Reunite Alumni Awards Evening
Every year as part of Reunite at Rotman, we recognize outstanding alumni with Rotman Alumni Awards. These graduates exemplify the Rotman values of diversity, excellence, respect and integrity. They have been incredibly successful while giving back to their organizations and communities.
We were thrilled to celebrate our incredible 2021 Rotman Alumni Award recipients in the fall. Thank you to everyone who joined us.
Rotman Leader to Watch Award
Nuha Siddiqui, BCOM '18
CEO & Co-founder, erthos
Read Nuha's bio »
Tribute speaker: Ajay Agrawal | Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation | Professor of Strategic Management
This Award was established to recognize an early to mid-career alumnus who has had tremendous success in their professional work and demonstrated a commitment to giving back to their community. We are thrilled to present Nuha Siddiqui, BCOM, 18, CEO and Co-Founder, erthos, with this year's Leader to Watch Award.
Rotman Volunteer Excellence Award (New)
Cornell Wright, JD/MBA '00
Executive Vice President
Wittington Investments, Limited
Read Cornell's bio »
Tribute speaker: J. Robert S. Prichard | Chair, Torys LLP and President Emeritus, University of Toronto
Members of the alumni community from across all our programs have dedicated themselves to the important work of volunteering within the Rotman and UofT community. This Award was established to recognize the outstanding volunteer contribution of alumni to the Rotman School and its mission. We are thrilled to present Cornell Wright, JD/MBA '00, Executive Vice President, Wittington Investments, with our inaugural Volunteer Excellence Award.
Rotman Lifetime Achievement Award
Kim Shannon, MBA '93
Founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer
Sionna Investment Managers
Read Kim's bio »
Tribute speaker: Dian Cohen | Economist, Journalist and Broadcaster
Throughout their careers, these distinguished Rotman graduates have contributed significantly to their organizations, industry and communities while upholding the highest standards and values in everything they do. As such, the Lifetime Achievement Award represents the best in our alumni. They inspire all those who aspire to have an impact on both business and society. We are thrilled to present Kim Shannon, MBA '93, Founder and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Sionna Investment Managers with this year's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Thank you to our supporting sponsors:
Kim Shannon, MBA '93
Founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer, Sionna Investment Managers
Kim founded Sionna, one of the largest independent investment firms led by a woman, in 2002. Kim is the lead Portfolio Manager on Sionna's Large Cap, All Cap and Focused Canadian Value strategies. Since joining the industry in 1983, she has received numerous awards, including Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year (2005), the RBC Canadian Woman Entrepreneur Award (2007), Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award (2007, 2017) and the Rotman Women in Management Association Top 10 Award (Entrepreneur Category, 2015). Kim is on the board for the Brandes Institute, Ontario Arts Foundation and United Corporation. She is a member of the C.D. Howe Institute’s National Council and the CFA Institute Board of Regents (previously served as its chair) and is a past President of the CFA Society Toronto. Kim serves as a board member with the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance and previously served as Chair of its Governance Committee. Kim was amongst a select group of industry experts to present at the 2020 Columbia Business School’s “From Graham to Buffett and Beyond” Omaha Panel. Kim also co-hosted the female-led Variant Perspectives Value Investing Conference in 2019, which featured Warren Buffett as a keynote speaker.
Nuha Siddiqui, BCOM '18
CEO & Co-founder, erthos
Nuha is the CEO & Co-founder of Canadian based green-tech start-up erthos which creates plant-powered alternatives to traditional plastics. Single-use plastics made with erthos solutions are compostable, and compatible with existing plastic technology, making plant powered plastics the natural choice. Nuha founded the company while still completing her degree at the University of Toronto Rotman Commerce program where she specialized in Business & Environmental Economics. After graduating, Nuha launched erthos full-time, scaled up her team to 20, raised over $7.3 million within a year and launched global manufacturing pilots to help tackle the issue worldwide.
Cornell Wright, JD/MBA '00
Executive Vice President
Wittington Investments, Limited
Cornell Wright is Executive Vice President of Wittington Investments, Limited (the principal holding company of the Weston-Loblaw-Choice Properties group) and is to become President at year-end.
Cornell joined Wittington on May 1, 2021 following a 20-year career at Torys LLP (a law firm), where he was a leading corporate lawyer. Cornell served as Chair of the firm’s Corporate Department and former co-head of the firm’s M&A Practice. As a lawyer, his practice focused on M&A transactions, both public and private, and other critical situations. He played a lead role acting for some of Canada’s largest public and private companies in their most significant strategic matters.
Cornell has a broad range of experience in complex transactional, securities, family-controlled business, private equity, regulatory, governance, activism and compliance matters. He has also regularly counselled boards of directors and board committees on corporate governance matters, crisis management and shareholder engagement issues. Cornell is a Fellow of The American College of Governance Counsel. Cornell is also a director of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada.
Cornell is actively involved in the community. He is a trustee of University Health Network, Canada’s largest academic health sciences centre. He is also Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Ballet of Canada. In 2018, Cornell served as Chair of the Canadian Arts Summit, an annual gathering of leaders from Canada’s largest arts institutions organized by Business/Arts. Cornell is a former director of the Loran Scholars Foundation and The Learning Partnership, which promotes publicly funded education in Canada.Cornell holds JD and MBA degrees from the University of Toronto and a BA from McGill University.
J. Robert S. Prichard
Chair, Torys LLP and President Emeritus, University of Toronto
J. Robert S. Prichard is a lawyer, educator and corporate director. At present, he serves as Chair of Torys LLP, Chair of the Hospital for Sick Children and Visitor at Massey College. He is also, President Emeritus of the University of Toronto, the former chair of BMO Financial Group and a director of Onex Corporation, George Weston Limited and Alamos Gold. He also serves on the international advisory board of Barrick Gold. Mr Prichard taught law at the University of Toronto, Yale University and Harvard University and served as Dean of Law from 1984-1990 and President from 1990-2000 at the University of Toronto. He subsequently served as President and CEO of Torstar Corporation from 2002-2009 and then President and CEO of Metrolinx before serving as Chair of Metrolinx from 2010-2018. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Member of the Order of Ontario, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Directors. He attended Swarthmore College, the University of Chicago (MBA), the University of Toronto (LLB) and Yale University (LLM) and he holds honorary degrees from eleven colleges and universities in Canada and the United States. He is married to Ann E Wilson, a classmate, lawyer and painter, and is father of three sons.
Ajay Agrawal
Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Professor of Strategic Management, Rotman School Of Management
Ajay Agrawal is the Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. He is the founder of U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab, which is home to one of the greatest concentrations of A.I.-enabled companies of any program on Earth. Report on Business Magazine named him to its “Power 50” list of the most influential Canadians to watch, calling him “a key contributor to Toronto’s emergence as a world-class technology ecosystem.” His best-selling book, Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, was released in May 2018 from Harvard Press. And his scholarly book, The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda, for which he was an editor and coauthor, was published by the University of Chicago Press in May of 2019.
Dian Cohen
Economist, Journalist and Broadcaster
For more than five decades, Dian Cohen’s ideas about how the economy works have helped shape personal budgets and government policies. She began her career in 1963 as an economics commentator on radio and television, first with CBC and then CTV. By 1968, she added newspaper and magazine columns on personal money management, economics and business affairs. Cohen helped found the Public Policy Forum, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Massawippi Valley Health Co-op. She served as director of the Economic Council of Canada and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, several public corporations including Canadian Pacific, Royal Insurance and Sunlife. Her volunteer work includes the YMCA-YWCA, the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation, the Lampe Foundation and the Massawippi Valley Foundation. The author of seven books, Cohen was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1993 and the Order of Manitoba in 2015.