Alexander Foote, Chair
Colin Jackson, Vice-Chair
Stephen Huddart, Secretary
Cornelia Molson, Treasurer
Julie Hobbs
Penny Milton
Ken Murphy
Barbara Oram

Alexander Foote, Chair
A longtime high-tech entrepreneur and senior strategist Alexander (Sandy) Foote  dedicates his time to social entrepreneurism.  Sandy believes strongly in the importance of volunteerism and giving back to the community using the experience he has gained from successfully running his own business for 20 years.

Over the past 10 years, Sandy has worked at the board and chair level in the not-for-profit sector helping organizations focused on arts-infused education, the arts, festivals, and charitable giving to build sustainable business models, internal capacity and funding to fulfill their long-term visions.  

Sandy brings a unique perspective to business planning and design.  As former president of Systems Interface, co-founder of the aboriginal company Donna Cona, Vice President for Sierra Systems, mentor for business owners and as a CIO for government, Sandy has a broad range of both business leadership and managerial experience. Able to work well at all levels of management, Sandy understands the short and long term planning requirements and issues confronting both the private and not-for-profit sector. Sandy has extensive experience in providing strategic direction, developing the evolving governance models, implementing change management, leading business planning and building collaborative management teams.  In addition, Sandy has a special interest in new media and ePublishing.

Sandy is currently the chair of the Ottawa Art Gallery, ArtsSmarts, and the Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival and former chair of MASC.  Sandy sits on the board of the Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation and is a member of the Canadian Public Health Association Finance Committee.

Colin Jackson, Vice-Chair
Colin Jackson currently serves as President of Hands at Work Africa (Canada) a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the relief of poverty in Africa.  He is co-chair of the Olympic Plaza Cultural District, vice chair of ArtsSmarts, a board member of Rosebud Theatre, chair of the Performing Arts Centers Consortium Benchmark Project, Alberta chair of Culture Days, board member of the Calgary Arts Development Agency and of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce Strategic Council for the Renaissance City, among other boards and organizations.

He was the founding Artistic Director of Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg).  His work history includes being a drama producer for the CBC, Executive Director of the Confederation Centre of the Arts (Charlottetown) and President of The EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts (Calgary).  He has served as a member of the Prime Minister's External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities, a member of the Mayor's Panel on Urban Sustainability, a member of the Executive of the Canada Council for the Arts, as a board member of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Upper Room Food Ministry and as Calgary Chair of Harvard's Schools and Scholarships Committee.  He is the recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee medal and a Canada Council Senior Arts Award.

Colin Jackson holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University.

Stephen Huddart, Secretary
Stephen Huddart is the Vice President at the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation in Montréal. He manages the Foundation's granting program and is the Director of SiG@McConnell.

His career includes leadership positions in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked with children's singer Raffi as Executive Director of Troubadour Music Inc. and the non-profit Troubadour Institute. He also co-founded and operated the Alma Street Café, a triple bottom line business that for several years was Vancouver's jazz café of record.

Following this he held several executive positions with the BC SPCA, where he introduced innovations in humane education, animal-assisted therapy, and humane food labeling.

His community service commitments include advisory roles with Philanthropic Foundations Canada, the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies, ArtsSmarts, Les Amis de la Montagne, and the Canada Council. He has a Masters of Management degree from McGill.

Cornelia Molson, Treasurer
Cornelia Molson received her education at Concordia University in Montreal and has been a venture capitalist since 1973. In 1980, she founded Covan Corporate Consultants to provide planning and financial services to small-to-medium sized businesses. In 1989, she formed Covan Corporate Capital Inc. to manage a limited partnership formed to provide various forms of capital to emerging businesses. In 1991, she formed Covan Contract Capital Inc. to provide transaction financing to these businesses. Cornelia has participated in over 25 startup and over 30 early stage financial and technological companies in North America and Europe. She serves on the Board of Directors and/or Advisors of numerous emerging companies and is Founder and/or Director of many not-for-profit organizations.

Julie Hobbs, Director and Partner Council Representative
Julie Hobbs currently works as team leader on a special project for the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sports (MELS), accompanying school administrators in Quebec's English school boards in their  organization of  services for students with special needs.   

Julie retired in 2007 as Assistant Director General from Riverside School Board after over 30 years in education as a teacher, principal, consultant for students with special needs, Coordinator of Student Services, Director of Curriculum and Student Services and Assistant Director General.  She played a significant role in the  introduction of the Quebec Curriculum Reform in both the English and Immersion programs at Riverside and at the provincial level.  Frequently invited to represent the English community of Quebec in the development of the provincial policy and provincial-level reviews of special education for MELS, she is one of the "go-to" people in the province for any topic on special needs. Julie has helped to coordinate the ArtsSmarts approach at Riverside for the last 10 years and continues as a community representative on the Riverside Arts Advisory Committee.

As part of her new role with MELS, Julie is coordinating the ArtsSmarts Quebec research intiative with the English school boards and local artists. The initiative looks at the impact of the ArtsSmarts philosophy and approach on student engagement and student behaviour. Projects are underway in 17 schools across the province in the first year of a two-year study.

Penny Milton, Director
Penny Milton is the Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Education Association.  She has served as an elected school board trustee and chair, held a staff position in a teacher union, a provincial school board association and served on numerous provincial and federal advisory committees, most recently Ontario's Governance Review Committee and the National  Committee for the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence. Her community contributions have included costume design for local theatre, coordination of neighbourhood artists' studio tours and directorships of Toronto Community Housing and Goodwill. Penny has written and presented widely on many aspects of education as social policy.

Ken Murphy, Director and Partner Council Representative
Ken Murphy has been a program officer/manager with the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council (NLAC) for 11 years.  In that capacity he manages grant programs and is part of a team that develops and designs new programs for the Council. He currently manages the sustaining programs for professional arts organizations, the Community Arts Program, and all the arts-in-education initiatives (ArtsSmarts, Visiting Artist Program, School Touring Program) for NLAC. He was a primary contributor in the development of arts-in-education programs at NLAC, in particular, the development of ArtsSmarts over the past 10 years. In the past, Ken has also managed the Aliant Cultural Innovation Fund for artists working in new media, and the Council's project grants and travel programs. Before coming to NLAC, Ken was professional actor and worked with Rising Tide Theatre, Wonderbolt Productions and RCA Theatre. He co-wrote the children's environmental play The Land that Clean Forgot that toured schools throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, and was part of a collective company that created three issue-based theatre pieces (youth unemployment, the cod moritorium, decline of rural communities) for school tours with Rising Tide Theatre.

Barbara Oram, Director and Partner Council Representative
As Partnership Development Coordinator (Grants) of the Durham District School Board, Barbara Oram played a key leadership role in the School Board becoming an ArtsSmarts partner. Advocating for effective approaches to education has been the underlying theme of Barbara's professional career. Beginning as a health educator, Barbara has consistently strived to develop strategies that fully engage the learner. This was the primary focus of her Ph.D. from the Faculty of Education, University of Toronto. Barbara has continued this focus within the education system through facilitating strong links between schools and the community and securing funding for innovative education projects.