Speakers

• Mark Bencze

  Economic Advisor

  Canada

• Lorna Brown

  Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor

  Canada

• Laura Mousseau

  Strategic Communications Consultant

  Canada

• Mark Bencze, an Economic Advisor with the Crown Corporations and Portfolio Governance group at Transport Canada, began his public service career in 2016 with Transport Canada and has worked in several roles while in the public service, including in policy shops, on the Transport Canada COVID team and as an advisor to the Corporate Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of a new Crown corporation. Mark holds a master’s degree in political science from Carleton University and an undergraduate degree from Queens University.

• Lorna Brown, writer and editor, is Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor in the Government of New Brunswick’s Office of the CIO. She has co-organized “open” events since 2001 including the Second International Digital Earth conference, four GovMakers, and a Canadian Open Data Summit. As an activist she cofounded and was inaugural Vice Chair of the Canadian Open Data Society; co-founded her local Civic Tech; and for the past four years has been Editor of the Saint John, New Brunswick community newspaper, the voice of those living in the circumstance of poverty. She has a Diversity Management Certificate from Cornell. Most recently she wrote the Digital New Brunswick (gnb.ca) strategy, with the help of 86 colleagues and 2600 surveyed New Brunswickers.

• Laura Mousseau, is a Strategic Communications Consultant working in Ontario, Canada. Laura is an accredited communications professional (APR) with experience working in government and not-for-profit to provide strategic communications and engagement planning and measurement support including media relations, issues management, copywriting, social media, and more.