New directors join Bioenterprise Canada board

Bioenterprise Canada has welcomed four new innovation leaders to its board of directors. Lorelei Graham, Joanne Fedeyko, Richard Cloutier and Ted Bilyea have each started a three-year term on the board of Canada’s Food & Agri-Tech Engine.

Guelph ON, “The promise of sustainable innovation solutions in the food and agri-tech sectors offers virtually limitless potential for Canada to address big picture issues like food security and climate change that our world is grappling with,” says Bioenterprise CEO Dave Smardon. “We are excited to add the skills and insights of our new directors to Bioenterprise’s national board and look forward to harnessing their expertise to help drive our organization and Canada’s national agri-food ecosystem forward into a bold and innovative future.”

Lorelei Graham is a partner at law firm Bennett Jones where she practises intellectual property law with a significant focus on clients in the food and agribusiness sectors. She has developed a practice that addresses all aspects of her food and agriculture clients’ intellectual property needs, from initial consultations regarding IP strategies to drafting, filing and prosecuting patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright in Canada, the United States and internationally. Graham has also written extensively on the growing role of precision agriculture in agribusiness.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Bioenterprise board and continuing to support the Canadian agri-tech and food communities,” says Graham. “I look forward to working with the Bioenterprise team and being a part of the exciting initiatives across Canada.”

Joanne Fedeyko is the Founder & CEO at Connection Silicon Valley (CSV), an organization that helps accelerate Canadian startups from Seed to Scale, and the Founder of the Canadian Women’s Network (CWN). With over 800 members, CWN is the preeminent community that connects Canadian founders to an influential network of U.S. investors, mentors and executives to help them grow locally and scale globally. Fedeyko is the co-founder and general partner of Women’s Equity Lab Silicon Valley, an angel investment fund with the mission to increase the number of female investors in early-stage startups. She hails from Alberta and has lived in Silicon Valley since 1999.

“Having grown up on a farm in Northern Alberta, farming and agriculture are my roots,” says Fedeyko. “I’m excited to leverage my expertise and experience working with startups, along with my network in Silicon Valley to help deliver on Bioenterprise’s mission.”

Richard Cloutier has nearly 40 years of expertise in the deployment of innovation, business start-ups and business development strategies, including managing partner of the Ecofuel Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in climate tech including agri-tech. He has also been President and CEO of the Centre québécois de valorisation des biotechnologies (CQVB), an organization dedicated to innovation and technology transfer in Quebec’s bio-industry sector, and was the founder, president and CEO of Gelkem, a private biopharmaceutical company involved in controlled drug delivery systems. Cloutier holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Sherbrooke University and an MBA from Laval University and is frequently consulted on innovation strategy development. 

Ted Bilyea is an agri-food consultant specializing in innovation with clients in both private and public sector and special advisor the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) after previously serving as its chair and Chief Strategy Officer. He retired from Maple Leaf Foods Inc. as Executive Vice-President after spending 35 years with the company, including as president of Maple Leaf Foods International, and has served on many boards, such as Paterson Global Foods Inc. and the Alberta Meat and Livestock Agency. Bilyea holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in international relations from York University and was inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2018.

“We must significantly increase efforts in Canada to improve productivity in agriculture if we are to provide affordable nutrition to Canadians and a growing hungry world,” says Bilyea. “The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) has made it clear that the world requires productivity growth of 24% for crops and 31% for animals by 2050 to avoid a major increase in hunger; Canada needs organizations such as Bioenterprise to help transform ideas for sustainable intensification to commercial reality.”

Dr. Rickey Yada of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia has stepped down as director with Bioenterprise to become Science Advisor to the board. Nevin McDougall has also left the board but will remain as an advisor.