CCBRS 2026 Speakers
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Amelia Clarke
University of Waterloo
Dr. Amelia Clarke is a Full Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo, where she has shaped sustainability research and education for over three decades. Her leadership roles have included serving as President of Sierra Club Canada, founding Director of Waterloo’s Master of Environment and Business program, and Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Environment.
Approaching sustainability through a strategic management lens, Dr. Clarke’s research centres on advancing several UN Sustainable Development Goals. She currently leads an $8.5M national partnership on municipal net-zero action (N-ZAP) and co-leads a project on youth and innovation. Her widely cited work spans collaborative strategic management, cross-sector partnerships, and pathways to deep decarbonization in cities.
A lifelong advocate for youth-led change, she founded the Sierra Youth Coalition in 1996, helping drive sustainability initiatives across more than 80 Canadian campuses. Dr. Clarke holds a PhD in Management (Strategy) from McGill University and continues to contribute to organizations including Nature Canada’s Women for Nature and the World Resources Institute’s advisory council.
Panel Discussants
Dr. Sourav Ray
University of Guelph
Dr. Sourav Ray is the Lang Chair Professor and a tenured full Professor of Marketing at the University of Guelph, which he joined in 2022. His research explores marketing strategy, distribution channels, pricing, innovation, governance, and technology, using quantitative methods to address questions relevant to both practice and policy.
His work has appeared in leading marketing and economics journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Science. Before Guelph, he held professorships at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business and Concordia University, and has mentored numerous doctoral students now established in their own careers. Dr. Ray holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Minnesota, along with aerospace engineering degrees from Texas A&M University and IIT Kharagpur.
Dr. Michael Haughton
Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Michael Haughton is Professor of Operations and Decision Sciences, and CN Research Fellow in Supply Chain Management, in Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis School of Business & Economics.
His expertise within SCM is freight transportation. He has a prolific research record of scholarly awards, publications, and presentations to audiences in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. His more prominent accomplishments include receiving the 2024 Instructional Innovation Award from the Decision Sciences Institute and appointments as Visiting Fulbright Research Chair at Arizona State University’s Center for Transborder Studies and Visiting Scholar in China’s Chongqing Technology and Business University and Jamaica’s Mona School of Business & Management.
Dr. Brent McKnight
McMaster University
Dr. Brent McKnight is an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University. He is the Director of the Integrated Business and Humanities program, co-lead of the DeGroote Social Impact Hub and holds the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Professorship in Strategic Business Studies. He studies how firms and organizations bounce back from adversity and hardship. He has studied the role of firms in community resilience and adaptation to climate change induced natural disasters. He is also studying non-profit and main-street retailer responses to COVID. Throughout his work, Dr. McKnight is driven by a fascination both with how firms bounce back from substantial adversity and in the increasingly important role that firms play in building community-level resilience across a range of shocks and disturbances. In Dr. McKnight’s research, resilience plays an important role in conceptualizing a firm’s pursuit of sustainability; resilience taps into the essence of what it is to be sustainable over long timelines.
Prof. Michael Hatcher
McMaster University
Professor Michael Hatcher is currently the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Industry Professor at DeGroote School of Business and is a member of the Joseph Brant Hospital Foundation Board of Directors. Prior to this, he was the Head of Global Equity at Invesco Canada and lead manager of the Trimark Fund. While at Trimark Investments, he was in the role of Co-CIO and Director of Research. Michael has extensive experience managing concentrated portfolios in Global, European, US and Canadian equities and developing equity research teams. His investment philosophy is rooted in identifying and understanding high quality global businesses and evaluating the attributes of successful management teams.
Michael graduated with a M.Sc. in Econometrics from the London School of Economics, Master of Mathematical Finance from the University of Toronto, B.A.(Hons) Economics from Carleton and B.A. Statistics from Carleton. He is a CFA Charterholder.
Dr. Vik Singh
Toronto Metropolitan University
Dr. Vik Singh is an Associate Professor in the Global Management Studies program at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) and Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainable Practices in Research and Enterprise (INSPIRE). His research and teaching focus on geopolitical risk, international business, and global socio-economic dynamics. His work examines how geopolitical risks, ranging from trade wars and tariffs to global security tensions, shape business strategies, global supply chains, and financial markets. In particular, he investigates the challenges posed by evolving globalization and how tariff uncertainty has become a critical risk driver for firms and policymakers alike. He holds a Ph.D. in Business from Griffith University, an MBA from the Schulich School of Business (York University), and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Regina. His academic expertise is complemented by extensive consulting and collaborations with organizations such as Statistics Canada, the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, Loblaws, the Royal Bank of Canada, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Through this combination of scholarship, applied research, and thought leadership, Dr. Singh advances understanding at the intersection of geopolitical risk, trade policy, and sustainable business strategy.