Moderators Biographies Scott Jolliffe, Chair of the Canada Arab Business Council and Partner at Gowling WLG (Canada)

Scott is the Chair of the Canadian Arab Business Council (CABC), Canada's not-for-profit association focused on bringing the Canadian and Arab business communities together to facilitate and expand trade and investment between Canada and the Arab world.

As a partner at Gowling WLG in Toronto, Scott continues to serve as a trusted adviser to business leaders and government representatives on legal and business matters. Having earned his reputation as a leading intellectual property lawyer, and then for 20 years as CEO and Managing Partner of Gowlings as it grew to become a Global 100 law firm, Scott now focuses on providing strategic advice and practical guidance to businesses across a wide spectrum of industries and sectors in Canada and internationally.

Vanessa Naddaf Economic Attaché Embassy of Lebanon to Canada

Vanessa Naddaf is the newly appointed Economic Attaché at the Embassy of Lebanon to Canada, she is responsible for helping to promote and deepen the economic and trade relations between Lebanon and Canada in addition to helping companies establish and expand their activities in Lebanon.

With a Master’s degree in Finance and a Bachelor's degree in Finance and Business Information and Decision Systems from the American University of Beirut, Vanessa passed the CFA level I examination and is preparing for level II. Prior to her current assignment, she occupied a key position as a Senior Business Analyst at Bank Audi Headquarters - Finance Department, reporting directly to the country CFO and Board of Directors, analytical charts, simulations and financial projections. In addition, she led multiple projects related to the implementation of core business engines and reports automation. In parallel, she taught in the Bank’s Training Academy multiple finance topics addressed to new joiners and to her fellow colleagues seeking career advancement. In 2012, she served for a year as a Corporate Analyst at Banque Libano-Française managing half of the bank's corporate portfolio risks and credit lines.

Speakers Biographies His Excellency Fadi Ziadeh Ambassador of Lebanon to Canada

Graduated in Management and Economics from the School of Management and Economics at Notre- Dame University and a MMBA from McGill University.

H.E Mr. Ziadeh began his diplomatic career as Attaché at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lebanon in 1999. Since then, he has held several positions, namely Consul / Deputy Head of Mission at the Lebanese Embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, First Secretary/Political Advisor at the Lebanese Embassy in Russia, Chargé d'Affaires at the Lebanese Embassy in Prague, and counsellor of the Lebanese Mission to the United Nations in New York, notably during the period of Lebanon's mandate to the Security Council in 2011-2012.

He has also held several positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Beirut in various departments, including Political Affairs.

In July 1, 2012, H.E Mr. Fadi Ziadeh has taken the direction of the Consulate General of Lebanon as Consul General.

Since July 20, 2017 he has been appointed as Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary of Lebanon to Canada.

Ambassador Ziadeh is fluent in Arabic, French and English. Louis Lahoud Director General Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture

Josée Dumas Director of Supply Management SAQ

With more than 20 years of experience in commercialization and marketing, Josée Dumas is Director of Supply Management. She is responsible for the selection and marketing of products based on customer needs and market opportunities. She also leads the development and implementation of category strategies.

Jean-François Côté Directeur General TOCAD

I have 20 years of sales & marketing experience in the wines and spirits industry. I have held key sales and marketing positions within leading Canadian agencies. Today I’m the General Manager at Tocade, an agency that is representing for the Quebec market leading wine producers in Lebanon. I have an intimate knowledge of the monopoly system, more specifically with the SAQ. I hold a degree in Business Administration from Les Hautes-Études-Commerciales (University of Montreal).

Sami Rabbat Professional Networker in Wine Business

Diplômé en 1976 de l’Institut de Tourisme et d’Hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ) en Gestion Hôtelière. Il a travaillé dans l’hôtellerie à différents postes. De 1979 à 2008, il a œuvré dans le monde de la représentation de vins, dont 20 ans à son compte!

Co-fondateur de l’Association des Diplômés de l’ITHQ, Chevalier du Mérite Agricole de la France en 2005, ex-président du Conseil d’Administration de Cuisiniers Sans Frontières(2009), membre du comité exécutif du Combat des Toques (2009/2010)…

Il a lancé son site le 3 septembre 2008, qui est destiné au réseautage de l'Agroalimentaire, des Alcools et de l'Hospitalité.

Jim Lisser Executive Director, Acting Drinks Ontario

Jim joined Drinks Ontario executive team in April 2019. Previously Jim had been in the industry for over 20 years as a partner at B&W Wines (now under the Breakthru Beverages). Teaming with partners, Jim’s industry experience includes managing agency operations including work/sales in Consignment, Vintages and Wines category. As an agent, Jim played a crucial role in leading the Association as a Board member (10 years) where he worked on the Specialty Services Committee, which collaborated very closely with LCBO. Throughout Jim’s tenure in the industry, he developed many strong relationships with both industry members and LCBO personnel throughout the organization. These relationships played an important role in proactively addressing challenges faced by members and developing opportunities for Drinks Ontario. Jim now brings this experience to his role and looks forward in leveraging his expertise in further developing Drinks Ontario, continuing to strengthen ties with the LCBO through collaboration and working with government as distribution policies in Ontario modernize.

Yanick Coutie Managing Director SOPEXA Canada

Yanick is the Managing Director of Sopexa Canada and has more than 20 years of experience in Strategy, Advertising & Marketing in Food and Beverage industry in French and English Canada. He has a strong business network in the Food and Wine industry in Canada (Liquor Boards, trade, importers, retailers and top management). He has completed numerous successful marketing campaigns for international and local brands, trade councils and national organizations across Canada. Focused on innovation, creativity and results oriented, Yanick is recognized as an influential leader in Canada's wine and spirits industry.

Charles Khabbouth Founder & CEO Ink Entertainment

CEO and Founder of INK Entertainment, Charles has been a recognized entrepreneur, visionary and fashion icon in the Canadian nightlife scene since the early 1980's with Toronto's groundbreaking Club Z and legendary nightclub Stilife. His risky out of the box ideas and determined point of view have set the foundation and fueled the aspiration for a thriving hospitality industry in downtown Toronto. While his list of partners has included the likes of Loews Hotel & Resorts and Lifetime Developments for Bisha Hotel & Residences, Charles has brought a strategic and trailblazing philosophy to an otherwise stereotyped industry. This has earned him a revered spot amongst Canada's elite as a transformer that has changed the face of entertainment and built INK to be one of the country's most reputable companies. Charles has made a career of elegantly fusing together art and commerce, and continues to do so through his evolution in business and imagination. This has led him to expand his professional repertoire to include restaurateur, and hotelier. Pushing the envelope whenever he can, Charles appreciates shock value and has the keen intuition of giving the public what it wants even before they know it themselves. In October 2018, Khabouth was named The EY (Ernst and Young) Entrepreneur Of The Year™ in the Ontario entertainment and hospitality category.

Abbis Mahmod President Dreammind Group

A self-made icon and accomplished businessman, Abbis Mahmoud is one of the most respected and sought after nightlife impresarios. Having started at the young age, Abbis has many highly successful and critically acclaimed nightclubs and restaurants, in addition to his previous accomplishments and accolades in the entertainment industry with national-wide event tours and hallmark events working with international superstars such as The Black Eyed Peas, Lady GaGa, Jason DeRulo, Tommy Lee Jones, Marc Anthony and The Back Street Boys.

Abbis also played an important role in the Canadian publishing industry with award winning publications with Canada’s #1 male lifestyle magazines, Urban Male Magazine and CHROME.

Today, Abbis has expanded his horizons on a vast holding of commercial and residential real- estate, retail, medical device manufacturing and philanthropy.

During the initial phases of the pandemic, Operation Ramzieh was able to feed over 40,000 vulnerable individuals including senior citizens, ability compromised and financially distressed.

When the Beirut explosion further tested the spirits of Lebanon, Abbis quickly unified and mobilized the Canadian-Lebanese community to charter and fill three Being 737 Cargo airplanes with urgently needed medical supplies, scarce cancer medication, survival kits for the make-shift dwelling camps, food hampers, firefighting equipment and PPE.

Abbis Mahmoud is a longstanding pillar of our community and a true Canadian icon.

Tony Aspler Writer and Wine Expert

Tony Aspler is an internationally known writer, speaker, and wine expert, based in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.

Tony has been writing about wine for over 40 years. He was the wine columnist for The Toronto Star for 21 years and has authored nineteen books on wine and food, including The Wine Atlas of Canada, Vintage Canada, The Wine Lover’s Companion, The Wine Lover Cooks, Travels with My Corkscrew and Tony Aspler’s Cellar Book. Tony’s latest book is The Five Minute Wine Book.

He is the author/co-author of nine novels, including three with Gordon Pape: Chain Reaction, The Scorpion Sanction, and The Music Wars. The Viking Press, New York published the first two. His latest series is a collection of wine murder mysteries featuring the itinerant wine writer/detective Ezra Brant: Blood Is Thicker than Beaujolais, The Beast of Barbaresco and Death on the Douro (published by Warwick Publishing). He is currently working on Nightmare in Napa Valley.

Tony wrote two half-hour episodes for the CBC-TV historical series The Campbells, and co-wrote with Gordon Pape an hour-long radio adaptation of their novel Chain Reaction.

In December 2007, Tony was awarded the Order of Canada.

In 2012 Tony was the first Canadian to be inducted into the New York Media Wine Writers Hall of Fame. In that year Tony was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. In 2017 Tony was awarded Spain’s Officers Cross of the Order of Civil Merit.

In February 2001, Tony co-founded a charitable foundation with Arlene Willis, Grapes for Humanity (www.grapesforhumanity.com), which raises money through the wine community for the victims of landmines and children with disabilities . Tony is an accomplished wine educator and lecturer.

Tony is the panel chair for Canadian wines at the annual Decanter World Wine Awards. He is the creator of the annual Ontario Wine Awards competition, an honorary governor of Cuvée and a director of the Independent Wine & Spirit Trust. He is also a director of The Canadian Wine Library.

At the Niagara Grape & Wine Festival 2000, Tony was presented with the Royal Bank Business Citizen of the Year Award.

Tony writes for a number of international wine magazines, including Wine Spectator, Decanter and www.decanter.com, Quench, Post City Magazines, Lexpert, On the Go and Fine Wine & Liquor (China). He was the Canadian contributor to Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine, Tom Stevenson’s annual Wine Report and to Oz Clarke’s annual Pocket Wine Guide.

Tony Aspler’s website can be found at www.tonyaspler.com. Tony Aspler’s Books:

▪ The Streets of Askelon – 1972 (Secker & Warburg) ▪ One of My Marionettes – 1974 (Secker & Warburg) ▪ Chain Reaction (with Gordon Pape) – 1979 (The Viking Press, McClelland & Stewart) ▪ The Scorpion Sanction (with Gordon Pape) – 1980 (The Viking Press, McClelland & Stewart) ▪ The Music Wars (with Gordon Pape) – 1982 (McClelland & Stewart) ▪ Titanic – 1989 (Doubleday) ▪ Blood Is Thicker than Beaujolais – 1994 (Headline) ▪ The Beast of Barbaresco – 1996 (Headline) ▪ Death on the Douro – 1997 (Headline) ▪ Travels with My Corkscrew – 1997 (McGraw Hill-Ryerson) ▪ A Taste for Wine (book on tape) – 1999 ▪ The Wine Lover Cooks (with Kathleen Sloan) – 1999 (MacMillan) ▪ Canadian Wine for Dummies – 2003 (Wiley) ▪ The Chef’s Table (with Lucy Waverman and James Chatto) – 2000 (Random House) ▪ The Wine Atlas of Canada – 2006 (Random House) ▪ The Definitive Canadian Wine and Cheese Cookbook (with Gurth Pretty) – 2007 (Whitecap) ▪ Tony Aspler’s Cellar Book – 2009 (Random House) ▪ North American Wine Routes (with Dan Burger) – 2010 (Readers Digest) ▪ Canadian Wineries (with photographer Jean-François Bergeron) – 2013 (Firefly) ▪ The Five Minute Wine Book – 2014 (e-book)

Christina Brown General Manager & Sommelier Sofia Restaurant

From a young age, Christina Brown loved the art of hospitality with fond memories of hosting pool parties in the backyard and helping in the kitchen. At the age of 20, she started her foray into the world of hospitality as a server with a deep interest in the world of beverage. Bartending allowed her to play with flavour profiles and combined creativity with the art of service. After numerous distillery visits and racking up an impressive collection of rare and hard to find spirits in her home bar, she turned her focus to wine. Knowing her passion for finer things, she studied with mentor MS Bruce Wallner, completing her Certified Sommelier Examination with the Court of Master Sommeliers and following up with additional advanced studies, including 3IC specialist courses with Ian D’Agata. She continues her quest for knowledge with master classes, industry conferences and frequent winery excursions. In her downtime she rarely sits still, juggling her hobbies : International travel, the occasional half marathon and being an avid Soulcycle enthusiast. Christina recently completed renovations on her Victorian home where she lives with her high school sweetheart Alex and Pomeranian Bulleit.

She has held multiple roles in the restaurant industry from Beverage Director to General Manager and is currently part of the management team and sole Sommelier at Sofia restaurant in Toronto; a trendy and luxurious Italian fine dining establishment in the heart of Yorkville.