Past Speakers

DR. RAFAEL GOMEZ

Currently serving as a full professor at the University of Toronto, Prof. Gomez's research interests include entrepreneurship, human resources, and the effect of demographic change on economic institutions.

He has co-authored 4 books and over 70 articles - his book, The Little Black Book for Managers, became a UK Business Book Bestseller in 2013. Also, he has taught Internationally at Universities around the World, and is a true industry leader in his field.

Currently, he hosts a TV show on the Canadian channel TLN and is a Senior Partner at Think Tank Toronto.

Richard So

Richard So is the Vice President of Portfolio Managing and Wealth Advising at RBC Wealth Management. He leads a team of established professionals with expertise in portfolio management, insurance, and tax and estate planning.  Together they deliver thoughtful solutions tailored to each client’s objectives, drawing from a wide selection of world-class products and services. Richard’s financial planning process helps families alleviate the common worries related to succession and estate planning for future generations. 

Richard earned an Honours of Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business and holds the Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA), Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Canadian Investment Manager (CIM), Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designations.

Ken Tsang

Ken Tsang is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Capital One Canada and works as a Financial Services and FinTech (finance-technology) executive. Ken has a deep strategic and financial background in wealth management, retail banking and capital markets. On top of that, he has experience in working internationally, establishing entrepreneurial organizations in Canada, US, and Asia. 

Throughout his journey, Ken has acquired his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Waterloo, and his Master of Business Administration at the University of Pennsylvania. Aside from his current position at Capital One, Ken has also worked as the Chief Financial Officer for Coinsquare, the Vice President of the Strategic Management branch at BMO Financial Group, and more

Samuel Ip

Samuel Ip is the Vice President of RBC personal securities and works as a Wealth Advisor and Portfolio Manager. In his role, Samuel provides a comprehensive span of services that will help you construct and secure your wealth. Not only that, Samuel offers discretionary portfolio management services through Private Investment Management (PIM), a service only a very select group of highly qualified advisors provides.

Throughout his journey, Samuel has obtained his Master of Commerce (M.Comm) degree from the UK, and he also obtained advanced industry designations of Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Chartered Investment Manager (CIM). After joining the investment industry in the 1990s, he has been recognized as a top ranked Investment Advisor. Samuel Harnesses his breadth of experience, expertise and credentials to ensure sound advice, expert execution and peace of mind for high value clients who need solutions for broad and complex wealth management.

Degrees & Designations: M.Comm., CFP, CIM)

mitchell ho

Mitchell is a recent graduate from the University of Waterloo’s Accounting and Financial Management program. He is currently working at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan as an Analyst in their Private Equity direct investments team covering Consumer & Retail.

Prior to joining Teachers’, Mitchell completed two work terms in investment banking at TD Securities and RBC Capital Markets. During his time at the University of Waterloo, Mitchell was involved in various extracurricular activities including the School of Accounting and Finance Student Investment Fund as CIO and the hEDGE Financial Services Conference as Co-Head.

Andres Arcila

Andres Arcila works as a Quantitative Associate in the Model Monitoring area of the Risk Management Department at TD bank. Andres holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Waterloo and a MA in Economics from Western University.

He has extensive experience in Model Development and Validation for Risk Management, and Econometrics analysis for policy evaluation.

Roozbeh Farhadi

Currently the Ontario Liberal candidate for Richmond Hill, for the past 15 years Roozbeh has worked at two of Canada’s leading banks, RBC and Scotiabank. He leads a team of small business advisors, supporting businesses to success. Since Covid-19, he has played a part in providing hot meals to those who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. He is looking forward to meet students who are enthusiastic about Finance with UFO.

Christine Davis

Christine Davis is a Senior Analyst at TD Securities in the Global Control Room. She provides compliance coverage for private side business within TD Securities, including Investment Banking (Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance and Equity Capital Markets), Global Credit and Debt Capital Markets. Prior to joining the Global Control Room, she covered regulatory requests and investigations relating to trading in equity, derivative, fixed income, and OTC securities as part of the Canadian Markets Compliance (Advisory) Team. Additionally, she has experience within TD Wealth Management, TD Private Banking, and TD Canada Trust.  Prior to joining the banking industry, she worked in Marketing.

Christine earned a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from the University of Guelph. She volunteers as a Company Program Lead Advisor with Junior Achievement Central Ontario. Christine is also a volunteer Instructor for ABC Life Literacy Canada's Money Matters Core Financial Literacy Program. She is a mentor through various mentorship programs and is passionate about personal finance, financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

nicole wells

Nicole Wells is the VP of Real Estate Secured Landing at CIBC. She’s a seasoned and effective leader with over 20 years of domestic and international banking experience focused on marketing and product management. In addition, she’s also a subject matter expert on mortgages and consumer lending products with a broad knowledge of banking including Asset Liability Management, Credit and Operational Risk and Chequing accounts. She specializes in strategy and planning. Outside of her normal day job at CIBC, she’s also an entrepreneur. Nicole started an art business - Northern Art- to support the fight against climate change and a sustainable future, one tree at a time.

Nicole graduated from University of Waterloo with a Bachelors of Political Science and the Schulich School of Business - York University with designations in Product Development and Marketing Management.

Armita Hosseini

Armita is a Junior in high school from Toronto. During quarantine, she began writing Roadmap To Financial Literacy: An Introduction To Personal Finance For Teenagers, a book that she recently published. She has a passion for education and increasing financial literacy among youth. In addition to that, she is interested in coding, neuroscience, and business, and aspires to be an entrepreneur.

Fritz Weltner

Mr. Weltner is a retirement planner and personal financial advisor at RBC. He works with clients to achieve their financial goals by providing consulting services for investing and budgeting. Anyone who's done a big school project before knows how important it is to make a plan, start early, and spread out the work you do in order to achieve the best results. Those same rules apply whether you are saving for a car, or saving for retirement. However, achieving your financial goals is often trickier than that. There are a lot more decisions to be made.

For example, when choosing investment products, you have to weigh the expected rate of return with the risk and variance that comes with it. There are also many financial products that you likely never heard of before, or don't understand how they work. Mr. Weltner works with clients to make these important decisions and achieve their financial goals, both long and short term.