Leadership & team - Grand Challenges Canada

Dr. Karlee Silver

Chief Executive Officer

Karlee Silver is Chief Executive Officer for Grand Challenges Canada. She is a mission-driven leader committed to sparking real-world impact through innovation and partnerships.

Dr. Silver has been with Grand Challenges Canada since it launched, and led the process of selecting the organization’s prioritized grand challenges. Holding various roles, she has set strategy for global health, development and humanitarian innovation initiatives, and enabled the GCC team to support innovators all over the globe.

Dr. Silver is an active member of the Grand Challenge network and the International Development Innovation Alliance. She sits on the Canadian Network for Women’s and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) and Blueprint boards.

Dr. Silver received her doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she attended as a Rhodes Scholar and trained in genetics and immunology.

Akin Alaga

Chief Investment & Operating Officer

Akin is a generalist with over 20 years of experience in the private and public sectors.

He cut his teeth in the strategy and operations practice of a top-tier consulting firm where he held management and global roles. He left consulting to lead Ontario’s innovation economy portfolios driving the competitiveness of its $720B clusters.

Afterward he leveraged this expertise to launch a small venture capital fund focused on seeking returns, driving social impact/economic livelihoods while enhancing African clusters’ competitiveness in global markets. Prior to being the Chief Operating Officer, Akin was Grand Challenges Canada’s (GCC) Vice President, Programs where he provided strategic and operational oversight to GCC’s investment portfolios across program pillars.

Akin has a BA from McGill and is a Rotman MBA (University of Toronto).

Rahul Chandran

Chief Strategy and Partnerships Officer

Rahul is a seasoned global leader, with deep experience in social impact, innovation and sustainability.

Prior to Grand Challenges Canada, he was the Managing Partner at Upswing Solutions, an ESG advisory services firm, the VP of ESG at Export Development Canada, the Managing Partner at Care Impact Partners, and the Executive Direct of the Global Alliance on Humanitarian Innovation. His work has spanned scaling innovation at a global level, leading innovative finance teams and working across public-private partnerships delivering impact at scale.

Earlier he ran the Sustainable Development and Peace and Security units at the UN Center for Policy Research, the Secretary-General’s think-tank. He led reform, policy and innovation units in the Executive Office of the Secretary General, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Department of Peace Operations. He was the Deputy Director at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and has worked on multiple successful technology start-ups, including what are now ESPNCriclnfo and Elemica.

Rahul has a BA from Yale University and a Master’s from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy that makes him neither a lawyer nor a diplomat.

Maddy Toca

General Counsel & Secretary to the Board

Maddy Toca is General Counsel & Secretary to the Board at Grand Challenges Canada, where she oversees the organization’s legal and governance functions, ensuring compliance and resilience across its domestic and international programs. .

Prior to joining Grand Challenges Canada, Maddy spent time as in-house counsel at a global financial technology company, advising on issues related to privacy, technology and intellectual property. Maddy’s prior work in private practice centered on health law and civil litigation. Her experience also includes working on gender equality and socioeconomic rights issues in various roles, including working with the Adviser on Human Trafficking at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, where she monitored and assisted with the implementation of the OHCHR Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking.

Maddy holds a B.A. (Honours) from McGill University, and a J.D. from Queen’s University. Committed to social impact beyond her professional role, Maddy continues to contribute her time to causes both at home and abroad and has served on the boards of several not-for-profit and charitable organizations.

Nicole Sijenyi Fulton

Senior Director

Impact Investments

Nicole provides strategic steering and stewardship of GCC’s growing portfolio of global health investments, nurturing local innovations that catalyze change.

Nicole is a strategic global health practitioner with over 20 years’ experience managing organizations and teams to improve health outcomes for women and girls. She draws on her leadership background as a former Country Representative, Team Leader and Strategic Advisor, and her own experiences leading the scale-up of innovations in Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and elsewhere. Nicole is passionate about building meaningful partnerships where innovators are in the driver’s seat of their work, and re-distributing inequitable power in the context of decolonization. She has a background in maternal and newborn health, sexual and reproductive heath, and mental health, with a special interest in health care quality and respectful maternity care.

Nicole holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of British Columbia; a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins; and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Organizational Leadership from Oxford.

She is the proud mother of 2 Kenyan-Canadian kids, and enjoys camping, cycling and traveling.

Dr. Fawad Akbari

Senior Director

Innovation Advisory

Fawad Akbari is Senior Director of Innovation Advisory at GCC where he leads a team of functional and technical experts to enable core functions in delivering GCC’s mandate of funding and supporting innovations to scale for sustainable impact.

A pediatrician and global health specialist, Fawad brings expertise in health, nutrition, governance, and fragility. Before joining GCC, he served as Regional Deputy Director of Programs and Partnerships at Aga Khan Foundation Canada, managing multi-sectoral initiatives across Canada and the U.S., including global health, nutrition, and humanitarian programs. His earlier roles included leadership positions with AKF Afghanistan, Cure International Hospital, and Marie Stopes International.

Fawad holds an MD from Kabul Medical University, an MPH from the University of Liverpool, and a diploma from INSEAD’s European Health Executive Leadership Program. He has contributed to the UN Institute for Training and Research since 2009 as a Fellow, Coach, and Mentor in Afghanistan and the Middle East programs.
He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health and a member of its WHO Collaborating Center for Health Equity. His research focuses on health governance, community health, conflict and fragility, and health systems strengthening. Fawad also serves on the Board of Right to Learn Afghanistan and the Global Advisory Committee of NASA Lifelines.

Kristen Cordell

Senior Director

Policy

Adetunji Eleso

Senior Director

Portfolio Management

Tunji leads the creation of bridges between the supply of GCC-supported innovations and the demand for solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. His approach focuses on honouring GCC’s collaborative advantage in the innovation ecosystem and increases the likelihood of scale and sustainability of GCC-supported innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Prior to his current role, Tunji served as an Acting Senior Portfolio Manager, Risk Capital focused on non-grant investments. He joined GCC in 2019 as an Investment Manager responsible for managing a portfolio of Medical Products & Technologies that improved the lives of mothers and children especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tunji is an investment and business support professional with over two decades experience supporting clients in financial services, manufacturing and technology sectors in Nigeria and Africa. He has extensive experience in early-stage investing. Prior to joining GCC, he was at Co-creation Hub Nigeria (a pan African social innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity) where for almost a decade, he led the investment team to provide capital and support to hundreds of early-stage enterprises.

Tunji has a MSc in International Development from the University of Manchester, UK and a BSc in Estate Management from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Tunji in his spare time is an avid football follower and supporter.

Leeat Gellis

Director

Innovative Finance & Venture Support

Leeat is the Director, Innovative Finance & Venture at Grand Challenges Canada where she oversees the organization’s strategy and implementation of impact investing and blended finance solutions. Prior, she was the Director of Global Health Innovation where she oversaw a growing portfolio of investments through GCC’s Transition to Scale and seed programs.

Leeat brings robust experience in impact investing, having previously worked with organizations like Social Capital Partners and Grassroots Business Fund. She is a member of the Criterion Institute’s Advisory board on Shifting Narratives in Innovative Finance and the Transform Health Fund Advisory committee. Formerly, she was a long-standing member of SVX’s Issuer Review Committee and Co-Chair of Acumen’s Toronto chapter.

Leeat has an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto where she designed and lectured the school’s first undergraduate course on impact investing and social enterprise.

Gillian Mathurin

Director

Strategic Communications

Gill brings nearly two decades of experience in strategic communications, advocacy, and media relations, most recently as the Director, Strategic Communications & Public Engagement for the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. At the Munk School, she led the communications and events teams, grew the School’s international reputation, raised the profile of experts working on a wide variety of global issues, and hosted leading scholars, diplomats and dignitaries.

Before joining the University of Toronto, Gill spent the majority of her career in advocacy and non-profit organizations. As AIDS-Free World’s Director of Communications, she worked on issues of sexual violence, HIV, and discrimination, and was instrumental in launching the Code Blue Campaign to end impunity for sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeeping personnel. At the Stephen Lewis Foundation, she raised the profile of grassroots organizations turning the tide of HIV and AIDS in Africa and helped launch the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. Gill began her international career in the Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy Unit of UNICEF’s Office of Emergency Programmes in New York. Over the years, her work has taken her around the globe, working with grassroots organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and leading outreach and media events in South Africa, Kenya, the US, UK and beyond.

Gill holds an MA in Political Science and Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Directed Interdisciplinary Studies (Religion and World Affairs) from Carleton University, where she was awarded the President’s Entrance Scholarship and a Senate Medal for Academic Achievement. She currently serves as a board member of the Public Good Initiative and UofT’s Connaught PhDs for Public Impact program.

Dr. Nicole Bardikoff

Lead

Grand Challenge Portfolios & Mental Health

Nicole leads the Mental Health domain at Grand Challenges Canada, where she shapes strategy and fosters partnerships to advance the mental health and well-being of young people in low-resource settings. She is the lead for the Being Initiative and also supports to the strategic direction of the broader portfolio team at GCC.

With a background in developmental psychology, Nicole brings over a decade of experience in mental health research, program implementation, and policy engagement across diverse settings. Since joining GCC in 2019, she has spearheaded the relaunch of the Global Mental Health program, helping drive GCC’s role as a key funder of community-driven, scalable mental health innovations. Prior to her work at GCC, Nicole supported youth and family mental health initiatives in Canada and served as a Lecturer in Psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she developed and taught courses on child development.

Nicole holds an MSc in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Queen’s University.

Zainah Alsamman

Lead

Humanitarian

Zainah Alsamman leads Grand Challenges Canada’s humanitarian domain, where she drives investment strategy and cultivates key partnerships across the humanitarian sector, ensuring innovative ideas deliver measurable and lasting impact for people affected by conflict and crisis.

With 15+ years of experience in the humanitarian sector, Zainah brings multi-sectoral expertise in frontline humanitarian response, program management, research and evaluation. She has lived and worked across the Middle East and North Africa, working on a range of humanitarian focused programs, covering areas such as refugee protection and GBV response, health, energy, WASH, information integrity and digital safety in crisis settings.

Zainah holds a Master’s in Mass Communications and Media Research from the University of Leicester, and a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Culture from the University of Toronto.

Michelle Cruichshank

Lead

Child Development

Michelle Cruickshank leads Grand Challenges Canada’s Early Child Development and Education in Emergencies domains, where she drives investment strategy and cultivates core partnerships to expand access to ECD and education supports in adverse contexts.

She brings deep expertise in portfolio design and management, having previously served as Program Officer for the Saving Brains portfolio, and as Senior Program Officer for the Reproductive Health and Youth Mental Health portfolios.

Michelle has contributed to global efforts such as the Nurturing Care Framework and Harvard’s Early Child Development: Global Strategies for Intervention course, and has spoken on panels worldwide on child development, education, maternal health, youth mental health, and women’s agency.

She also brings nonprofit leadership experience in child development and gender equity, most recently as President and Chair of Girls Incorporated of York Region. Michelle holds degrees in Psychology and Political Science (University of Guelph), Psychology (University of London), and executive certificates in Organizational Leadership (Northwestern) and Community Impact Evaluation (Harvard).

Dr. Johanna Sanchez

Lead

Climate and Health

Johanna leading the development of a new climate and health program at Grand Challenges Canada.

Johanna is an environmental epidemiologist and global health scientist with over 15 years of experience working in global health, public health, and clinical research. Her own research and innovation work has involved examining the environmental predictors of malnutrition in infection in children in some of the most densely populated regions in the world, including Mexico City, Mexico and Dhaka, Bangladesh, as well as working in AI predictive modeling of water quality and climate data.

She has an Honours Bachelor of Science (HBSc) from the University of Toronto, a Master of International Public Health (MIPH) from the University of Queensland, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Epidemiology from the University of Queensland. She completed two postdoctoral fellowships from the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University, conducting research funded by the Infectious Disease and Climate Change Program of the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Johanna continues to hold an Adjunct Professor position at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she occasionally teaches, and a Research Fellowship at the Children and Environmental Health program in Australia.

Aparna Kamath

Lead

Women and Girls' Health

Aparna Kamath leads the Women and Girls’ Health domain at Grand Challenges Canada, where she shapes strategy and fosters partnerships to advance the agency and well-being of adolescent girls and young women, enabling them to determine their futures and realize their full potential.

With over a decade of experience in global health, Aparna brings expertise in impact investing, strategic design, and program implementation. She has lived and worked across North America, Eastern and Southern Africa, and South Asia, collaborating with Ministries of Health and Finance, multilaterals, and private sector partners to co-create equitable and efficient health systems. Her technical focus includes maternal and newborn health, sexual and reproductive health, and health financing.

Aparna holds a Master’s in Global Health and Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and International Relations from Smith College.

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