Alan Broadbent is Chairman and CEO of the Avana Capital Corporation, and founder and Chairman of the Maytree foundation. Maytree focuses on poverty issues in Canada, with a special interest in refugees and immigrants. Maytree is the initiator of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) and ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies), which facilitate immigrant success in the labour market; and DiverseCity, which is reshaping leadership in society to better reflect the diverse citizens of Canada.
Alan also co-founded and chairs the Caledon Institute of Social Policy (1992); Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement (2001); and Diaspora Dialogues (2005), which supports the creation and presentation of new writing that reflects the diversity of Canada. These and other related organizations create and support civic engagement projects to strengthen the public discourse on civil society, including: the Jane Jacobs Prize, which celebrates “unsung heroes” in the Toronto Region; the Institute for Municipal Finance and Governance at the Munk Centre, University of Toronto, and Ideas That Matter, a public discourse initiative.
Alan is Co-Chair of Happy Planet Foods; Director of Sustainalytics Holdings B.V.; a Director of Invest Toronto; past-Chair of the Tides Canada Foundation; advisor to the Literary Review of Canada; Member of the Governors’ Council of the Toronto Public Library Foundation; Senior Fellow of Massey College and Member of the Governing Board, and Member of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. He is the author of the book “Urban Nation”, and co-editor of the recently published, “Five Good Ideas” book. Alan was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Ryerson University in 2009.