Joanna is the Director General of Canadian Sovereign Technology Strategy, leading efforts to safeguard digital sovereignty and promote Canadian-made technology solutions. Previously, she served as Director General of Security Management and Governance at SSC, where she established their Cybersecurity Program Management Office. Before joining SSC in 2022, she was Director of IT Audits at the Office of the Auditor General and spent 13 years as an IT Security Architect with firms like CGI Canada and PricewaterhouseCoopers. 

Joanna holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hon.) and a Master of Arts in Public Ethics, along with CISSP, CISA, and Chartered Director (C. Dir) designations. Recognized for her contributions, Joanna received Brock University’s 2021 Outstanding Co-Op Supervisor Award and the 2025 King Charles III Coronation Medal for her public service and advocacy as Co-Champion of the Visible Minorities Network. 

Vanessa Henri is a Canadian lawyer and Managing Partner of Ceiba Law. She began her career in-house at Hitachi Systems Security, a multinational cybersecurity firm, before moving to Fasken where she co-led the Trade Secrets and National Security group advising on emerging technologies, AI, and complex digital infrastructure. 

Today she leads Ceiba Law, a boutique technology law firm working with a concentrated group of clients — critical infrastructure operators, deeptech companies, defence-adjacent organizations, and technology leaders — on the legal and governance questions that sit at the intersection of cybersecurity, procurement, and digital sovereignty. 

Her practice spans the full arc: from structuring how organizations build and contract their digital environments, to advising when those environments come under pressure. 

Recognized among Canada’s Top 20 Women in Cybersecurity since 2020, named a Top Global Influencer in Security by IFSEC, and shortlisted as one of the world’s Top 3 in cybersecurity law in 2024, she holds an LL.M. from McGill University on cyberespionage and serves on the Board of Directors of Data Franca. 

Professor Richard Gold brings 35 years of academic and private-sector experience to innovation policy. His legal career at Tory’s LLP advising technology firms laid the foundation for his dual academic and policy trajectory, where he has led initiatives at the interface of law, economics, management, science, and innovation. As Professor, Director of McGill’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy (CIPP), and Chief Policy and Partnerships Officer at Conscience—a not-for-profit that runs a $105 million network, of which $49 million is from the federal government—Prof. Gold’s work address a central problem: how governments, firms, and institutions can transform innovative research into social and economic outcomes.

With training in law (LL.B [Toronto], LL.M and S.J.D [Michigan]) and computer science (B.Sc. [McGill]), he integrates technical, business, and legal expertise to investigate how law interacts with other social systems shaping innovation outcomes. McGill recognized these activities through its award of James McGill Professorship (2011) and Distinguished James McGill Professorship (2025). International recognition includes two fellowships at the European University Institute—the Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship (2022) awarded to established academics with an international reputation, and, as an emerging scholar, a Jean Monnet Fellowship (2003). Dr. Gold has provided advice to Health Canada, Industry Canada, the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (where he was the lead author of the OECD Guidelines on the Licensing of Genetic Inventions and a report on Collaborative Mechanisms in Life Science Intellectual Property), the World Health Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization and UNITAID. Prof. Gold is a Co-Principal Investigator on a New  Frontiers in Reearch Fund – Transformation project, TRanslational Initiative to ​DErisk NeuroTherapeutic (TRIDENT), and is and has been advisor on European research projects, collaborator on NIH projects, and participated in court and tribunal cases in the Canada, the US, and before an international trade tribunal.

His research has been published in high-impact journals in science, law, philosophy, international relations including Science, Nature Biotechnology, The Lancet, PLoS Medicine, McGill Law Journal, European Intellectual Property Journal, Public Affairs Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly and European Journal for International Relations.

Curtis McCord is a Policy Analyst at the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP), whose work examines the political economy of digital markets and infrastructure, including competition, dependence, and consolidation in the market for cloud computing resources.