Board and Staff
A. Ian Aitken, Director
Mr. Aitken is a professional investor and long-time supporter of entrepreneurship education in Canada. He is the Managing Partner of Pembroke Management, the Chief Executive Officer of Pembroke Private Wealth Management and the Chief Executive Officer of The GBC American Growth Fund. In addition, Mr. Aitken serves as the Chairman of Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship, a registered Canadian charity and as a Director of The John Dobson Foundation. He is also a past president of the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal. Mr. Aitken has had a great interest in Bhutan since his first visit to the country during 1997.
Kathy Allan, Director
Sam Blyth, Founder and Chair
Sam was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge (MA), and the University of Paris. In addition to leading his successful company Blyth Academy, established in 1978, Sam has spent much of his adult life working and traveling around the world. After being introduced to Bhutan by Pierre Elliot Trudeau in 1988, Blyth has revisited the country on a number of occasions and has visited several Bhutanese students who have studied in Canada. His love for education and passion for the nation led him to launch The Bhutan Canada Foundation in 2009.
Gerald Clarke, PhD, Director
Dr. Gerald Clarke is the former Director of the University of New Brunswick Bhutan Project Office. In 1992, he was involved in the partnership of UNB and CIDA, signing the first of three 5-year contribution agreements to assist in strengthening the education system and improving the quality of education in Bhutan.
In 2006, Dr. Clarke created the Unsung Hero award designed to recognize individuals who go above and beyond the responsibilities of the average citizen. The most recent recipients of this award were Tony Robinson-Smith and his wife Nadya Ladoucer who recently ran across Bhutan with ten students to raise funding for the Queen’s Education Fund. The couple has been teaching in Bhutan for the past three years to help develop quality education for the Royal University of Bhutan.
Today, Dr. Clarke teaches Citizenship & Community Issues at Renaissance College, a branch of the University of New Brunswick.
Alan Gill, Director
Alan was raised and educated in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada. His career has included significant senior level policy, programming, project and financial management experience within the public and private sectors in Canada as well as in various multilateral organizations.
Senior positions have included: representative for Canada, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands on the Executive Board of the Asian Development Bank and for Canada in a similar capacity on the Board of the Inter-American Development Bank; Chief Financial Officer and Director of Private Sector Development at the Asian Development Bank; and senior executive posts within the Canadian federal public service (Privy Council Office, Department of Finance and Export Development Canada).
Alan has also been actively involved as a founder and Director of the EuroCan Carbon Credit Foundation. In addition to serving as a member of the board of The Bhutan Canada Foundation he also currently serves as the Chair of an oversight committee of international capital market experts responsible for implementing a UN-HABITAT program designed to mobilize private capital in support of the housing sectors of developing countries.
Lauren Hitchman, Director
As co-owner of Naylor Group Inc, a family run Electrical, Mechanical Service and Construction Company, grooming for future succession has required Lauren to have multi-role exposure to most aspects of the company from operations to governance.
As Director of Shared Services, Lauren supervises the team who support the companies 2,200 customers. Her team manages 1,600 service contracts and coordinates Naylor’s 120 field technicians to conduct Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Communication service and installation work in the GTA.
Previously she held positions at Xerox Canada, and Manulife Financial. She is an avid cycler, skier, and adventure racer.
Lauren’s interest in Bhutan commenced in 2001 when she travelled from Thimphu to Bumthang.
Andrew Mitchell, Director
Andrew has an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto and is a management consultant with Deloitte’s Human Capital practice. He previously worked at Rogers Publishing selling advertising for a business-to-business publication. Andrew has extensively traveled in South East Asia, including 3 magical weeks in Bhutan. Andrew brings a strong operations focus to the board, chairing the Governance committee and sitting on the Finance and Fundraising committees.
Henry Perren, Director
Henry is president of Cidel Financial Group, a member of the Cidel management committee, and responsible for Cidel’s Canadian operations and its investments in Toron Capital Markets Inc. a leading Canadian investment counseling firm.
Prior to rejoining Cidel in 2008, Henry was Chief Operating Officer of AFL Investments Limited a Bermuda based financial services firm. He is currently executive vice president of AFL, a director of Argus Investment strategies Ltd, a Bermuda based mutual fund company, and a director of Toron.
Henry is a director of the Workman Arts Project of Ontario and a director of The Bhutan Canada Foundation.
Rosemary Phelan, Director
Ambassador Lhatu Wangchuk, Director
Lhatu Wangchuk has strong ties to Canada as he was a student of Father Mackey and spent some time working for him. He is widely travelled and was previously the Minister of Tourism in Thimpu as well as Ambassador to Bangladesh, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and South Korea. He has also served as Chief of Protocol and Acting Foreign Secretary in Bhutan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is currently Ambassador to Canada, and Ambassador to the United Nations.
Jamie Zeppa, Director
Jamie is a writer whose articles and reviews have been published in The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and The Literary Review of Canada, as well as various anthologies. She lived and taught in Bhutan from 1989 until 1998. Her memoir, Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan, has been published in nine countries, and won the Banff Mountain Book Festival Award for Travel Writing. Zeppa also received a CBC Canadian Literary Award (Memoir Category). She has a B.Ed. from the University of Toronto and an M.A. from York University. She is currently a professor of English and Liberal Studies at Seneca College in Toronto.