Board of Directors

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CEO and Peer evaluations. She leads projects throughout all stages of the client lifecycle from survey and interview design, interviewing, recommendation development, and report writing. Heather also designs board and committee debriefs and education sessions for WATSON’s Governance Academy and plays a key role in our course development, including our newest course, Chair with Intention™.

Heather holds a Master of Science in Global Governance and Ethics from University College London and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of British Columbia. As part of her MSc program, Heather completed advanced courses in qualitative and quantitative methods and wrote a comprehensive research-based dissertation.

Prior to joining WATSON, Heather worked in the marketing department of a large global engineering firm. Heather interned with Amnesty International and was the content lead for the Bridging the Gap conference on international development at Engineers Without Borders. Heather grew up in Oakville, Ontario and has studied on three continents.

Kristi has been providing mid-market businesses with relationship-focused, strategic financing and advice for more than twenty years. Kristi is Managing Partner at Krystal Growth Partners, one of the leading boutique private equity firms in the Vancouver area. Kristi previously served as Founder and National Managing Director of First West Capital, a junior capital firm serving the Canadian mid-market, where she grew that business from start-up to a national firm that funded over $250 million to more than 100 businesses. Kristi is honoured to have been recognized by EY as the Pacific Region’s 2019 Entrepreneur of the Year in the category of Business Disrupter for this work. Kristi holds a Master of Business Administration from UBC, as well as the ICD.D designation. In addition to her work with Fresh Roots, Kristi currently serves on a number of corporate, public sector and non-profit boards, including those of Douglas College, Aisle (formerly Lunapads), LIFT Philanthropy Partners, and the Fulmer Foundation. She also volunteers as a mentor with the Creative Destruction Lab. In 2017, Kristi received the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award

which opened under her leadership in 2019. Zahra has a Masters in Globalization and International Development from the University of Ottawa, a Bachelor’s Degree in History from UBC, and an Associate Certificate in Fundraising Management from BCIT. She is Chair of the BC Poverty Reduction Advisory Committee, an independent committee that advises government on policy developments related to poverty reduction and prevention. Zahra is on the board of Lookout Foundation and is a mentor with Dress for Success’s Professional Women’s Group. She also sits on a number of City of Vancouver advisory panels and working groups. Zahra was recognized as one of Business in Vancouver’s Forty Under 40 in 2019.
A working parent, Zahra is mother to a vivacious and curious school-age daughter who has been lucky enough to participate in a Fresh Roots summer camp. Though she lacks a green thumb, Zahra is passionate about food security, equity, and capacity building and is very excited to be part of the Fresh Roots board!

For work, she is a research assistant with the Hey Neighbour Collective, working to understand social connection and isolation in multi-unit residential buildings. Through this position, she has developed extensive qualitative and quantitative research experience and has presented findings at several conferences.
In her spare time, she enjoys keeping up with and contributing to various social justice causes. When it comes time to slow down, she enjoys gardening, baking bread from scratch, and bird watching.

During that time, she helped relaunch the SOYL program and ate more salad than she ever thought humanly possible! Inspired by her work with young people on the farms, Rosalind subsequently pursued a career in education. She trained as an elementary teacher, but has been teaching high school French Immersion in Burnaby since 2020. She is very excited to reconnect with her Fresh “roots” as a board member, and to contribute her historical knowledge of the organization as well as her insights into the world of teaching.

Her approach to her development work is grounded in equity and anti-racism focused on relationship management, strategic partnerships, and engagement across the broader community. Over the past 20-years, Christina has had the honour of working across sectors from grassroots organizations, health care, higher education, and arts organizations. Her goal is to demystify fundraising with each interaction — because every organization deserves to be lifted up.

His commitment to excellence and community development is evident through his involvement in various non-profit initiatives and years of community engagement where he has demonstrated his ability to drive growth and positive change.

She holds an MTh in Inter-faith studies from the University of Glasgow, a BA in Anthropology of Religion from Leiden University, and a Culinary Arts certificate from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. Among other roles in the social venture and food systems advocacy scene in Vancouver, Selma worked at Growing Chefs as their Chef Educator and Program Manager from 2017-2022. In that role she collaborated with Fresh Roots on Community Eats, LunchLab, virtual field trips, and long table dinners. After many years teaching, coaching, cooking and advocating for the food revolution professionally, she hung up her apron to help other small charities grow their impact in her current role as Director of Community Capacity at Social Venture Partners Vancouver. She is passionate about co-creating supportive team cultures and communities, justice and equity in the non-profit and philanthropy space, and the daily work needed to nurture them. You can often find her with her nose in a book, singing in a choir, or gushing about food.