CanadaHelps Welcomes New Directors

CanadaHelps is thrilled to welcome Shawn Gandhi, Kathryn Hume and Gert du Preez as new Directors. 

As a public foundation, CanadaHelps is governed by a dedicated, volunteer Board of Directors who follow best practices for board governance, and provide broad strategic oversight to ensure that all of our resources are used in pursuit of the organization’s Mission and mandate. As a technology organization serving charities and donors, CanadaHelps strives to have expertise representing the charitable sector and tech and digital business. 

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Meet Shawn Gandhi

“The fabric between donors, charities, and the charity partner ecosystem is vital to Canadian giving. CanadaHelps takes on this role and provides the heavy lifting so charities can focus on their causes, and donors can give with confidence. Few organizations globally have taken on a purpose this crucial; I’m honoured to join the board of directors and help further the mission.”

Shawn is a seasoned executive with experience in scaling industry disruptors through cycles of hypergrowth. During his time in New York, Shawn led enterprise adoption for Amazon Web Services helping the world’s largest organizations move to the cloud. Returning to Canada, Shawn went on to found AWS Canada Inc. and built out the Canadian business and data centers.

Before working in the cloud, Shawn’s time on Wall St. led him to found New York’s High-Performance Computing User Group. This eventually brought him to Royal Bank of Canada where he was chief architect for Canada’s largest financial institution.

Shawn has returned to his hometown of Ottawa to found the AWS Solutions Global AI Hub and found their global AI business. It’s here Shawn was introduced to Shopify where he ran engineering for multiple businesses including the Amazon Buy With Prime partnership.

Throughout his career, Shawn has worked with several global non-profits including CancerResearchUK, UN Global Pulse, and UNICEF to accelerate their impact and further the public good. Shawn has worked with the Ottawa Food Bank and volunteers as a children’s coach for basketball, baseball, and hockey. Shawn was recognized as Ottawa Business Journal’s 40 under 40 for his impact on Ottawa’s economy and community.‍

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Meet Kathryn Hume

“CanadaHelps plays a central and critical role supporting charities across Canada, and can continue to deepen and expand its impact with new technologies like machine learning and AI. I am thrilled to be part of the next chapter in CanadaHelps’ growth, as we work to inspire and engage the next generation of donors and volunteers across Canada.”

Kathryn Hume is the Vice President of Digital Channels Technology at the Royal Bank of Canada. She has led multiple technology teams at RBC, including the personal investments development team and the Borealis AI machine learning team. Prior to joining RBC, Kathryn held leadership positions at Integrate.ai and Fast Forward Labs, where she helped over 50 Fortune 500 organizations develop and implement AI programs. She is a widely respected author and educator on technology and innovation, with work appearing at TED, HBR, the Globe and Mail, Harvard, MIT, the University of Toronto and more.

She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and speaks seven languages.

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Meet Gert du Preez

“CanadaHelps plays such an important role in democratizing access to technology for charities big and small, helping them to increase their impact. I am honoured and excited to join the Board as the organization continues its journey of 24 years.”

Gert is a Partner in the Deloitte Digital practice where he helps public sector organizations to enable lasting business change through digital transformation. He has over 24 years of experience in the technology environment and brings insights on best practices gained assisting global organizations with complex technology and digital initiatives. He has co-authored a number of governance best practice frameworks as they relate to technology including ISACA’s Taking Governance Forward, RiskIT and COBIT5 frameworks.

He has six years of experience as a Director on not-for-profit Boards.

Gert has obtained his Master’s in Engineering with a specialization in Technology Management from the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He holds the ICD.D certification and has also completed the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) Innovation Governance Program Level 1.