In her first year of university, Ariella heard her friends raving about their art history courses, so she enrolled in a class on Baroque art and architecture. Fast forward ten years and she is currently completing her PhD in art history at the University of Toronto and holds a pre-doctoral fellowship in the research group “Visualizing Science in Media Revolutions” at the Bibliotheca Hertziana-Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome.

Passionate from a young age about helping others and building a more equitable world, these interests were further developed during Jennifer Langill’s time at Branksome Hall. Today, these same values drive her personal and professional endeavours.

Knowledgeable in five languages, she earned a BA in global development studies from Queen’s University and an MA in geography from the University of Toronto, and is currently working towards her PhD in geography at McGill University.

Through her master’s program, Jennifer examined human-environment relationships in the Peruvian Amazon, and how environmental hazards are affecting livelihoods, local ecological knowledge, and gender roles for riverine populations. In her doctoral program at McGill, she takes a feminist approach to investigating intergenerational livelihood change for ethnic minorities in the highlands of northern Thailand. In addition to her dissertation work, she maintains multiple research collaborations, mentors undergraduate students, and co-leads anti-racism initiatives in her department at McGill.

Author of several articles in academic journals, Jennifer has organized and presented at numerous conferences. She is the recipient of over a dozen academic awards, including a Doctoral Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the American Geographical Society Council Fellowship, and the Gilbert F. White Best Thesis in Hazards Geography Award.

In 2011, Jennifer founded Gollucoh, a non-profit micro development organization that focused on individualized support to interested households, including financial literacy training, alternative income generation, and women’s educational development in impoverished villages in Laos. While stepping back due to her dissertation work, she continues to offer youth mentorship and support for women and girls’ education in Laos. She is currently based in Toronto with her husband and their infant son.

It’s not essential to merge a life in the financial services sector with a commitment to securing micro-loans for new immigrants. That’s just part of the job for Kelly Gauthier, Managing Director and Partner at Rally Assets, who leads and advises on its portfolio of responsible and impact investment projects.

At Rally, Kelly has advised more than 50 market-leading foundations, corporate and private investors, contributing to over $250-million of capital invested in high impact solutions. Kelly is passionate about using the power of capital markets to drive the transition to a more sustainable, equitable and just economy.

A recent Ontario Volunteer Service Award winner, she was recognized for her work with Access Community Capital Fund. Access provides micro-loans to new Canadians, refugees and immigrants excluded from banking systems due to a lack of credit rating or collateral. She sits on its board of directors and chairs its investment committee.

“Kelly is a trailblazer in the sustainable investment field,” says the nominator for this award.

Previously she worked for Mercer Investment Consulting on the responsible investment team. She is also an active member of the Responsible and Impact Investing industries, speaking frequently and working on market building initiatives. She also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Responsible Investment Association (RIA).

Kelly has an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a BSc in engineering from Queen’s University. She is married to Dr. Alun Ackery, an emergency room doctor and has three children.

Sohani is a Surgical Resident of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre. She also works with Project Theia, a non-profit organization that provides ophthalmic and facial reconstructive surgery to communities in developing countries. Sohani has worked with the organization Unite for Sight in the United States and throughout South Asia, performing free vision screenings to underserved populations. Sohani also founded the first vision clinic in Sri Lanka to provide free, comprehensive vision screenings for a particular diabetic eye disease—providing service to 600 patients per month. A Prefect at Branksome, Sohani was involved in public speaking and debating, and attended Model United Nations in The Hague, Netherlands. She holds an MD from New York Medical College, a Masters in public health from Cambridge University and a BSc from the University of Pennsylvania.

Emma BEQAJ’06 has loved cooking since before she even started school, when she would help out in her mother's kitchen. By Grade 7, she was holding formal dinner parties for her Branksome friends. So it's not surprising that four years ago, she successfully started Emma's Eatery Catering, serving meals and buffets for groups of people in homes, at corporate events, at cottages and at weddings.

Since making that leap of faith, Emma has steadily built a client roster that now includes the National Ballet School and Branksome. And she is getting plenty of notice. She has appeared on CityTV Breakfast Television, Global News The Morning Show and Rogers TV daytime. Last year, her cooking skills got the stamp of approval from the expert judges of Food Network Canada's series Chopped Canada, where she won her episode against three other chefs.

Victoria CHENG'00 was a finalist on the CBC Television show Canada's Smartest Person, and you can easily see why. She is one of those high-achieving people who is ready for anything. A classically trained violinist from childhood, still playing. A serious athlete, still racing up mountains. A graduate with two MAs, including a Harvard credit. A writer and editor, working at McGill University. And, hardly least, a mother of two young children.

Victoria grew up in Edmonton, then spent three high-school years in her parents' native Hong Kong before moving to Branksome for Grade 13. At Branksome, her language and writings skills flourished. "It was an exciting time for me intellectually, developing my passion for the written word," she says.

She met her future husband, Thomas Leenders, at the University of Waterloo, and later received an MA in English from Western University. The couple married in 2005 and soon after moved to Boston where Thomas was accepted at Harvard. Victoria took the Master's in journalism program at the Harvard Extension School, where she won the Dean's Prize for her thesis. Her classes led to regular freelance work with the Boston Globe and an internship with National Public Radio.