern has served with many respected business and academic organizations. She is a member of the Business Council of Canada, the U.S. Business Council, the American Society of Corporate Executives, and is a Canadian member of the Trilateral Commission. She is also a member of the University of Calgary School of Public Policy Advisory Council.
Ms. Southern is the recipient of numerous honours for her community leadership and commitment to democratic principles and free enterprise. In 2023, she received the Lifetime Business Achievement in the Americas Award from the Canadian Council for the Americas and, in 2022, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce honoured her with the Canadian Business Leader Lifetime Achievement Award. Also in 2022, she was honoured with the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal and, in 2020, she was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to British equestrian, military, and commercial interests in Alberta. In 2018, she received the Canadian Business Leader Award from the University of Alberta and was named a Distinguished Policy Fellow by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy in recognition of her lifetime commitment to Canadian public policy. She was inducted as a Companion into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 2017.
Ms. Southern has been recognized by Fortune on its list of the “50 Most Powerful Women Outside of the U.S.” as well as its list of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business: The Global 50.” She has been named one of the “50 Most Important People in Canada” by Maclean’s.
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Ms. Southern studied economics and commerce at the University of Calgary, which also awarded her its highest academic honour, an Honorary Doctor of Laws, in 2014. She also holds Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Mount Royal University, the University of Lethbridge, and Western University.
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