Opening Keynote

As a Partner in Doane Grant Thornton’s national transactions practice, Troy MacDonald advises domestic and international clients on mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, valuations, fairness opinions, and complex financing transactions. His experience spans multiple industries, with a particular focus on infrastructure, power, and Indigenous transactions, including public-private partnerships, project financing, and strategic investments.

Before joining the Toronto office in 2008, he was part of the firm's capital markets team in London, England, and previously worked in mergers and acquisitions for a major Canadian energy company. Today, he works closely with clients to assess business value, execute transactions, and develop financing strategies that support growth and long-term success across infrastructure and energy-related sectors.

He also serves on the Board of Directors of Canada's Ocean Supercluster, supporting initiatives that advance innovation, collaboration, infrastructure development, and sustainable growth within Canada's ocean economy.

Michael is a Director of Longbow Capital, a Calgary based private equity investment manager with approximately $4 billion of assets under management. Longbow’s investment strategy is focused on all aspects of the energy and power sectors including energy transition, resource extraction, power generation, technology development and service & products based companies. Longbow is currently investing out of Longbow Energy Transition Fund II, a $365 million capital pool. Prior to joining Longbow, Michael started his career with Deloitte where he worked in both the audit and M&A Advisory practices and supporting the execution of over 50 mid-market transactions over a 7-year period with the firm. Michael then subsequently worked for an Ontario Teachers backed portfolio company investing in western Canadian energy infrastructure.

C. Brett Stevenson is a Managing Partner of BTG Capital Inc., which he co-founded in November 2020 to serve as the Manager of its related funds (“BTG” or the “Funds”), which collectively maintain over $300.0 million in assets under management (AUM). BTG focuses on acquiring and developing a diversified portfolio of middle-market critical infrastructure assets across energy, power and transportation, with an emphasis on operational value-creation and long-term returns. Mr. Stevenson has played a central leadership role in the formation and growth of BTG, including spearheading fundraising, capital formation, and deal origination efforts. Under his leadership, BTG successfully closed its inaugural fund, BTG Energy Infrastructure Partners LP Fund I (“BTG EIP I”), in November 2022 with $74.5 million of committed capital, representing one of the largest first-time energy-focused funds raised in Canadian history. Building on this momentum, BTG has commenced fundraising for BTG Energy Infrastructure Partners LP Fund II (“BTG EIP II”) in the first quarter of 2026, targeting $500.0 million of capital commitments. BTG also formed BTG Critical Infrastructure Co-Invest LP I (“BTG CI”) to extend its strategy into critical infrastructure, completing its inaugural investment in Stephenville International Airport (“SIA”) in 2026. 

Oliver is a Corporate Finance Partner at PwC focused on the Consumer & Retail sector, with particular expertise across food production & manufacturing, consumer products, health & wellness, pet, and leisure. He also leads Deal Connect, the firm's specialized buyside service offering. Since joining PwC in 2009, he has advised on transactions totaling over $3.0 billion, building a proven track record of guiding private companies, private equity firms, and corporates through complex transactions- including a 2016 to 2019 secondment to PwC's London Consumer M&A team, where he completed a number of high-profile UK and European deals.

Oliver earned a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen's University and holds both the Chartered Professional Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst designations.

Julie Drapeau is Senior Vice President of Innovation at Purity Life Health Products, Canada's largest and only 100% Canadian-owned full-service distributor of natural health products. Positioned between more than 1,000 brands and 7,000 retailers across natural health, supplements and better-for-you food, Purity gives Julie a real-time, ground-level view of how consumer health behaviours are evolving, and which categories, brands and retail channels are gaining momentum or facing pressure as a result.

With more than 30 years of experience leading sales, category strategy and retailer education, Julie helps brands and retailers anticipate shifts in consumer demand and turn them into growth opportunities. Her work spans the trends now reshaping the food and consumer landscape, from preventive and personalized health to healthy aging, women's health and the growing overlap between wellness and everyday food choices.

Julie also brings a policy and regulatory perspective to the conversation. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) and chairs its Government Relations Committee, working with industry leaders and government stakeholders on policies that protect consumer access to natural health products. She has also testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FEWO) on menopause, women's health and the role natural health products play in expanding consumers' healthcare choices.

Anne Lee joined SPC in 2019. She originates, evaluates, and executes on investment opportunities and works closely with several portfolio companies.

Anne currently serves on the boards of Inovata Foods and Mighty Spark, and is a board observer at Bragg Live Food Products and Purely Elizabeth. She previously served on the board of Glo Skin Beauty.

Prior to joining SPC, Anne was an Investment Banking Associate at Perella Weinberg Partners, where she focused on M&A transactions in the Consumer & Retail Group.

Anne received a BS degree in Finance and Marketing from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Thomas Dallaire is a Partner in PwC Canada’s Deals practice, focused on Analytics and AI within Strategy and Value Creation, and serves as the national Deals AI Acceleration Leader. He advises private equity firms, portfolio companies and corporate clients on complex transactions and value creation, with experience across multi-billion-dollar buy-side and sell-side transactions in Canada and the U.S. spanning diligence, transaction execution, post-close value creation and exit preparation. He uses financial, commercial and operational data to assess performance, test investment theses, identify risks and quantify value creation opportunities.

Mo works with the M&A Advisory team at Spearhead. He brings international experience, having previously worked at Citigroup’s European HQ working on public mergers and capital raises for the German market. With a passion for football, Mo played at the Division I level for Washington State University, and subsequently worked in business development for an NFL team. Mo holds a Master of Science in International Management with a specialization in Finance from Trinity College at the University of Dublin, and an undergraduate degree in Sports Management, Business Administration from Washington State University. 

Parinaz Sobhani is Head of AI and Managing Director at Sagard, where she leads the firm's artificial intelligence strategy and drives innovation across its investment and operational platforms. Since joining in 2024, she has been at the forefront of transforming Sagard into an AI-native organization and accelerating the adoption of AI across its portfolio companies.
Prior to Sagard, Parinaz served as Head of AI at Georgian, a Toronto-based venture capital firm specializing in growth-stage B2B software. In that role, she helped develop the firm's investment thesis, making AI core to its investment strategy while building and scaling AI capabilities that delivered measurable competitive advantages for portfolio companies.
Earlier in her career, Parinaz held research positions at Microsoft Research and the National Research Council of Canada, where she worked on natural language understanding and machine translation systems during the early days of transformers and large language models.

Ed Mills brings more than 25 years of Washington D.C. experience to his role as a managing director and Washington policy analyst. Joining Raymond James in 2017, Mills concentrates on the impact of Washington on Wall Street.

He is frequently consulted by policymakers and stakeholders, and his work has been featured extensively in media outlets, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNBC.

Prior to joining Raymond James, Mills spent more than seven years as an analyst and head of the Washington Policy Group at FBR & Co and nearly a decade on Capitol Hill, working in both the House and Senate.

Neil Kravitz is Fasken’s Firm Managing Partner-Elect, with his mandate beginning January 1, 2027. Currently, Neil is Co-Leader of Fasken’s Montréal Corporate Group and its Cross-Border and International Practice. A highly regarded M&A and securities lawyer, he advises domestic and international clients on public and private M&A, equity and debt financings, corporate governance, board advisory matters, and shareholder activism.

Known for his practical, deal-oriented approach and strategic judgment, Neil works with acquirers and targets, issuers, entrepreneurs, private equity funds, and investment banks across sectors including aerospace, life sciences, financial services, industrial, retail and technology bringing board-level judgment and strategic thinking to bear for clients. Neil was a Gold Medalist at McGill law, is a widely published author on securities and M&A law and has lectured on Securities Regulation at McGill University’s Faculty of Law.

Jonathan leads our firm’s Business and Transactions group. He helps clients achieve their goals by giving practical legal advice within the context of his client’s circumstances, desired outcomes, and risk tolerance. Jonathan takes the time to understand his clients’ businesses and the people that drive them. He employs his legal expertise, critical thinking, creativity, and experience to design solutions to move his clients down the field and into the end zone.

Jonathan has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, debt financing, private capital markets, and shareholder and partnership arrangements in a Canadian, cross-border, and international context. He is the ideal trusted advisor to private equity firms, business owners, lenders and foreign businesses as he is deeply invested in his clients’ success.

Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, Jonathan tackles the most sophisticated matters with straightforward and innovative solutions by collaborating with his clients’ outside advisors and our firm’s other practice disciplines, particularly in the areas of taxation, real estate, employment, and dispute resolution.

Meghan Roach is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Roots Corporation, a position she has held since 2020. She also serves on the Board of Directors. Prior to her current role, Ms. Roach served as both the Interim Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer at Roots Corporation.

Before joining Roots, Ms. Roach was a Managing Director at Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P., and a member of the investment team at Teachers' Private Capital, the private equity arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. She commenced her career at KPMG LLP.

Ali is a Partner at Ironbridge Equity Partners, a Canadian middle-market private equity firm focused on investing in traditional industries including manufacturing, distribution, and services. 

Ali rejoined Ironbridge in 2020 following three years at Bain & Company in both New York and London. During his time at Bain, Ali worked with several global private equity funds, multinational corporations, as well as sponsor-owned middle-market businesses, where he specialized in commercial due diligence, post-merger integration, and post-acquisition value creation & performance improvement. Prior to Bain, he was a member of the Ironbridge investment team. Ali began his career at KPMG Corporate Finance, providing middle-market investment banking services.