At JETrichardson, our goal is to provide our clients with best practice services and products that will truly transform the way their organization and people operate and produce business results.

To ensure that we stay on the leading edge of the current and future needs of our clients and evolving trends in the business environment, we are honoured to benefit from the multi-disciplinary insight, guidance, and advice of the following members of our Advisory Board.

David Stewart, TEP graduated from Laurentian University in 1987, with an Honor bachelor of arts degree. He immediately entered into the insurance business as an agent for Prudential of America. David was a leading rookie for the organization and in 1989 he became a sales manager, transferring to Thunder Bay. As a sales manager he took his unit from next to last with the company to 4th overall in two short years.

David then transferred in 1992 to Oakville Ontario to build another winning team. In 1995 he left Prudential to become an independent. After joining Wise Riddell Financial Group as the Director of Brokerage, The agency quickly became a leading distributor of financial products. In 1998 David became managing partner of the firm and steered its success until its sale in 2005.

David was retained as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the new firm Performins Canada. In 2009 David was promoted to Senior Vice President Sales and Chief Marketing Officer. David has overseen the merging of six different agencies under the Performins brand. The agency today boasts sales in excess of 70 million in investments and 6 million in insurance. The network includes over 2000 advisors.

David is a member of ADVOCIS the association for financial advisors. He has served the association and is a past president of the local Peel Halton chapter.

David is an active member of the Conference of Advanced Life Underwriters (CALU).

David is a member of the Society of Estate and Trust Practitioners (STEP).

David is married with 4 children and 2 grandchildren.

A human resources practitioner for over twenty three years, Laura has worked in progressively senior human resource roles.

Laura received her Honours Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1987. Since then she has added to her education through courses and programs in the following areas: Facilitation; Harassment/Respect in the Workplace Investigations; Labour Relations; Project Management; Organizational Design; and Supervision.

While her formal education has been instrumental in her progression so too has her practical experience gained through various roles and companies. Starting off in the private sector first with Zurich Insurance as a generalist and then with Laidlaw Waste Systems, who was in a high growth mode, Laura gained valuable firsthand experience in Human Resources and Payroll. During her time with Laidlaw she implemented a new payroll system across Canada and took on the payroll function for the Corporate Head office.

Moving from the private sector into the public sector in the early nineties to focus her experience mainly in the area of human resources, Laura started her career with the City of Burlington. Originally she took on a specialist role which focused in the areas of recruitment, recognition and benefits. In the mid-nineties her role expanded to a generalist function for a defined group of departments, while still maintaining a corporate benefits role.

Laura has recently taken on the position of Manager, Human Resources at the City of Burlington. In this new role she is responsible for developing and implementing recruitment and retention strategies, ensuring all Departments are serviced fully from an HR perspective and supervising a staff of seven.

Career highlights have included implementing a new recruitment process for the City of Burlington and developing an on-line hiring process for the Fire Department have been successes in her past. Currently, she is implementing a new on-line recruitment tool for the Corporation as well as working on new attraction retention strategies to allow the City of Burlington to proactively compete for talent in an environment where public sector employer are experiencing some challenges.

Athena started her career in the mid 80’s as recent graduate of design-college. Her first opportunity in the industry landed her a position in the adverting department of Colour Your World and under the leadership of the advertising director and Grey-Canada, Athena quickly learned the high-demanding world of advertising. Shortly thereafter, Athena realized that a successful company was made up of more than costly advertising; it was based on exceptional customer service. It was then that she decided to learn the other side of the business and was promoted to customer service manager for Canada, where she spent much of her time, training hundreds of franchisees how to deliver the “experience”. Eureka, the true concept of branding was birthed into Athena’s belief system - it was the perfect marriage between an effective visual brand and an exceptional brand experience. With her newly found truth, Athena ventured into the world of business ownership and since 1987, her experience in marketing and business development, has aided large corporations as well as smaller service providers, manufacturers and retailers, in both the private and not-for-profit sectors, produce websites, branding and communications, sales materials, service training, and business and marketing plans. Athena is the president of Little Fish Big Pond Inc.; an Oakville based marketing and business development firm.

Karen Lynch is a respected community and civic leader, with over 30 years of diverse work experience, starting out as a teamster in Fort McMurray to working with business, all levels of government, charitable organizations, politicians and nonprofit groups in Edmonton. She now brings her passion for community volunteerism to Volunteer Alberta as Executive Director, as well as engaging in the Edmonton Public Library Board of Trustees, the Boards of Volunteer Canada, Alberta Ballet, SACRED (Society for Assisted, Cooperative Recovery from Eating Disorders) and was recently elected President of the Alberta Library Trustees Association.