Board of Directors

The CES-NCC Board of Directors consists of a Past-President, eleven (11) elected members, including two student members. Board members are elected by the membership, confirmed at the Annual General Meeting and serve a three-year term.

Board 2022-2023

President – Susanna Beaudin
Secretary – Sharon Lécuyer
Treasurer – Stephen Kester
Past President – Emily Brennan
VP Professional Development – Mariève Vaillancourt
VP Communications – Stéphanie Jolette
VP Networking – Lulu Li
Memberships – Lulu Li
Partnerships – Marc Riopel
VP Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Sustainability – Victoria E. Díaz
Chapter Representative to National – Brian Case
Student Representative – Eric Franke
Performance and Partnership Exchange (PPX) representative (Ex-officio) – Steve Montague
2023 ALE Chair – Mariève Vaillancourt

 

See work description of directors.

Susanna Beaudin, President

Susanna Beaudin, senior research associate at PRA Inc., is a bilingual credentialed evaluated with several years of experience in program evaluation. She has been involved in dozens of evaluations for federal departments and agencies, as well as for organizations in the not-for-profit sectors. She works primarily on projects focused on public safety, justice, official languages, and the environment.

Susanna has a Master’s degree in International Affairs (specialization in conflict analysis and resolution) for Carleton University, and a Bachelor’s degree with Joint Honours in Political Science and History from McGill University. Susanna joined the CES-NCC Board of Directors in 2021 as the VP of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Sustainability.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannabeaudin/

 

Emily Brennan, Past President

Emily Brennan has served on the CES- NCC Board of Directors since 2018, and is the current chapter President. As part of her work with the Board, Emily also chaired the 2019 edition of the chapter’s flagship professional development event, the Annual Learning Event.  She is thrilled to be able to continue to work with the wonderful group of evaluators that currently makes up the CES-NCC Board of Directors.

Emily has been a private sector evaluator at PRA Inc. since 2016. In her evaluation practice, she works primarily with clients in the federal government, in a wide array of subject areas, from agriculture to space science, and economic development to official languages; and of a range of sizes and complexity. Through her work, she brings together her training in agricultural economics (focussing on efficiency analysis) with experience in a wide variety of qualitative methods developed through work in policy analysis and evaluation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-brennan-a4387863/

Sharon Lécuyer, Secretary

Sharon Lécuyer brings 15 years of professional experience to the Board of Directors.

Since 2018, Sharon has been working within the Evaluation team at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). Sharon co-presented at the 2022 CES National Conference in Winnipeg speaking to her experience developing an approach to evaluate 25+ programs across the $80+ billion National Housing Strategy.

Prior to moving into program evaluation, Sharon spent more than a decade providing policy advice, delivering federal housing programs and managing federal/provincial/territorial relations. Sharon also draws from 20+ years of leadership experience volunteering with organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross, Toastmasters International and the Army Cadet League of Canada, among others.

Sharon holds a Master of Arts in Public Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Canadian Studies. Sharon is married and mother of two (human) children and two (fur) children. She loves cats, tea and trivia.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonlecuyer

Stephen Kester, Treasurer
Stephen Kester is an Independent Evaluation and Management Consultant with expertise in the conduct of evaluations, and the development of results-based management frameworks and theories of change for international and Canadian organizations.

Recent assignments include the development of a Global Results Framework and Theory of Change for the Netherlands funded PROSPECTS partnership with 3 UN agencies, the World Bank and IFC to support forcibly displaced populations and their host communities,  an evaluation of a 10 month public policy training and mentoring program funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal and ongoing support to the Asian Development Bank in developing results frameworks and theories of change for the priorities outlined in their Strategy 2030.

Stephen retired from the Canadian Public Service in 2018 where he had served as the Director of Evaluation at Global Affairs Canada for 11 years. Prior to joining the Public Service in 2002, Stephen worked extensively in the field of international development using his knowledge of program evaluation, results-based management and performance measurement for program improvements.  He worked in Sri Lanka for five years as the Program Advisor to the Sri Lanka Canada Development Fund and for seven years with an Ottawa based international development NGO.

Stephen holds a Master in Business Administration degree from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-kester-2bb26597/

Mariève Vaillancourt, VP Professional Development

Mariève Vaillancourt, evaluation specialist at CMPA, is a bilingual credentialed evaluator with a demonstrated history of working for private organizations both as an external and internal evaluator. she is responsible for providing specialized expertise in the planning, development, and implementation of corporate and program performance measurement and evaluation activities, as well as related analysis tasks. She develops and applies robust evaluation frameworks and processes to ensure the CMPA has appropriate performance and evaluation evidence upon which to conduct sound analysis and make key decisions about its performance and impact.

Mariève holds a Master’s in Education and a graduate diploma in program evaluation from the University of Ottawa. This is her first term on the CES-NCC Board of Directors and will be chairing the 2023 edition of the chapter’s flagship professional development event, the Annual Learning Event.

Lulu Li, Memberships and VP Networking

Lulu Li is a private sector evaluator at Goss Gilroy Inc. (GGI). Since joining GGI, she has been involved in various evaluation projects covering a wide range of subject areas, for both public and non-profit sector clients. Lulu has been engaged in every part of an evaluation, from plan design to data collection instrument design, data collection through KII, focus groups and surveys, data analysis and evaluation reports. She is passionate about leveraging different tools (e.g. Nvivo, Tableau, Python, Stata) to analyze quantitative and qualitative data and report evaluation findings.

Lulu received her master’s degree in Political Science from Simon Fraser University (SFU), where she was introduced to program evaluation. She also won the national first-place prize with her SFU team at CES Student Evaluation Case Competition. Lulu joined the CES-NCC Board of Directors in 2021 and currently serves as the VP Memberships and Networking. Previously, she served as an event coordinator for the CES-BC chapter.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lulu-li-5139a6189/

Stephanie Jolette, VP Communications

Stephanie Jolette has worked as an evaluator in both the private and public sector for the last five years. She started her career in program evaluation when she joined Prairie Research Associates (PRA Inc) as a Research Associate in 2015. During this time, Stephanie acquired significant experience in program evaluation and contributed to well over 20 evaluations and research projects in various areas related to justice, space science and technology, social development, health, and official languages, etc. This experience provided her the opportunity to work with a wide range of federal departments as well as non-profit organizations.

Since 2019, Stephanie has joined the Office of Audit and Evaluation at the Public Health Agency of Canada / Health Canada as a Program Evaluation Analyst. In this role, she supports evaluation work within the federal health portfolio and continues to contribute to a number of projects in this area.

In addition to her work experience, prior to being elected as the VP of Communications, Stephanie sat on the CES-NCC Board as a non-voting member, assisting her predecessor with a variety of tasks such as developing a communications strategy and ensuring an active presence on the chapter’s social media platforms. She has also provided support in organizing past CES-NCC events such as the Annual Learning Event (ALE) in 2019.

Stephanie Jolette holds an MA in International Development and Globalization from the University of Ottawa (2014).

Marc Riopel, Partnerships

Marc Riopel has worked in program evaluation in the federal government for 13 years. He hold a Ph.D. in history. He currently works as evaluation manager in the Audit and Evaluation Branch of the Department of Natural Resources Canada, carrying out the evaluation of scientific and economic programs. Previously, Marc worked in a few federal departments where he led and carried out program evaluation projects in the fields of national defense and the armed forces; Aboriginals and the Canadian North including the Inuit; classroom and online learning for federal public servants; as well as performance audit projects in environment and education for First Nations. Marc also has extensive experience as a consultant in applied social and historical research, obtained in working with community organizations and non-profit organizations. He thus planned and carried out the evaluation of psychosocial intervention programs in the field of health and social services, reaching various clienteles such as the elderly, adolescents and Inuit. As a historian, Marc has published around fifteen books and brochures on local and regional history. In addition, he has experience in managing the board of directors of non-profit organizations, having served as a director in the fields of history, heritage, culture, music and young people without employment.

Victoria E. Díaz, VP Equity, Diversity and Sustainability

Victoria E. Díaz joins the CES-NCC Board for the first time in 2022-2023 as VP Equity, Diversity and Sustainability. She has contributed to past CES national activities as a volunteer and was a judge in the 2022 Student Evaluation Case Competition.

Victoria is a founding partner of DPM Research (www.dpmresearch.ca), a consulting firm specialized in applied research, program evaluation and policy analysis.Collaborating with federal, provincial and other organizations, in Canada and overseas, Victoria has experience leading multi-year evaluations, producing labour market analyses and researching socio-economic issues in a variety of fields. Her experience spans a broad range of topics, including post-secondary education, health, science and technology, infrastructure, immigration, labour markets and equity, diversity and inclusion.

Victoria holds a PhD in Public Administration (University of Ottawa) and MA in Economics (McGill University). She is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-dpm/

Brian Case, Chapter Representative to National

Brian Case is an Evaluator with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). Brian began his journey with CES-NCC as a student representative on the Board while completing Carleton University’s Graduate Diploma in Public Policy and Program Evaluation. Since joining, Brian has sat on the committee for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Sustainability and assisted with the Partnerships portfolio, spearheading a partnership between CES-NCC and Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA).

Brian is currently completing Carleton’s Master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration, and holds a Graduate Diploma in Public Policy and Program Evaluation (Carleton University), Master’s degree in Musicology (University of London), and Bachelor of Fine Arts (with specialized honours in film composition and trombone performance; York University). In 2022, Brian became an elected member of the Board and will be absorbing the responsibilities of Treasurer and Chapter Representative to National.

Steve Montague, Performance and Partnership Exchange (PPX) representative (Ex-Officio)

Steve Montague, partner of Performance Management Network Inc. is a credentialed evaluator, a Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society and has 35 years of experience as a practitioner in performance measurement and program evaluation as a management consultant, an adjunct professor and as an evaluation manager in a major Canadian federal government department. Steve has managed major and minor projects analyzing a wide variety of programs for Canadian federal, provincial, United States, Scottish and Australian governments, as well as conducting work for the OECD, the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations. He has published articles on measurement and evaluation in journals in Canada, the US and Europe and facilitated numerous presentations, panels and workshops on evaluation, performance management and information management. Steve is also a founding member and twice president of the Performance and Planning Exchange.

 


CES NCC Board Nominations

Mark your Calendars! The CES-NCC Board of Directors elections will take place online in May 2022. The electronic ballot will be sent out to all CES-NCC members and will include the names of all successful candidates along with their summary of interest and curriculum vitae.

Interested in a rewarding experience? Join the Board of Directors for our National Capital Chapter (NCC). It’s an opportunity to make a difference in our local Evaluation Community!

Click here to learn more about the available opportunities.