President's Student Leadership Program

Tom Carson is the Chair of the Board of Directors, St Boniface Hospital and Senior Fellow, Canada West Foundation. Currently a consultant focusing on personal and team development and workplace health, he has over 31 years of senior management and executive experience with the Manitoba government. He began with the Management Committee of Cabinet, through Northern Affairs, to Deputy Minister postings in the departments of Culture, Training, and Continuing Education and Health, as well as serving as a Deputy Minister for 14 years. He is the President and Principal Consultant of T. Carson and Associates Ltd.

Since moving to the private sector, Carson has focused on workplace health, team development, organizational analysis, and policy development. He serves on the following boards: the Winnipeg Art Gallery Foundation (as a consultant to Leadership Winnipeg); the President’s Advisory Council (to the President of the University of Manitoba); and the Health, Leisure and Human Performance Institute at the University of Manitoba. Carson brings a wealth of experience in policy and research, nonprofit planning, non-profit board administration, government policy, and management analysis.

Lisa Kassenaar is a Senior Writer and Editor, Global Women's Coverage, Voice of America, leading a special project examining how the U.S. government-funded news organization, which operates in 45 languages, covers women around the world.

She was previously editor-at-large for global women’s coverage at Bloomberg News in New York, where she also led a ‘Managing Diversity’ reporting team. She formerly covered Wall Street, global finance, and markets at Bloomberg for 15 years as a senior writer, editor, and reporter. She has won a Front Page Award from the Newswoman’s Club of New York for a story on residential development in Lower Manhattan, and a YWCA of New York ‘Salute’ Award for women leaders. She is also on the advisory board of GirlsWhoInvest.org, a New York-based non-profit that trains 150 women a year for careers in asset management at the University of Pennsylvania and Notre Dame.

Kassenaar has an MS in journalism from Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Manitoba. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two daughters.

Jeffrey Morton is a graduate of Kelvin High School (1976) and the University of Manitoba Faculty of Commerce (1980), and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Manitoba (1983). He took the Directors Education Program through the Rotman School of Business and obtained his ICD.D designation in 2014.

As a Chartered Accountant by training, Morton has successfully performed as a CFO for over 25 years in two significant and successful Manitoba-based private businesses, National Equipment Leasing and Piston Ring Service. He retired from the latter in June 2018 and currently works as a Corporate Board Director and a Business Advisor.

Morton has been a committed volunteer for almost 30 years, and serves or has served on 15 not for profit, for profit, professional association, and corporate boards. In that body of work, he has led two boards as Chair and served as the Chair of Audit and Finance or Treasurer in six cases. Currently, he is a member of the board of the Cambrian Credit Union and chairs its Risk Oversight Committee.

In 2002, Morton was elected a Fellow of the Manitoba Institute of Chartered Accountants in recognition of his extensive record of continuous volunteer service in the Winnipeg community and to the CA profession.

He has been married to Mary for 38 years, has two children, Sarah and Alexander, a son-in-law Raymond Gagne, and a grandson, Joshua.

Todd Asman is responsible for IG Wealth Management’s diverse product shelf and planning services including investment funds, banking and mortgages, insurance services, advanced financial planning and strategic investment planning. Todd joined IG Wealth Management in 2004 after 10 years with the Great-West Life Assurance Company and three years in independent actuarial consulting.

Todd has a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from the University of Manitoba with a major in actuarial science. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries.

Carly Edmundson is a creative professional with more than 10 years of experience in marketing and communications. She is passionate about finding ways to create meaningful connections and a sense of community through marketing and communications strategies. She has worked in a variety of industries and has specialized in ’starting from scratch’ to take a vision to reality throughout her career. Her experience includes marketing at the Winnipeg Airports Authority where she focused on the marketing strategy surrounding building and opening the new terminal, and CentrePort Canada Inc., where she worked to build North America’s largest tri-modal inland port. Edmundson has also held roles at Manitoba-grown organizations such as Wellington West and Price Industries. She now leads the marketing and communications division at Cushman & Wakefield | Stevenson, Manitoba’s largest full-service commercial real estate firm.

Edmundson grew up in a small town in rural Manitoba, which taught her the value of being part of building a strong community. She regularly volunteers her time to support various local non-profits and has served on the board of the Learning Disabilities Association of Manitoba. In August 2020, she became the Chair of the Young Associates, part of the Asper School of Business Foundation.

While working for the City of Ottawa’s culture division, Trudy Schroeder experienced the powerful impact that occurs when municipal leaders and policy makers create an environment where facilities, programs, and plans coalesce to enhance a city’s artistic and cultural development. Festivals, art galleries, performance venues, public art programs, libraries, museums, and performance series can transform neighborhoods and the community as a whole.  
Upon moving to Winnipeg in 1996, Schroeder worked with the City of Winnipeg to research and draft its cultural policy review, alongside a number of other cultural initiatives. She became the Executive Director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and saw the organization through a decade of great growth and development as an artistic, economic, and tourism asset to our community.  She is currently in her eleventh season as Executive Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and she remains committed to fully engaging the power of great art to benefit the city and all of its residents.
Schroeder was born and raised in Winnipeg and holds a BA from the University of Winnipeg, an ARCT from the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music, an Arts Administration Diploma from the University of Ottawa, and an MBA from the University of Manitoba. She has been active in community organizations, boards, and national arts advocacy and sectoral research initiatives.  She has been recognized for her community contributions with a number of awards including the YMCA/YWCA Women of Distinction Award, the Queen’s Jubilee Award, and the 2016 Leader of the Year Award from Tourism Winnipeg.

As the Executive Director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Lynne leads the organization’s year-round strategic direction and operations including the summer music festival with an annual attendance now exceeding 75,000. Previously, she spent over 13 years in the film & television industry where she produced over 150 hours of original and award-winning programming. As President of Production at Frantic Films, Lynne was responsible for the financial and business affairs, led international distribution operations of nearly 600 hours of programming and was a key member of the senior leadership team partaking in corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions and general operations.
 
A passionate supporter of her communities, she is also a volunteer board member of Imagine Canada, the Canadian Live Music Association, the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce and Green Action Centre as well as a number of advisory and advocacy committees and councils including the Canadian Arts Summit, Winnipeg Chamber Economic Recovery Advisory Committee and the Cultural Human Resource Council’s Cross-Sector Recovery Committee. She previously served on the boards of Manitobans for the Arts, the West End Cultural Centre, On Screen Manitoba, Plug In ICA, TEDxWinnipeg and the Manitoba Premier’s Economic Advisory Council.
 
In her spare time she can be found walking, running, cycling or kayaking – anything that can actively get her from one place to another! – around her home province and abroad. 

Born and raised in Manitoba, Dr. Dan Smith studied higher education and public policy, receiving a PhD from the University of Manitoba in 2009. Smith worked for the Government of Manitoba and held various senior leadership positions in the Royal Canadian Navy (reserve) where he continues to be an active Lieutenant-Commander, before moving to the University College of the North in 2012. Smith was appointed as the UCN’s Dean of Arts and Science in 2012, and in 2014, he became Dean of the newly created Faculty of Arts, Business, and Science. In September 2015, Smith was appointed, and continues to serve, as Vice-President Academic and Research at UCN.