Executive Steering Committee

Naomi Andrew

Naomi Andrew is Associate Vice-President (Fair Practices & Legal Affairs) for the University of Manitoba. Naomi joined the Office of Legal Counsel at the University of Manitoba in 2003. Her areas of focus include real estate development and leasing, commercial transactions, research and technology, and copyright. Naomi earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1995 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1999.

Prior to joining the University, Naomi practiced commercial law at a Winnipeg law firm.

Catherine Chow

Catherine Chow is Vice President + General Counsel at Keg Restaurants Ltd, where she guides executive decision-making and leads business teams to successful outcomes. Catherine is responsible for a broad portfolio of legal matters across Canada and US for 100+ locations in The Keg estate: financing, real estate, business development, franchising, risk management, litigation, trademark protection, and reporting issuer compliance. Catherine has 20+ years of experience in private practice, representing national tenants and real estate developers. 

Recognized by industry awards for leading innovation in risk management, Catherine shares her experiences as a columnist for a national corporate counsel magazine. Catherine recently won the Adam Albright Excellence Award for teaching business law as an Adjunct Professor at UBC Allard School of Law. Catherine has been appointed as an adjudicator to the Law Society of British Columbia for a four-year term to preside over cases of lawyer’s professional misconduct, disciplinary action and admissions. Catherine holds a LLB’97 and BA’94 from the University of Calgary, and an LLM’07 from the University of British Columbia. Together with her spouse, Catherine enjoys playing volleyball at Kits beach, and getting active outdoors with their two young children in Vancouver.

Bindu Cudjoe

Bindu Cudjoe is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for CWB Financial Group, leading teams responsible for managing legal and regulatory compliance risk across the group.

Prior to joining CWB in December 2018, Bindu spent six years at BMO Financial Group serving most recently as Vice President, Deputy General Counsel - Technology and Operations & Chief Knowledge Officer, and prior to that Deputy General Counsel & Chief Operating Officer. At BMO she managed legal and regulatory risk relating to a wide range of topics from technology to outsourcing, intellectual property to marketing, trade finance, corporate banking, correspondent banking and commercial banking and also lead the General Counsel group’s initiatives in knowledge management, technology, project management, e-discovery and litigation support, board and senior management reporting, administrative assistance, finance, human resources, real estate, strategic initiatives and BMO's outside counsel program. Prior to BMO, Bindu was a Partner with McMillan LLP in the financial services group.

A frequent speaker on issues of innovation in the legal industry, legal operations and diversity in the professions, Bindu was named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada by Canadian Lawyer Magazine in 2016 and a Lexpert Rising Star: Leading Lawyers under 40 in 2014. She is a mother of three, active in her community and currently secretary and director of the Oakville Community Foundation, a vice president and director of Women General Counsel Canada Network and a member of the Ryerson Law & Business Advisory Council.

Rustam (Rusty) Juma

Rustam Juma is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Eckler Ltd., Canada’s largest privately owned actuarial consulting firm with offices across Canada and the Caribbean. In this role, Rusty provides corporate governance, legal, and risk management advice to the Board and senior management during a period of significant change.

Prior to joining Eckler, Rusty was in-house counsel at Deloitte and worked in private practice at international law firms in both Toronto and Calgary. Rusty graduated law school from Western University and obtained a Bachelor of Science from the University of Waterloo. He has worked in the United States and Afghanistan, studied abroad in India and has volunteered in Vietnam.

Rustam is a director of the Newcomers Women’s Services Toronto and was previously appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario to sit on the Council for the Association of Professional Geoscientists. In 2016, Rusty was awarded the global Top 10 30-Something Award by the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Thomas Kim

Thomas Kim is Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary at Thomson Reuters. Thomas joined Reuters in 1999 as compliance and legal counsel. Since then, he has held a number of legal executive roles including as a business unit general counsel and as Chief Compliance Officer. Prior to that, Thomas was the Managing Director of Thomson Reuters businesses in China.

Prior to joining Thomson Reuters, Thomas was in private practice in San Francisco with the law firms Baker & McKenzie and Hancock, Rothert & Bunshoft (now Duane Morris). 

Throughout his career, Thomas has led diversity initiatives, having helped launch a reverse mentoring program and a global diversity advisory council at Thomson Reuters and the ASCEND Executive Network in New York to aid Asian Pacific Americans rise to the C-suite. Previously, Thomas was named one of the “Best Lawyers under 40” by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. As a leader, Thomas believes that purpose drives people and people drive profit.

Thomas obtained undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University.

Hubert Lai

Hubert obtained his law degree from Queen’s University. He articled in Vancouver with the intellectual property law firm of Barrigar & Oyen (now known as Oyen Wiggs Green & Mutala LLP), and practised law with the national firm of Fraser & Beatty (now known as Dentons Canada LLP).

Hubert was appointed as UBC’s University Counsel in 2001. At the time, he was the youngest person to have ever served in such a capacity at a major Canadian university. As well, from 2006 to 2007, he simultaneously served as the University’s Associate Vice President, Government Relations. Since 2007, he has served as a member of the University Executive. In 2012, he was appointed as Queen’s Counsel by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

Hubert is involved in a number of organizations, both related and unrelated to the University. He is a founding director of entrepeneurship@UBC Management Inc. and entrepreneurship@UBC Ventures (VCC) Inc. He also serves as a director and officer of UBC Research Enterprises Inc., as a director and member of the Management Committee of the Hong Kong Foundation for UBC Ltd., and as a director of Asia Pacific Regional Office Ltd. He has previously served as a member of the British Columbia Advisory Council convened to advise the federal Secretary of State for Western Economic Diversification, as a director and a member of the LIST Foundation, as a founding officer of Webnames.ca Inc., as a founding director and officer of Paragon Testing Enterprises Inc., as an officer of the Cedar Lodge Society, and as the President of the Vancouver Branch of the Queen’s University Alumni Association.

Hina Latif

Hina Latif is General Counsel at Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. In her role, which she has held since June 2018, Hina is responsible for providing timely, effective legal advice to both Mercedes-Benz Financial and the company’s Daimler Truck Financial brand, and to minimize legal risk for both brands. She also oversees matters related to HR, privacy and compliance and works closely with external counsel to ensure services are cost-effective. She collaborates with her peers on the executive leadership team to devise and implement corporate strategy which relates to customers, dealers and employees.

As diversity leader, Hina co-chairs a recently launched diversity and inclusion working group at Mercedes-Benz Financial which aims to optimally utilize the diversity of thought that comes from the company’s existing diverse and inclusive workforce. Prior to Mercedes-Benz Financial, Hina acted as Canadian Counsel for Element Fleet Management and has extensive experience in secured financing.

Hina is qualified in Ontario, and in the UK where she began her legal career in 2000.

Kikelomo Lawal

Kikelomo Lawal is the global leader for CIBC’s Legal, Corporate Secretary, Ombudsman and Privacy Office functions, and related policies and programs.

Kikelomo has 25 years of progressive leadership experience, including legal expertise as both a trial lawyer and a transactional lawyer. Prior to joining CIBC, Kikelomo was Chief Legal Officer, Ombudsman and Corporate Secretary at Interac Corporation, and, prior to that, she practiced law at firms on Bay Street in Toronto and Wall Street in New York City.

A mentor to many, Kikelomo contributes her time as a Board member and advisor to various organizations. She was shortlisted for the National Post General Counsel of the Year Award in 2018, and named one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Payments for 2019.

Kikelomo is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from New York University. She is a member of the New York State Bar and Law Society of Upper Canada. She resides in the Greater Toronto Area with her husband and three children.

Peter Nguyen

Peter Nguyen is SVP Legal, Associate General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary at Descartes Systems Group. He is also the founder of GC Forum, providing opportunity for GCs, CLOs and senior in-house lawyers to connect, share and learn from one another. Prior to joining Descartes, Peter was the General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Privacy Officer at Resolver Inc.

Peter is also Strategic Advisor to Docket (platform designed for in-house counsel to centralize matter intake, manage departmental collaboration and gain deep analytics into legal departments) and Athennian (a legal entity and corporate secretary management cloud platform).

Leola Pon

Leola Pon is Executive Officer, Legal Services and Governance at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), one of North America’s largest public school boards. At the TDSB, she leads a team of lawyers and staff in providing strategic legal services on a wide range of matters, and oversees the governance portfolio at the TDSB.  Before joining the TDSB, Leola worked at the law firm of Hicks Morley as a labour and employment lawyer, and at the University of Toronto in various legal and non-legal roles. Leola was called to the Ontario Bar in 2006 following a career in Human Resources and Labour Relations.

 Leola was recognized for innovative management and equity leadership by Canadian Lawyer InHouse Magazine as the recipient of three Innovatio Awards including Innovation of the Year in 2017. In 2019, Leola and her team were recognized as one of Canada’s leading in-house teams by the Legal500 GC Powerlist Canada.  Leola is the recipient of the 2020 Ontario Bar Association (OBA)/Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA-Ontario) Award of Excellence. Leola is very active in the corporate counsel community and is a regular speaker at CCCA, OBA, FACL and many other events on issues such as legal innovation, labour and employment, human rights, equity, crisis management and leadership.

Julia Shin Doi

Julia Shin Doi is General Counsel, Secretary of the Board of Governors, and University Privacy Officer of Ryerson University.  As an Executive Group member, she provides legal and governance advice and has operational responsibility for access to information, privacy, records management, and compliance.  Julia’s areas of practice are corporate/commercial law, privacy law, and intellectual property law. 

Julia is an elected Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario and an adjudicator of the Law Society Tribunal. She also serves as a corporate director on the boards of the following: Cybersecure Catalyst, DMZ Ventures/Ryerson Futures Inc., Korean Legal Clinic, and the National GC Network.

Julia is an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University where she has taught Legal Drafting since 2002. She is the co-author of the leading Canadian text on drafting boilerplate contract clauses, Behind and Beyond Boilerplate: Drafting Commercial Agreements (Thomson Reuters). 

Julia is a founder and past president of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) and Women General Counsel Canada.  She is the past chair of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA) Ontario Chapter and winner of the CCCA Award of Excellence in 2017. Julia was named one of the Top 25 Most Influential in Canada in 2017, and in 2019, FACL recognized her with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, Julia won the Chambers Diversity and Inclusion award for outstanding contribution.   

Julia attained a BA with distinction (English major) from the University of Toronto (1989), JD (1992), and LLM (2007) from Osgoode Hall Law School, and was admitted to the Bar in Ontario in 1994.  

Hilda Wong

Hilda Wong is Vice President and General Counsel for First National Financial LP and oversees all aspects of First National’s legal affairs including formation of legal policy, compliance and regulatory matters, governance, contract negotiation and documentation and is responsible for First National’s privacy and anti-money laundering programs.

Hilda joined First National in 2007 as Senior Legal Counsel and was appointed General Counsel in January, 2013 and Vice President in April, 2014. Prior to joining First National, Hilda was a partner with the national law firm of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. Hilda has extensive experience in all aspects of financing, syndicated lending and real estate.

Hilda holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Toronto and has been in practice since 1993.