Board Member Bio

Hélène Yaremko-Jarvis, Executive Director

Hélène has over 25 years experience as a corporate lawyer as Director of Legal Services of Hudson's Bay Company (1990-99) and Assistant Vice-President, Legal of Confederation Life Insurance Company (1981-90). Following this she spent three years as National Coordinator of the Uniform Law Conference project to harmonize and modernize commercial law in Canada.

In November 2006, she was appointed Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethics and Corporate Policy. She also serves as Counsel to Retail Counsel of Canada and continues to practice corporate/commercial law. Hélène has been a frequently invited speaker at legal and business conferences and has been active on many professional and industry committees including the Canadian Employers' Council, Retail Council of Canada, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Bar Association (elected member of Council for 17 years) and President of the Women's Law Association of Ontario (President for 2 years). She has served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations including the Council of the Canadian Red Cross (Toronto Region), Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Toronto and the Ethics Centre where she was a director for 8 years prior to becoming the Executive Director. In 1998 she was selected to represent Canadian employers at the International Labour Organization in Geneva as part of the international group that drafted the International Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour.

Hélène holds law degrees from McGill University (B.C.L. and LL.B.) and Cambridge University (Public International Law) and is fluently bilingual.