Strategic Priorities for Ridley

• Ed Kidd, Headmaster
• Suzanne Court ’86, President and Board Chair
• Bruno Pettiti, Executive Director, Strategy and Innovation
• Camilla Mugan, Faculty
• David Carter ’88, Chief Financial and Operating Officer
• Dr. Barry Wright, Dean, Goodman School of Business
• Dr. Lesley Rigg, Governor 
• Hanna Kidd, Director of Wellbeing and Belonging 
• Jay Tredway '96: Assistant Head: Co-Curriculars and Community Connections
• Lindsay Thierry, Executive Director of Advancement 
• Lisa Dumont, Lower School Head
• Paul Kundrat '92, Governor
• Riyaz Kanji '82, Governor
• Sam Ridesic, Managing Partner at BCG
• Taylor York-Ireland, Faculty
• Tricia Poulin, Faculty
• Andrew Lind '88, Governor

Ken Steele is Canada’s best-known higher ed futurist, brand strategist, and innovation catalyst. His wide-ranging perspective brings context to college and university strategic planning, positioning and enrolment management efforts, and has been shaped by award-winning careers as a Shakespeare scholar and instructor, technology consultant, brand strategist, entrepreneur, and de facto journalist.

Ken delivers conference keynotes, retreats, presentations and workshops to a broad range of audiences hundreds of times a year, from boards and senior administrators to faculty and support staff, student groups, concerned parents, government policy analysts, and corporate CEOs. He served on eCampus Ontario’s Virtual Learning Advisory Committee, and has consulted with hundreds of colleges and universities – from New England to New Zealand – helping them interpret market research, understand their competitive context, distill their institutional “Brand Chemistry,” and nurture a culture of innovation across campus.

Ken co-authored Canada’s first book on strategic enrolment management, and convenes three national roundtables of higher ed marketers. Some 30,000 viewers and readers have come to know him as a definitive source of breaking news, bright ideas, strategic foresight and thoughtful insight, through his daily and weekly newsletters and his video series Ten with Ken. Since late 2022, Ken has been facilitating a dynamic virtual community for forward-looking higher ed professionals, Eduvation Circles, which provides real-time newsfeeds, resource collections, livestreams and masterclasses, and allows the valuable conversations that start at his campus visits and conference presentations to continue year-round.
 

Dr. Gerard J. Puccio is the department chair and leader of the Center for Applied Imagination at Buffalo State University.

He has written more than 60 articles, chapters, and books. His most recent book, “Organizational Creativity and Innovation: A Personal Journey for Innovators and Entrepreneurs” (2018 by Sage Press), highlights the crucial role creativity plays in an economy driven by innovation. Prior to this publication, Puccio co-authored “The Innovative Team,” published by Jossey-Bass, a fable about a team that was able to apply proven creative-thinking tools to turn around a dysfunctional and unproductive situation.

Puccio is an accomplished speaker and consultant. He has worked with major corporations, universities, and numerous school districts. Some of his recent clients include the BBC, Fisher-Price Brands, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Nestlé, The Smithsonian Institution, BNP Paribas, Rubbermaid, Coca-Cola, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. He has delivered creativity workshops and presentations across the United States and in more than 20 different countries.

In 2013, Puccio was selected by the Teaching Company as one of America’s Great Lecturers and as such was invited to design and deliver a “Great Course” titled The Creative Thinker’s Toolkit. Dr. Puccio was also a featured speaker at a TEDx event held in New York City in December 2012. To date, his talk has over 100,000 views.

Gerard holds a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Manchester, England.
 

Dr. Tayyab Rashid is a Toronto-based licensed clinical and school psychologist, Faculty Associate with Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, and Visiting Scientist at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Trained under Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania, he co-developed Positive Psychotherapy and specializes in strengths-based approaches, resilience, and posttraumatic growth. He has worked with communities facing severe trauma worldwide, delivered 50+ invited talks, and trained professionals in 25+ countries. His books Positive Psychotherapy (2018, with Martin Seligman) and Strengths-Based Resilience (2025) are internationally recognized and translated into multiple languages. Dr. Rashid is President-Elect (2025–27) of the International Positive Psychology Association and recipient of awards including IPPA’s Outstanding Practitioner Award (2017) and the University of Toronto’s Chancellor Award (2018).