Donald West
Donald West is a corporate lawyer and senior partner at Aird & Berlis LLP, a 130 lawyer Toronto firm that provides a wide range of legal services. Don practises in the areas of business law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and technology. He has had extensive experience acting on business purchases and sales, private equity and venture capital transactions, strategic alliances, technology transactions, corporate reorganizations, governance issues, international transactions and advising on various other commercial arrangements. While practicing law, he was also an officer of a mid-size Canadian information technology company for more than 20 years, and has served on the Boards of Directors of several public and private corporations as well as Corporate Governance, Compensation and Audit Committees. Don has been recognized in “Best Lawyers in Canada” in the field of Mergers & Acquisitions Law, and is the primary author of a recent book on business acquisition agreements published by Thomson Reuters.
Don holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University. He is a former instructor of Corporate Law at the Ontario Bar Admission Course.
Allen Kwan
Allen Kwan has over fifteen years of experience in the financial services industry. As Director, Product Development at Northwest & Ethical Investments (NEI), a national investment firm with approximately $6 billion in assets under management, he is a member of the senior team responsible for setting and overseeing product strategy including research and innovation. Prior to joining NEI, Allen held progressively senior sales and marketing roles with Manulife Financial, HSBC Securities (Canada) and RBC Global Asset Management and throughout his career, he has collaborated with business partners from across North America.
Allen holds an Executive MBA from Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto. He holds the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Canadian Investment Manager (CIM) designations.
Kent Savage
Kent Savage is Vice President, Corporate Legal for Sun Life Financial in Toronto, Canada. He has been with Sun Life for 17 years and served as the General Counsel for Sun Life Financial Asia managing the legal and compliance functions in their subsidiary and joint venture operations in Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Kent is currently managing the global implementation of FATCA for Sun Life and has represented Sun Life interests on numerous material projects, arbitrations and litigation in the UK, US, Canada and Asia.
He completed an executive LLM at University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2013, his LLB at University of Windsor in 1986 and an Hon BA from University of Toronto in 1983. Prior to joining Sun Life Financial in 1997, Kent was a litigation counsel in private practice in Toronto doing corporate/commercial and insurance related dispute resolution.
Zuzanna Kusyk
Zuzanna Kusyk is a skilled financial services professional with over ten years of progressive experience in accounting, reporting, management, and treasury operations. She is currently employed at the Bank of Nova Scotia as Director of Special Purpose Vehicles and has held various operational, corporate finance, and audit positions in the past. Through these roles, Kusyk has acquired a strong background in securitization, the CMHC programs, Special Purpose Vehicle management, corporate financing, as well as derivative operations, and has obtained a legal foundation in complex financial and tax structures. In addition, Kusyk has led operational training courses in Latin America, and has assisted with due diligence through mergers and acquisitions special task forces.
Kusyk graduated with distinction from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, earning an Honours BA in Business Administration. She has received her US Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation, completed her Corporate Financier (CF) qualification with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA), and is an accomplished polyglot.
