We are a Canada-wide team of industry leaders and practitioners, academic researchers and policy experts, highly-trained convenors, facilitators, and program designers who believe in the power of human ingenuity to solve the complex problems of our generation.
Research Associate, Smart Prosperity Institute
Caelan Welch is a Research Associate at Smart Prosperity Institute. His current research focuses on the design and implementation of sustainable finance taxonomies. Before joining SPI in 2023, Caelan worked at the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University.
Caelan holds a Bachelor’s in Anthropology and Economics from St. John Fisher University in Rochester, NY and is pursuing a Master’s in International Development and Global Studies, with an environmental sustainability specialization, at the University of Ottawa.
Communications Lead, Nature Investment Hub
Alice Irene Whittaker is an environmental communications leader, with a focus on strategic communications and storytelling related to the environment and gender equity.
Alice Irene served as Executive Director of Ecology Ottawa from 2022-2024. Prior to that, she dedicated four years as the Director of Public Relations and Communications at Smart Prosperity Institute. In that role, she sat on the Executive Leadership team of The Natural Step Canada. Previously, she was the Director of Public Relations at Plan International Canada, a Communications Consultant for the Canadian Partnership for Women’s and Children’s Health, and Associate Director of New Media and Communications at WE Charity.
Alice Irene co-founded, and was Executive Director of, Mother Nature Partnership. She is a member of Nature Canada’s Women for Nature and sits on the Board of Directors of Régénération Canada. As an author, her debut book is forthcoming in Fall 2024, and she is the creator and host of the Reseed podcast.
Director, Research Partnerships, Smart Prosperity Institute
Marena has over a decade of experience moving the needle on sustainability policy in Canada. She led the programming of the 2021 World Circular Economy Forum on behalf of the Government of Canada and now leads the creation of new research projects and partnerships at Smart Prosperity Institute.
Leveraging her experience working with all orders of government, including Indigenous, she focuses on bringing about real-world changes that benefit people and planet.
Communications Manager
(she/her)
Kaleigh is a dynamic leader and strategic communicator with over ten years of experience spanning the non-profit, public and private sectors. Through the development of accessible communications strategies, she works with purpose-led organizations to tell their stories, engage community members, and drive long-term positive change.
A storyteller at heart, Kaleigh holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and is a life-long believer in the transformative impact that well-told narratives can have on individuals, their communities and society at large.
When she’s not story-telling at work, you can probably find her story-reading at home with her young family.
Senior Manager, Operations
Trudi is the Senior Manager of Operations at The Natural Step Canada, where she works collaboratively to create and maintain the systems, processes, and relationships that keep our work running smoothly behind the scenes. She holds a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic and an MA in Geography from the University of Guelph, where she focused on the international politics of food, agriculture, and climate change. She loves thinking about the interaction between large- and small-scale systems, and finds it rewarding to help changemakers get creative with their internal operations to maximize their impact on the external world.
Trudi calls Guelph, Ontario, home, but has roots on the West and East coasts of Canada. When not at her desk, she can be found running with her rescue dog Odo, immersing in a new creative medium, or binging reality television.
