Keynote speakers

Michael Roy 

Michael Roy PhD is Professor of Economic Sociology and Social Policy in the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at Glasgow Caledonian University in Glasgow, Scotland. His primary area of research concerns social enterprise and other ‘alternative’ economic forms. He has written extensively in major international journals on the health and wellbeing impacts of social enterprises; on policy ‘ecosystems’ supporting the social economy; and on innovative funding mechanisms such as Social Impact Bonds.

Professor Roy has led a number of prominent research projects including, most recently, Solidarity in a time of crisis: the role of mutual aid to the COVID-19 pandemic funded by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (2020); Towards an International Social Solidarity Enterprise Network for Justice funded by Scottish Universities Insight Institute with colleagues from the Universities of Strathclyde, Edinburgh and Northumbria (2018-19); and Community Growing Learning Alliances funded by the European Social Fund/Scottish Government Social Innovation Fund (2017).

Professor Roy is Editor-in-Chief of Social Enterprise Journal, Associate Editor of Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, and serves on the Editorial Board of Voluntas: the International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. He serves as one of two Change Leaders for GCU’s Ashoka U Changemaker Campus designation.

In 2017, he was awarded the Helen Potter Award of Special Recognition 2017, for the most original article in Review of Social Economy by the Association for Social Economics, which was founded in 1941 in the United States.

In 2018, Professor Roy and his colleagues at Glasgow Caledonian University led the first ever SEWF Academic Symposium as part of the Social Enterprise World Forum 2018 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Catherine Pearl

Catherine currently holds appointments as an Associate Professor of Social Innovation at Mount Royal University, an Adjunct Professor in Social Innovation at Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. Catherine is on a one-year sabbatical from Mount Royal University and is currently teaching at Thammasat University at GSSE, the faculty of Global Studies and Social Entrepreneurship.

Prior to joining academia, Dr. Pearl spent almost twenty years in the private sector; in corporate planning, finance and marketing. She has worked for a number of multinational and national firms honing her management expertise. She also spent considerable time in the not for profit sector as a volunteer, a consultant and as President and CEO a registered charity, which operated a social enterprise.

Catherine has been active in the Mount Royal community and has served as a member of MRU’s Professional Development and Library Selections committees in addition to sitting on the Faculty of Business and Communication Studies’ Research Committee. Catherine also serves as Career Services Liaison for Co-operative student placement opportunities in social innovation. Dr. Pearl was a founding board member of the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations (CCVO), and has also served on the board of a number of community organizations including: Propellus, YWCA Calgary, Lycee Louis Pasteur, Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre, and Lunchbox Theatre.  Catherine also serves as a Board Governor for the Association of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research (ANSER).

Catherine is passionate about her students, teaching, curriculum design, experiential learning and the case method. Over the past five years, she has been involved in designing many of Mount Royal’s Social Innovation courses and most recently, preparing students for the Alberta Nonprofit Case Competition (ANPA).

Because of her diverse training and experience, Dr. Pearl is able to integrate real life experience across disciplines and sectors into course design and pedagogy. Through experiential learning and community engagement, Dr. Pearl’s courses are community focused in that they support building a changemaking culture in the classroom while at the same time creating meaningful social impact in the community.