Mailing List
Richard Florida
Richard is a professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the Rotman School, he taught for nearly two decades at Carnegie Mellon University and has been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. His books include three best sellers: The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books, 2002), The Flight of the Creative Class (Harper Collins, 2005), and his newest book, Who’s Your City (Basic Books).
James Milway
Jim brings more than thirty years of business and public policy experience to the Institute. He began his career in marketing management with General Foods (now Kraft) and Unilever. For most of his career he has consulted to senior decision makers in areas of business strategy as a partner in The Canada Consulting Group and The Boston Consulting Group, and in his own firm. Along the way, Jim served as CEO of a specialized insurance firm. In his role as Executive Director of the MPI’s partner organization, the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, Jim has advised local cluster initiatives in food processing, resource products, and financial services. He has advised the Government of Ontario on tax policy, post-secondary education, and innovation strategies. Federally, he has assessed public policy in the areas of innovation strategy, small and medium enterprises, and tourism policy. Jim graduated from the University of Toronto, St Michael’s College with a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy and the University of Western Ontario with an MBA (Dean’s List).
Kevin Stolarick
Kevin has held faculty positions at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and for over a decade worked with technology in the insurance industry as a manager of strategic projects. His research interests include the relationship between firm performance and information technology and the impacts of technology, tolerance, talent, and quality of place on regional growth and prosperity.
David R. Smith
David came to the MPI to lead a keystone project designed to guide Ontario into the future. A consultant by nature and training, his interests are at the intersection of strategy and execution, applied psychology and the valuable role organizations play in enabling human capital. He has undergraduate degrees in Adult Education, Psychology and English Literature. After several years of work in the financial services industry, David completed an MBA at the Rotman School of Management, where his studies focused on strategic management and Integrative Thinking. In his personal time, David enjoys helping to build thinking skills and leadership potential in young leaders. He writes a blog about innovation and leadership on the MaRS website.
Kimberly Silk
Kim is the MPI’s data librarian, and is responsible for the creation and continuous improvement of our leading edge data library, social knowledge network and physical collection, which supports our research and that of our partner organizations.
Kim has a passion for digital collections and online communities and loves to explore how technology can facilitate collaboration and improve access to and distribution of information. Prior to joining the MPI, Kim was self-employed as a digital media library consultant serving clients in the corporate, academic, government and non-profit sectors. She has also held corporate positions at Rogers New Media and Discovery Channel Canada.
In her personal time, Kim is President Elect of the Faculty of Information Alumni Association. She is also an amateur genealogist and an oenophile in training.
Kim earned her M.L.S. (Library Science) from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, and holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Waterloo.
Kimberly Ryan
Kimberly manages the MPI office, which includes supporting the management team, interacting with clients, planning events and handling media relations. She has extensive experience in administration and office management, especially within government. She has held senior administrative positions at the municipal and regional levels, having served as an assistant to Former Metro Chairman Alan Tonks, Former City of Toronto Deputy Mayor Case Ootes, and a number of city councillors. In her personal time, Kim has helped organize and volunteered on numerous municipal and provincial election campaigns, and she is currently training for her fourth marathon.
Marisol D’Andrea
As Assistant to the Director, Marisol manages Richard Florida’s calendar, plans events, and handles media relations. Marisol brings with her a valuable array of communication skills and international portfolio experience from her years at the University of Toronto’s University Relations office. She holds an undergraduate degree from the Rotman School of Management, and an M.Ed. in International Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her central research interest is in arts-informed research. Marisol is also a visual artist who paints with acrylics.
Karen M. King
As a population geographer and economist, Karen’s research interests include migration, immigration and aging, focusing on refined spatial scales and nativity differentials. Currently, her research program at the MPI focuses on the examination of the occupation and industry structure of Canada using the 2006 to 1971 Census of Canada Master files at national, provincial and sub-provincial levels. She has held a Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University where her research program examined aging in place of the older population in Canada. She has a B.A. (Economics) from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. (Economics) from the University of Toronto. Karen completed a Ph.D. (Geography) at McMaster University; her dissertation was comprised of four quantitative research papers examining the international and internal migration dynamics of Canada’s foreign-born population.
Karen King’s complete C.V.
Kathrine Richardson
Kathrine Richardson recently completed her Ph.D. in Economic Geography at the University of British Columbia. She specializes in the mobility of the international creative class, with a focus on regional migrations within North America and transnational migrations between the Americas and the Asia Pacific. While finishing her Ph.D. dissertation, Dr. Richardson simultaneously developed and executed a key study for the Government of Canada that examined why the international creative class was drawn to Vancouver’s biotechnology cluster. Before coming to Canada as a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Richardson worked as an economic planner for the Governor’s Office, State of Oregon, where her work focused primarily on the collaborative creation of a strategic plan and vision for the state of Oregon. Dr. Richardson also has a M.C.R.P. in Community and Regional Planning and a M.S. in Public Policy and Management, both from the University of Oregon.
Research Team
- Patrick Adler, Research Assistant
- Dale Andrews, General Assistant
- Scott Pennington, Research Assistant
- Paulo Raposo, Research Assistant
- Ronnie Sanders, Research Assistant
- Ian Swain, Research Assistant
Affiliates
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Ajay K. Agrawal
Peter Munk Professor of Entrepreneurship
Faculty Research Fellow, NBER
Joseph L. Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto -
Nadia Amoroso
Lecturer
John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
University of Toronto -
Shauna Brail
Director, Urban Studies Experiential Learning Program
Lecturer, Urban Studies
University of Toronto -
Mark Brown
Senior Research Economist
Micro-Economic Analysis Division
Statistics Canada -
Elizabeth Currid
Assistant Professor
University of Southern California
School of Policy, Planning and Development -
Richard DiFrancesco
Director, Urban Studies Program, Innis College
Associate Professor, Department of Geography & Programme in Planning
University of Toronto -
Betsy Donald
MCIP Associate Professor
Department of Geography
Queen’s University -
Damian A. Dupuy
Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
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Todd Gabe
Associate Professor
School of Economics
University of Maine -
Gary J. Gates
Senior Research Fellow
The Williams Institute
UCLA School of Law -
Meric S. Gertler
Dean, Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Goldring Chair in Canadian Studies
Department of Geography & Planning
University of Toronto -
Brian Knudsen
Ph.D. candidate,
Carnegie Mellon University -
Deborah Leslie
Canada Research Chair in Cultural Economy
Department of Geography & Planning
University of Toronto -
Roger Martin
Dean, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management
Professor of Strategic Managemen
Premier’s Research Chair in Productivity & Competitiveness -
Charlotta Mellander
Research Director
The Prosperity Institute of Scandinavia
Jönköping International Business School -
Naomi Pope, Ph.D.
Manager, Economic Analysis
Economic Competitiveness Division
Ministry of Technology, Trade and Economic Development
Government of British Columbia -
Norma Rantisi
Associate Professor
Concordia University -
Jason Rentfrow
Lecturer in Social and Developmental Psychology
Faculty of Social & Political Sciences
University of Cambridge -
Daniel Silver
Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Toronto -
Olav Sorenson, Ph.D.
Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Professor of Strategic Management
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto -
Greg Spencer
Post Doctoral Fellow
Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems
Munk Centre for International Studies
University of Toronto -
William C. Strange, Ph.D.
RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust Professor of Real Estate and Urban Economics
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto -
Daniel Trefler
J. Douglas and Ruth Grant Canada Research
Chair in Competitiveness and Prosperity
Professor of Business Economics -
Christian Unverzagt
Designer
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Tara Vinodrai
Assistant Professor
Department of Geography and Environmental Management
& Centre for Environment and Business
University of Waterloo