How to Improve Your Strategic Thinking

Speakers

• Jeannine Ritchot

  Assistant Deputy Minister Multilateral Relations and Internal Trade – Intergovernmental Affairs Privy Council Office.

  Canada

• Alain Ruche

  Former Senior Official, European Union (Senior Advisor to the Secretary General, European External Action Service)

  Belgium

• Jeannine Ritchot, Assistant Deputy Minister Multilateral Relations and Internal Trade – Intergovernmental Affairs Privy Council Office. Jeannine joined Intergovernmental Affairs, Privy Council Office in April 2022. As the Assistant Deputy Minister of Multilateral Relations and Internal Trade, she is a senior member of the team of Canadian civil servants advising the Prime Minister on matters such as national unity, the evolution of the federation, and removing interprovincial barriers to trade as a means to bolster Canada’s economic resilience. Prior to this, Jeannine was the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Communications and Portfolio Sector at Natural Resources Canada. She has also held executive positions at Treasury Board Secretariat, Health Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada. In 2020, for her efforts in promoting international and interprovincial regulatory cooperation as a means of removing barriers to trade, she became an inaugural recipient of the Apolitical and World Economic Forum “Agile 50” Award, which recognized the 50 Most Influential People in the World Revolutionizing Governance. In 2019, Jeannine became the first woman to serve as Chair of the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee. She was also a peer reviewer of governance structures for international regulatory cooperation in the U.K. and Mexico and negotiated the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Good Regulatory Practices Chapter. Jeannine has strong community roots and is a fierce advocate for the advancement of women and girls in sport. She is a donor and mentor to women athletes at the University of Ottawa and is Chair of Girls on the Run Ottawa, an organization that teaches girls to live joyful, self-confident lives through physical activity. Jeannine holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Arts degree in Conflict Studies from St. Paul University / University of Ottawa.

• Alain Ruche, a Belgian citizen and former EU senior official living in Brussels. He worked for nearly three decades at the UN, the World Bank, and, mainly, at the EU External Service, with assignments on four continents. Alain has focused on complexity and how to look at things from another angle, including the role of artists in social change. He is a long-standing practitioner of collective intelligence techniques, with (ex) affiliations at The Club of Rome (EU Chapter), The UK Royal Society of Arts (EU Connector), The Global Salzburg Seminar, The Asian Foresight Institute (Bangkok), Kosmos Journal adviser, and Mentor at Duo for a Job. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Schumacher Institute and recently co-authored "Archipelago of Coherence," published in Kosmos Journal.