Board and Team
Our Board
Isabel Gordon
Isabel spent 27 years at the City of North Vancouver, 8 as Director of Finance. She is now the Director of Financial Services for the District of West Vancouver and has established an Asset Management accounting and funding system. She has also worked on getting Canadian accounting standards to recognize natural capital and as a fundable asset category.
Emanuel Machado
Emanuel is the Chief Administrative Officer of the Town of Gibsons. He worked with communities across Canada to promote renewable energy, net-zero buildings, water strategies, social plans and sustainability frameworks. He has been recognized with numerous awards including the Arbor Vitae Award from the Province of British Columbia and the Professional Award for Innovation in local government.
Natalia Moudrak
Natalia is the Director, Climate Resilience, for the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation. She advances the development of programs, guidelines and standards for climate resilience in Canada. Natalia is a recipient of the 2018 Canada’s Clean50 Emerging Leader award, a Vice Chair on the CSA Group standard for flood-resilient community design and represents Canada as a subject matter expert on storm water management at the ISO international standards development committee.
Mike Puddister
Mike was Deputy Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Watershed Transformation at Credit Valley Conservation Authority. He’s a founding member of the Ontario Network on Ecosystem Services, and was a member of the Research Management Committee for the Water Economics, Policy and Governance Network, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee for EcoHealth Ontario, and of the Steering Committee for the Central West Local Health Integration Network Healthy Communities Initiative.
Jay Ritchlin
Jay is Director-General for Western Canada at the David Suzuki Foundation. He has more than 15 years’ experience working on solutions to environmental challenges including open net-pen aquaculture, offshore oil and gas, marine fisheries, toxins and seafood. He holds a Biology degree from Kenyon College, Ohio.
Meet the Team
Roy Brooke
Roy has worked in Canada, Europe and Africa in urban sustainability, national politics, international development and humanitarian affairs. He served as Director of Sustainability for the City of Victoria from 2011 to 2013 and between 2003 and 2011 he worked for the United Nations.
Nikita Bhalla
Nikita Bhalla comes from a background and three years’ experience in civil structural engineering and urban planning. In her recent experience as a contractor to TransLink, she supported the team in various asset management initiatives including capital planning, investment prioritization and asset criticality. Prior to that, she worked as a civil-structural intern at BC Hydro where she gained experience on condition assessments and the consequent design of structural elements of the dam infrastructure.
Donna Chiarelli
Donna brings 15 years of experience building the capacity of local governments with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, including a strong focus on supporting innovation in asset management. Donna provides support for MNAI to participating municipalities for core asset management concepts.
Cheekwan Ho
Cheekwan provides communications support to MNAI through writing, strategic communications planning, media relations, social media and video. She has more than 20 years’ experience in corporate communications and broadcast journalism with municipal, provincial and federal governments, non-profit, and television stations in Victoria and Calgary.
Karin Lengger
Karin has over 20 years of experience using numbers and systems to build organizational resilience. She ensures MNAI’s financial processes and records are accurate, valuable and useful.
Michelle Molnar
Michelle is an Environmental Economist and Policy Analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation, is the author of natural capital valuations and sits on the B.C. government’s Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council. Michelle is an experienced project manager and practitioner of natural asset measurement and management.
Sairah Tyler
Sairah is a community planner whose work addresses major socio-economic and environmental issues including water and watersheds, climate change impacts and adaptation, low impact development, urban forests and parks and open space systems. She helps deliver all aspects of MNAI’s municipal natural asset projects.
Jeff Wilson
Jeff has over 10 years of experience as an environmental economist and specializes in the valuation and accounting of services provided by natural assets.
MNAI aims to make municipal natural asset management mainstream across Canada. Reach out to us today for more information.