Board of Governors

Helen Antoniou is an executive coach for corporate leaders and their teams, as well as family business owners and their successors.  She is the author of the Globe and Mail bestseller, Back to Beer... and Hockey:  The Story of Eric Molson, a business biography of her father-in-law and past chairman of Molson Coors Beverage Company.  Helen also lectures at institutions such as the MIT Sloan of Management and the ICD-Rotman Directors Education Program.

Starting as a corporate commercial lawyer 30 years ago, Helen transitioned to management consulting and later assumed leadership roles within organizations such as Bombardier and the McGill University Health Center.  She now uses her experience to help coaching clients maximize their impact and reach their goals.

Helen holds Civil and Common Law degrees from McGill University, a Masters in Law from Université de Paris II, and a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University.  Her community involvement focuses on health education.

Prior to his appointment as Deputy Chancellor, Mr. Wener served on the Board of Governors from 1995 to June 2012, was Vice-Chair of the Board from 2005 to 2011 and Chair of the Real Estate Planning Committee from 1996 to 2012.

Mr. Wener is Chairman and CEO of Canderel. A native Montrealer who graduated from Concordia University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, Mr. Wener turned his passion for buildings and architecture into 40 years of acquiring, developing and managing office and industrial properties, residential condominiums and retail facilities.

Committed to community involvement, Mr. Wener launched Défi Corporatif Canderel in 1989, which has since raised more than $7 million for cancer research. As a personal expression of his belief in community service, for over 25 years Mr. Wener has played a leadership role in numerous organizations devoted to education, culture and health. He is also a director of several corporations.

Mr. Wener is a Member of the Order of Canada and a Member of the Conseil du Patronat du Québec.

Prior to her appointment as Deputy Chancellor, Gina served on the Board of Governors starting in 2014. She is a past member of the Board’s Governance and Ethics Committee and a past chair of the Board’s Real Estate Planning Committee, on which she continues to serve.

After immigrating from Iran in 1979, Gina earned a master’s and a doctorate in building engineering from Concordia University, making her Canada’s first woman PhD in the discipline.

She spent more than 30 years in the private sector as an engineer, corporate executive and principal shareholder of a national engineering firm. Under her tenure, her firm was recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, and Profit Magazine named her one of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs.

Gina is one of the few women to chair a TSX 60 company – the Canadian Apartment Properties REIT. She also chairs the European Residential REIT and serves on several other corporate boards.

Her frequent public speaking engagements centre on the value of education and on equity, diversity and inclusion, especially for women and immigrants in the STEM fields.

Gina is a Knight of the Order of Montreal, a Member of the Order of Canada, and an honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 34 Combat Engineer Regiment (CER) of the Canadian Armed Forces.