David McKinnon is a former Canadian diplomat. His career focused heavily on the Indo-Pacific, including postings in Bangkok, Canberra (twice), Delhi, and Colombo.
He was Canadian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Maldives (2017-22).
Hugh Stephens has more than 35 years of government and business experience in the Asia Pacific region. He is currently Vice-Chair of the Canadian Committee on Pacific Economic Cooperation (CANCPEC), Executive Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, Principal of TransPacific Connections, and a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. In addition, he teaches in the MBA program at Royal Roads University as an Associate Faculty member.
Before returning to Canada in December 2009, Hugh was Senior Vice President (Public Policy) for Asia Pacific for Time Warner for almost a decade, located at the company’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong.
Charlotte Atkins is a former Project Specialist with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada's Business Asia team. She has a Masters in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Toronto, where her research focused on contentious politics in Asia. She has since expanded her research areas to include policy, trade, and investment between Canada and the Asia Pacific through her work at APF Canada.
Shruti Jhunjhunwala is a Research Scholar with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s International Trade and Investment Team. She holds an MSc in International Business from HEC Montreal. Her research interests include private-public partnerships as well as inclusive and sustainable trade.
Alberto Iskandar is a Research Scholar with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He received his undergraduate degree from Simon Fraser University, majoring in political science and minoring in international studies and graduating in 2021. His research interests are multilateralism in Southeast Asia and ASEAN; sustainable development; and security and defence-related issues in Southeast Asia. He previously worked as a Research Officer at the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia.
Steve Zhu is a Research Scholar with the China team at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. His research interests centre on U.S.-China competition, Canadian foreign and defence policy, and European foreign affairs. He holds an MA in International Affairs from the Hertie School in Berlin, and a BA in Political Science and History from the University of Toronto.
Charlotte Bull has a background in various inter-disciplinary policy domains, including Canada-Asia relations, climate change, reconciliation and human rights. She holds a Masters in Public Policy & Global Affairs from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science & Geography with Honours from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Julia G. Bentley is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, an External Research Associate of the York Centre for Asian Research and an Advisor to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Malaysia. Julia is also a Distinguished Fellow with APF Canada.
She served in the Canadian foreign service with distinction for 32 years, occupying several senior executive positions at Global Affairs Canada related to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
Ms. Bentley has also represented Canada as a diplomat abroad. She served as Canada’s High Commissioner in Malaysia (2017-2020) and previously at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing (twice), the Canadian High Commission in Delhi, and the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
She took leave from her diplomatic career to serve the non-profit sector as Chief Representative of Winrock International in China and Director of its NGO Capacity Building Program, funded by the Ford Foundation, and during a previous leave, as co-ordinator of Canada’s Civil Society Program in China.
In 2022, she was on secondment for a year at the University of Toronto. In 2023, she held a fellowship at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs for a semester.
She holds degrees in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and the University of Toronto and was a Canada-China Scholar in modern history at Nanjing University.
Suvolaxmi Dutta Choudhury is Program Manager for South Asia at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She is a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at McGill University and a former recipient of the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship. She previously served as Course Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.
Suvolaxmi has a decade of experience in research, teaching, and writing on democratic governance and foreign policy issues in India, as well as development, defence, and security matters in South Asia. She holds an M.A. (Politics) and an M.Phil. (International Politics) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and has received training in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
Bart Édes is a policy analyst, commentator, and author of Learning From Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption (2021). An APF Canada Distinguished Fellow, he focuses on developing Asian economies, international development, cross-border trade and investment, innovation, social policies, and transformative trends reshaping the world.
