2010 Think-tank Members


Victoire Dogbe is the Togolese minister of Grassroots Development, Crafts, Youth, & Youth Employment and she is also President cabinet chief of staff.
She left the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2008 after she was named as the first female chief of staff by President Gnassingbé.
At the head of the ministry of Grassroots Development, Crafts, Youth, & Youth Employment, she developed the concept of “common minimum living wage” that can be defined as a set of basic needs among which six appear as essential in the life of the Togolese: education, health, food, roads, access to drinking water and increasing of populations’ capacity to create wealth. She envisioned that by the year 2025, all Togolese will share this “common minimum living wage”.
The ministry brought new supports to rural cooperatives through sessions of management of farm and agricultural entrepreneurship.
Victoire Dogbe developed rural credit and public endowment towards cooperatives. By the year 2011, those actions will have improved the life of more than 50,000 persons.


Prof. Fernando Dolabela is the creator in the 1990’s of the Office Of Enterprise, program teaching entrepreneurship to third and second degrees in Brazil.
As a consultant to educational institutions throughout Brazil, Prof. Dolabela implement methodologies that aim to change the profile of the university as a trainer of trainers for employees, entrepreneurs, in order to respond to the current reality of the labor market.
He is also the author of 9 published books and dozens of scientific papers presented at national and international conferences and regular publications in the Brazilian press.
Prof Dolabela serves as director of Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC), a prestigious Brazilian business school. FDC's mission is to contribute to the society's development through the education of executives, businessmen and companies.
Founded in 1976, as a not-for-profit organization, Fundação Dom Cabral has maintained a solid national and international reputation gained through the development of strong links with executives and companies in Brazil and abroad as well as with international schools and associations.


In 1998, Lisa Fecteau founded Régitex inc., the foremost spinner in North America when it comes to satisfying specific customer needs using expertise, efficiency and employee engagement as well as cutting-edge technology to manufacture custom yarns.
The company specializes in ring-spun and open-end yarns, made from a range of natural and synthetic fibres. Régitex is now a leading provider of yarn for industrial, protective clothing and high performance fabrics markets. Its mission is to be the number one custom yarn provider in North America.
After working in the customer service industry in the early 1980s, Lisa Fecteau started her first company, Plexiforme de Beauce, 1987. She then became sales director at Textiles Du-Ré ltée, until she founded her current company.
In 1998, Lisa Fecteau became a member of Groupement des chefs d’entreprise du Québec. Since 2002, she has been on the Board of Directors.
Lisa Fecteau is the current President of Groupement des chefs d’entreprise du Québec and will fulfill this role from 2010 to 2012. She is the first woman to hold this position since the Groupement was founded in 1974.


Louis Jacques Filion is the Rogers-J.A. Bombardier Professor of Entrepreneurship at HEC MONTREAL. His academic background includes a Master in International Studies from the University of Ottawa (1974), an MBA from HEC Montreal (1976) and a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship and Systems from the University of Lancaster, GB (1988). He created and managed small businesses. He was also a management consultant with the firm Ernst & Young at their Montreal office.
In 2004, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Council of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (CCSBE - CCPME). In 2005, the International Council for Small Business (ICSB) awarded him the Wilford White Fellowship. In 2006, he received the Julien-Marchesnay Award from the Association internationale de recherche en entrepreneuriat et PME (AIREPME). In 2008 he received the prestigious Entrepreneurship Promotion Emeritus Award.
Dr. Filion has more than a hundred publications and 15 books. He has presented speeches on the subject of entrepreneurship on all five continents. His research is concerned with the activity systems of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, the visionary process and new venture creation.


David Frood grew up in suburban Sydney, Australia. He left school at fifteen years of age and started his working career as an accounts clerk. Later, at eighteen he studied accounting and qualified four years later. He then worked in assistant accountant and accounting positions for medium sized companies up until age 36.
Then David worked in sales and sales management in the office equipment and computer industries. In 1981 he studied marketing at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. It was during this era in sales that he started to take particular notice of some of the inequities that existed between people working for large organizations.
Later, David worked with an international sales consulting firm and freelanced as a consultant to large organizations specializing in implementing new sales/ marketing strategies, change management and people development from sales people to senior managers. It was this phase that formed the basis for the first book after observing many highly skilled and knowledgeable people who were frustrated by the boundaries and structure of their employer organizations.
After years of trying to make some sense out of studying people within corporations, together with the content of personal development programs, David was finally inspired to write “The Thinking Corporation”.


Silvia Gascon Utreras is the General Manager of INETEC Business Incubator. INETEC is co-financed by Innova Chile and INACAP, the Network of Business Incubators. Prior to her role at INETEC, she developed and lead management consulting and studies on issues related to Market Research for several diverse industries and businesses.


Mr. Mario Girard is the CEO of the Fondation de l’Entrepreneurship. Before joining the Foundation, he had been chairman and CEO of Nstein Technologies from 2001 to 2007 - a publicly traded company (TSX-V: EIN) he founded in 2000, with offices in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and France. Prior to that, he had held the same title at Gespro Technologies, a computer services group he founded in 1985.
Mr Girard is a graduate of the Université Laval and a member of the Young Presidents' Organization. In 1996 he received an Arista-Sun Life award for the top young entrepreneur in Quebec. In addition, he was named Quebec's IT personality of the year in 2005 by the Fédération de l’informatique du Québec (FIQ) and also received with the Nstein team an OCTAS excellence award - the highest distinction presented by the FIQ, and a second OCTAS award for outstanding technological innovation.
He is a member of the board of directors of CEFRIO, the Port of Québec, the Festival d’été international de Québec as well as several technology firms.


Dr Lardja GNOUNKABITI is the executive director of the "Leaders", a leadership program he founded in Dapaong, Northern Togo. Under his management, “Leaders” has become an educational network that covers now 3 locations in the country. “Leaders” teaches a new style of leadership based on creativity.
In addition, Lardja is the coordinator of the CLE (Culture Leadership and Environment) at the University of Kara and promotes the project TDI (Earth, Development and Integration).
He is the author of the book "Développement Personnel et Indépendance ".
Lardja holds a PhD in leadership and management.


In her early years, Ms Suraiya Haque grew up in a privileged environment. Due to social pressures, she was married off while in class ten. After a break of eight years she returned to school against her husband and in-laws wishes. She continued her education till her Bachelors degree with no support from anyone.
Ms Haque established Phulki in 1991. Urban working mothers, mostly from low-income groups, face great difficulty in terms of accessing child day care services. Most of them are forced to leave their children unattended in their slum dwellings exposing the children to great risk and inadequate nutrition. Mothers also tend to be less productive in the work place as at times they are unable to attend.
She is the first person in Bangladesh to introduce and implement work place based day care centers. Her organization, Phulki, is the only such service-providing agency in the country. Till now she has established 24 community-based day cares and over 15 centers in factories, offices and government departments.
She has instituted and handed over management of the day care center at BRAC, the largest NGO in the country. In addition, she was responsible for setting up similar centers at the Government Secretariat and the Women Affairs Directorate.