John English, Ph.D. (Board Co-Chair)
Director Emeritus, Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History and Co-Chair, BOD, Arctic360, Co-Chair, Canadian International Council
A Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo, John English has been a Liberal Member of Parliament, a Special Ambassador for Landmines and a Special Envoy for the election of Canada to the United Nations Security Council. He has also served as President of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, co-editor of the Canadian Historical Review, chair of the Board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum. From 2012- 2019, John English served as Director of the Bill Graham Centre at Trinity College, and is now serving as Director Emeritus.
Madeleine Redfern, LL.B. (Board Co-Chair)
Executive Director of the Northern Branch, Arctic360
Madeleine Redfern is an Indigenous woman involved in high-tech and innovation. Actively involved in transformative technologies in telecommunications, transportation and energy.
Currently Madeleine is the President of Amautiit: Nunavut Inuit Women’s Association, President of Ajungi Consulting Group; Chair of Nunavut Legal Services Board; Advisor to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Trudeau Foundation Board Member (former Trudeau Foundation Mentor); Co-Chair with Gordon Munk Arctic Security Program; Board member of Maliiganik Legal Aid. Madeleine is from Iqaluit, Nunavut and a graduate of the Akitsiraq Law School with an LLB from the University of Victoria. She was the first Inuk to be given a Supreme Court of Canada clerkship.
As a businesswoman and a strong social advocate for transformative initiatives, Madeleine has a great deal of governance and volunteer experience with Indigenous and Inuit organizations, including, but not limited to, Inuit Non-Profit Housing Corporation; Tungasuvvingat Inuit Community Centre, and one of the founding members of Wabano Aboriginal Health Centre and Inuit Head Start in Ottawa. Madeleine was also the executive director of the Qikiqtani Truth Commission, a commission that reviewed the “effects of federal government policies on Eastern Arctic Inuit” between the 1950s and 1980s.
Madeleine’s advocacy, professional, and governance work shown my dedication and passion towards the development and delivery of programs assisting Indigenous, Inuit, northerners and Canadians that reflect their values, needs, and priorities. Madeleine received the Indspire Award for Public Service to acknowledge and celebrate all her hard work, commitment and contributions.
Nauja Bianco (Acting Board Secretary)
Executive Director, North Atlantic House & The Greenland House (Odense, Denmark)
Nauja Bianco is a native Greenlander, born and raised in the capital Nuuk in Greenland.
Ms. Bianco is an independent consultant and adviser within Arctic and Nordic affairs, freelance journalist, and communications adviser. She is the owner of Isuma Consulting (www.isumaconsulting.com).
Ms. Bianco’s main career has been in government, diplomacy, and international relations. Ms. Bianco has long standing experience working with international relations in the Greenland Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and the intergovernmental organization of the Nordic Council of Ministers (a cooperation between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland along with Greenland, Faroe Islands and Åland Island).
Ms. Bianco’s area of expertise is cooperation and governance in the Arctic as well as in the Nordic countries. Being a native – but global – Greenlander working for cooperation and added value for the Arctic is an ambition. She has also worked for stronger trans-Atlantic bonds.
Ms. Bianco focuses on the need of connecting the dots – initiatives as well as people.
After living in Brussels, Belgium 2006-2010 (working with Greenland’s EU relations) and Toronto, Canada, 2017-2019 (starting up her independent consultancy firm) she now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, while travelling the Arctic (when Corona virus does not prohibit it).
Peter Garapick (Board Treasurer)
Director of Industry and Government Relations, Quark Expeditions and Member of Executive Committee, Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO)
Peter is originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia and grew up messing about in boats. This influenced his career and life as he went from sailing student to instructor, dingy and yacht racer to Bluenose II tall ship crew. While completing his BSC in Biology and MBA in Marketing and Transportation at Dalhousie University, Peter worked summers with Canadian Coast Guard at an Inshore Rescue Boat station, first as deckhand and then in-charge coxswain.
The summer-work translated into a full-time career that would last 30 years. Though he managed almost all the CG programs over the years, his focus was always on Search and Rescue and it was in the last several years of his career that he matched this role with the Arctic. There, he led the implementation of community based SAR stations in Arctic communities as part of the CCG Auxiliary, having visited more than 45 communities and saw the establishment of 25 SAR units. He also established the first Inshore Rescue Boat station in the Arctic in Rankin Inlet – coming full circle of where he started with CCG.
His work in the Arctic also involved the Arctic expedition cruise industry where he aimed to ensure safe operations in such an extreme environment. He was so impressed with this safe and responsible industry that it led to his next career. Today he is the Consulting Director of Industry and Government Relations for Quark Expeditions and a member of the Executive Committee of the Norwegian based Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators(AECO).
Peter is married to Elsa who he met on a dock one summer when she was messing around in boats. They reside in the countryside of SW Ontario near water, along the shores of Lake Eire. They have two daughters, one finishing a degree in Engineering and the other in her third year of med school.
Darrell Beaulieu
Chief Executive Officer, Denendeh Investments
Darrell Beaulieu was born and raised in Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories and has served three terms as the Chief of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, whose traditional territory surrounds the capital area.
In October 2005, Darrell was appointed President and CEO of Denendeh Investments Incorporated by its Board of Directors. Prior to being appointed to DII, Mr. Beaulieu was the founding President of Deton’Cho Corporation and Deton’Cho Diamonds. Mr. Beaulieu has been employed or self-employed in various aspects of mineral exploration in the NWT for many years and has served on both the Mine Training Society and NWT Chamber of Mines Boards of Directors.
At present, Darrell is on the Board of Directors of the NWT Law Foundation, Northland Utilities (Yellowknife & NWT), and since 2005 was appointed the Chair of the Northwest Territories Business Development Corporation (BDIC) by the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Lesil McGuire
J.D., Former Alaskan State Legislator, Partner at Arctic Advocacy Group, Alaska
Throughout her distinguished career – most recently as a 16-year, elected official in the Alaskan State Legislature – Lesil McGuire has consistently exemplified what is possible through value- driven leadership. With a visionary approach grounded in stewardship, she was well recognized as a leader that could build consensus and find successful solutions out of partisan gridlock. She was the driving- force behind a series of governance solutions that now guide Arctic Policy in both Alaska, and the nation. She builds on that legacy as Founder of the consulting company, Inconnu Solutions.
Lesil McGuire’s successful methodology starts with a tireless commitment to gathering knowledge – not merely relevant data, but the perspectives of all involved. She then uses her leadership experience to connect the innovative spirit within organizations to unleash the potential to seize opportunities and respond to challenges. Lesil’s talent is in bridging between competing interests, generating the most optimum solutions and inspiring action. Consequently, shifting her methodology from public service to the private interests of her clients has been seamless. Simply navigating the complex legal and socio- political landscape that exists today will not suffice. Success in the long-term will require the ability to influence solutions that can weather the inevitable changes yet to come, and provide mutual benefit to all concerned.
Lesil graduated from Willamette University with an undergraduate degree in Speech Communication and Political Science. Following her undergraduate studies, she went on to work in Washington D.C. for two years as a legislative and press aide for United States Senator, Ted Stevens. She subsequently obtained her Juris Doctorate from Willamette University College of Law while clerking in the United States Attorney’s Office in Oregon. She was a member of the Willamette Law review and a member of its editorial board. She studied at the Chinese institute of Law in Shanghai on an exchange and clerked for the United States Department of Justice. Her law degree was put to use when she came back to Alaska and worked for the firm of Birch, Horton, Bittner & Cherot in the corporate division.
Lesil began her work in the Alaska State Legislature as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. At age 29 she was elected to the state House where she served three terms chairing committees all three terms and one term in majority leadership of the whole. In 2006, she was elected to the Senate where she served for ten years also chairing committees every term and in majority leadership of the whole as Rules Chairwoman.
During her tenure, she led the effort to craft Alaska’s first energy policy, Alaska’s first Arctic policy, to ease regulatory frameworks incentivizing independent power production, to create lending programs inside the states’ investment bank AIDEA , that led to increased development in energy projects bringing more affordable and reliable sources of power to Alaskans, to create some of the States’ first human trafficking laws, to create laws that afforded victims of crime, especially children, more rights and to help the state move to more negotiated rule making that brought private sector expertise to the table with policy makers so that laws were not created in a vacuum.
In her final term as Senator, Lesil served as the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Co-Chair of the Arctic Policy Committee. She was honored to be selected for such prestigious recognitions as the Vice-President and first woman President of Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and Chair of the Council of State Governments-WEST in 2007/08. She was a Henry Toll Fellow in 2003 and was selected as a German Marshall fellow from among her peer in 2008. From 2000 to 2003 she also served as the Anchorage Caucus Chair. She has served on boards for American Diabetes Association, Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, Covenant House, Anchorage Republican Woman’s Club, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Civil Air Patrol, Traumatic Brain Injury Foundation, Fraternal Order of the Alaska State Troopers, and Special Olympics.
Jessica M. Shadian, Ph.D.
President and CEO, Arctic360
Over the course of two decades, Shadian has lived and worked as a researcher, associate professor, and consultant throughout the European and North American Arctic. Dr. Shadian is widely published; her peer-reviewed books, articles, book chapters and other news commentary concentrate on the global politics of the Arctic, Arctic Indigenous governance and law, critical Arctic infrastructure innovation and investment, and Canadian Arctic security and diplomacy. Her expertise is regularly solicited by media organisations, governments, the private sector, academia, and think tanks. Shadian’s 2014 book: The Politics of Arctic Sovereignty: Oil, Ice, and Inuit Governance (Routledge) is the first in-depth history of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) and Inuit sovereignty in global politics reaching back to pre-European discovery. Her consulting work began while living in the Norwegian Arctic as the co-creator and organizer of an Arctic Dialogue series that brought together state and local political and industry leaders, local and Indigenous communities, and academia to increase information sharing about Arctic resource development. Dr. Shadian holds a Ph.D. in Global Governance from the University of Delaware (2006) during which she wrote her doctoral dissertation at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), University of Cambridge, UK on an NSF award. She spent the following 5 years in Norway at the Barents Institute and then as a Senior Researcher at the High North Center for Business and Governance, Nord University, Bodø after which she was awarded an Associate Professor, Marie Curie COFUND Fellowship, at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Denmark. In June 2017, Shadian completed a two-year Nansen Professorship co-funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University of Akureyri, Iceland after which she turned to dedicate herself full-time to build Arctic360. Shadian lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.
Hugh Short
Co-Founder and Chairman/CEO, Pt. Capital
Hugh S. Short is the Co-Founder and CEO for Pt Capital, an Alaska-based private equity firm with assets in North America and Europe. Hugh leads the portfolio construction, organizational growth, fundraising, and expansion into new markets. Prior to co-founding Pt Capital, Hugh was president and CEO of Alaska Growth Capital BIDCO, Inc., a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. Hugh also served as the mayor of Bethel, Alaska from 2002 to 2004, and is a board member for Rural Energy Enterprises. Hugh is a shareholder of four Alaska Native Corporations, with heritage as an Inupiaq Eskimo. Short received a bachelor’s in political science from the University of Alaska Anchorage; and studied at the Pepperdine Graziadio School of Business.
Mitch White
Senior Communications Advisor, Executive Training, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Nunatsiavimmiuk Mitch (he/him) White’s journey has been one of a storyteller, as a journalist and within Indigenous policy and industry.
He supported and oversaw the radio and television production of the OKalaKatiget Society as Program Director before serving as Editor of Inuktitut Magazine.
He also supported and executed Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s Arctic Executive Tour and the development and communication of their policy work, including the creation of the Inuit Development Corporation Association.
Roles with the Liberal Research Bureau in Indigenous Outreach and Indigenous-owned communications and branding firm Creative Fire saw that journey take him into federal politics and the private sector, respectively.
And a summer spent as a Zodiac Driver on an Arctic icebreaker has seen him visit most communities in Inuit Nunangat, while an expedition to Antarctica gives him bi-polar status.
Today, he finds himself at the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association as their Communications Manager.
White has also served as Youth Representative on the Nunatsiavut Transitional Government, a Councillor on the Nain Inuit Community Government, and on the boards of the Aboriginal People’s Television Network, Canadian Roots Exchange and the National Indigenous People’s Day Committee.
