The Greek America Foundation’s Board of Directors met in Miami for their biennial meeting on December 1, 2017. In addition to other board-related business, Dr. Marie Bountrogianni was elected chair of the board of directors.
Dr. Marie Bountrogianni is Dean of The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario.
Prior to joining Ryerson, she was president and executive director of the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) Board of Governors. As a former Ontario cabinet minister, Dr. Bountrogianni served as minister of a number of portfolios including Intergovernmental Affairs, Democratic Renewal, Children and Youth Services, and Citizenship and Immigration. She authored and oversaw the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) from conception to royal assent, which established Ontario as a world leader in accessibility.
Prior to entering politics, Dr. Bountrogianni was the chief psychologist for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. Marie has also taught at Ryerson University, Seneca College, McMaster University, and Wilfrid Laurier University. She holds a doctorate in Applied Psychology from the University of Toronto.
She is a board member of Northland Power Inc. and the Human Resources Policy Committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, as well as a member of the academic advisory board of the Democracy Study Centre at the German-Polish-Ukrainian Society (GPUS).
Marie advises governments nationally and internationally on accessibility and other issues. In 2014, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) named Marie as one of the top 10 most influential alumni at the University of Waterloo and in 2015, she was further recognized by Her Campus Waterloo as one of five influential women who have graduated from the University.
Marie was a speaker at the Greek America Foundation’s National Innovation Conference at New York University in 2012 where she famously brought the crowd to a roaring applause with her quote “vision without implementation is just a hallucination.” In 2014 she generously hosted the same conference at Ryerson University where hundreds of young people came from throughout North America to participate.
In June, Marie received a 2017 Gabby Award at our awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall, in recognition of her contributions on behalf of her lifelong work supporting refugees, minorities, and people with disabilities.