The Awareness Foundation Board

Our Chair is James Appleyard.

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James joined the Awareness Foundation as a Trustee in 2016, and became Chair of the Board in 2018. 

He first met The Revd Nadim Nassar through Grace Church-on-the-Hill in Toronto, where he and his family are parishioners and James serves as a Warden.  James is a venture capital investor who supports Canadian technology entrepreneurs as president and chief investment officer of Freycinet Ventures.  He sits on various company boards including start-ups Canopy Labs, Mosaic Manufacturing, and Canada’s newest federally-regulated bank, Haventree. 

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He is also an active volunteer, serving as chair of the board of trustees of The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, and vice-chair of the national board of the Canadian International Council.  He is also a member of the honorary council of The Loran Scholars Foundation, Canada’s leading undergraduate scholarship program having chaired its board, and serving its selections and mentoring programs for the past 25 years.  James was previously the CEO of Artez Interactive, a technology firm supporting hundreds of fundraising charities in North America, Europe and Australia, which was acquired in 2013, and also assistant professor of management at the University of Toronto Mississauga. 

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James holds graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Toronto, and is a senior fellow at Massey College.