Board and Team
Our Board
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.
Chris Chen
Chris is Executive Director of Asset Management Ontario (AMONTario), a non-profit community of practice whose mission is to strengthen infrastructure asset management capacity across Ontario’s public sector. He trained as a CPA, earned a Master of Finance (MFin.) degree from the University of Toronto, and has worked in both provincial and municipal governments. Chris‘s work is focused on the integration of ’green‘ and ’grey’ infrastructure asset management to address climate change, community resilience, and sustainability issues.
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.
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.
Bailey Church
Bailey leads the National Public Sector Accounting Advisory service line and the Public Sector ESG and Climate Reporting Centre of Expertise at KPMG. He is also the Leader of KPMG’s Global International Public Sector Accounting Standards working group. Bailey has worked with more than 200 municipalities on the implementation of asset retirement obligations and is advising municipalities across Canada on their roadmaps for ESG and natural assets reporting.
Joanna Eyquem
Joanna is Managing Director of Climate-Resilient Infrastructure at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo. Working with nature is at the heart of her career, having worked as a Professional Geoscientist for over 20 years in Canada and the UK, leading work on climate adaptation, flood and erosion management and habitat restoration. Joanna brings practical and international knowledge to help accelerate use of Nature-based Solutions in Canada.
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 comes from a background in civil structural engineering. She has worked with crown corporations and municipalities locally and internationally in developing numerous asset management plans. Her specializations include development of asset management policy & strategy, level of service and risk analysis, with key focus on green infrastructure and natural assets.
Donna Chiarelli
With 25 years’ experience helping to build healthy, prosperous and resilient communities, Donna works to strengthen the integration of natural asset management into infrastructure management and decision making at NAI. Donna is also the owner/principal consulting of Planet A Consulting, and an associate of the Climate Risk Institute. Previously, she acted as a senior advisor and manager of capacity building programming for the Green Municipal Fund (GMF) with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Liese Coulter
Liese’s work with NAI is to help better understand professional norms and educational competencies to support natural asset practices. She was a Mitacs Science Policy Fellow with the B.C. government and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leeds. Liese holds a PhD from Griffith University and a MScCommunication from the Australian National University.
Stephan Jacob
Trained in Berlin and a CGD™ certified designer, Stephan brings polished, strategic design to NAl’s publications - in print and online. Stephan is president of iD2 Communications Inc., a Victoria-based firm specializing in sustainable design solutions.
Ellery Lamm
Ellery has a background in education, playwriting, filmmaking as well as experience in admin support. She is passionate about organization and efficiency, and supports the daily operations and timely completion of projects at NAI.
Karin Lengger
Karin has over 20 years of experience using numbers and systems to build organizational resilience. She ensures NAI’s financial processes and records are accurate, valuable and useful.
Michelle Molnar
Michelle has 15+ years’ experience in Ecological Economics and inter-disciplinary research, focusing on conservation of natural capital using valuation, policy analysis, and public outreach. She has created and managed cross-functional teams, authored natural capital valuation reports, is past President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics, and served on the B.C. government’s Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council.
Kim Neale
Kim is an Environmental Engineer of Anishinaabeg/Métis descent from the Nipissing First Nation in Northern Ontario with over 12 year‘s experience working with communities all over Canada. She has a focus on the inclusion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and biocultural indicators into natural capital valuation systems, the development of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA’s) and mentorship of BIPOC LGBTQ2S+ youth to find careers in community climate action.
Emily Sharma
Emily is a communications professional who supports environmental conservation initiatives by developing accessible and actionable content. She has experience in public relations and creative writing for tourism and non-profit organizations.
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 NAI’s municipal natural asset projects.
Amy Taylor
Amy Taylor is an environmental economist with extensive project and management experience. Amy is the Chief Operations Officer with Green Analytics that provides technical support to NAI.
MNAI aims to make municipal natural asset management mainstream across Canada. Reach out to us today for more information.