Biographies - Waterfront Toronto's Board of Directors

Leslie Woo CRE® is a respected leader with over 25 years of experience building sustainable communities and shaping urban development in Canada’s fastest-growing urban region, the Greater Toronto Area. Leslie assumed the role of CEO at CivicAction in September 2020. CivicAction is a premier civic engagement organization that convenes established and rising leaders from all sectors, backgrounds and experiences to catalyze actions and impactful solutions to address pressing challenges in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and beyond.

Before joining CivicAction, Leslie spent over a decade with Metrolinx, including as  Chief Planning and Development Officer. Leslie is a tri-sector athlete with experience in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors as a planner, architect and community activator. An accomplished leader, Leslie was named Bisnow’s 2019 Toronto Power Women in Commercial Real Estate, one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in 2017 by WXN, Spacing Toronto’s Transit Changemaker in 2016 and Canada’s Women’s Infrastructure Network’s 2015 Outstanding Leader. Founder of shebuildscities.org, Leslie uses her voice and platform to amplify and celebrate other women city builders.

Drew Fagan is a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, where he teaches in graduate degree programs and leads other university initiatives.

Mr. Fagan is a senior advisor at McMillan Vantage Policy Group, a national public affairs firm affiliated with the law firm McMillan. As a public policy advisor, his clients have included departments, agencies and boards with all three orders of government, as well as Indigenous organizations, international associations and public interest startups.

Mr. Fagan is co-project director of the Ontario 360 initiative and is active in other think tanks and university institutes.

Mr. Fagan previously spent 12 years in leadership positions with the governments of Ontario and Canada.

With Ontario, he was Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, with responsibility for Ontario's long-term infrastructure plan. He was also Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport on two separate occasions, with responsibility for the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games.

Mr. Fagan joined the Ontario Public Service in 2009 from Ottawa, where he was Assistant Deputy Minister for strategic policy and planning at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs Canada).

Before becoming a public servant in 2004, he worked at The Globe and Mail, including as parliamentary bureau chief, editorial page editor, foreign editor, associate editor of the Report on Business, and Washington correspondent.

Mr. Fagan is a board member of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall and other organizations. He is a member of the advisory board of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre in Washington, D.C. He is a former member of the corporate audit committee of the Government of Ontario and a former board member of the Canadian Tourism Commission. He served in the United Way of Toronto campaign cabinet. He was also a long-time member of the advisory board of the Munk School.

Mr. Fagan's writing has appeared recently in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and other publications.

Mr. Fagan holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Queen's University and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario, He received his ICD.D designation from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, in 2017.

As President and CEO of the Institute of Corporate Directors, Rahul Bhardwaj leads an organization of 15,000 members committed to improving national outcomes by growing the board leadership and governance capacities within Canadian businesses, agencies and not-for-profits.

Mr. Bhardwaj currently serves on the boards of the Institute of Corporate Directors and as Chair of the Global Network of Director Institutes, as well as the Leader Council at the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership at the Ivey Business School.

He was Chair of the 2012 Ontario Summer Games, the first multi-sport games to be held in Toronto, and was Co-chair of TO2015 IGNITE, a program of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am & Parapan Am Games. Other past board commitments include board member of the Rideau Hall Foundation, board member of Metrolinx, Chair of the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival, Chair of Community Foundations of Canada, director of Stratford Festival of Canada, George Brown College and United Way of Toronto, and many others.

Prior to joining the ICD, Mr. Bhardwaj was a corporate lawyer at a leading Canadian law firm, and later served as President and CEO of the Toronto Foundation, where he focused on engaging philanthropy to improve the quality of life of residents of Toronto. He was also Vice-President of the Toronto 2008 Olympic Bid and, as part of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Fiscal Review Panel in 2008, Mr. Bhardwaj was involved in identifying efficiencies for the City of Toronto.

In 2012, Mr. Bhardwaj’s commitment to city building was recognized as he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. He has been named one of “The 50 Most Influential” people in the city by Toronto Life magazine and was named to the Quadrangle Society at Massey College. His vision for Toronto and Canada has made him a popular presenter and speaker locally, nationally and internationally, particularly on issues relating to leadership and governance.