Rita Parikh

Like many, I embrace continuous and broad learning opportunities. My background reflects a foundation in formal, structured university education along with a commitment to ongoing learning through courses and training sessions in a variety of settings and from a range of educators. Highlights include:

• Master of Arts, International Affairs – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University
• Bachelor of Journalism – Carleton University
• Director Certification – Institute of Corporate Directors, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
• Certificate, Indigenous Canada – University of Alberta
• Certificate, The Art and Science of Being a Chair – Governance Solutions
• Certificate, Foundations of Governance – Credit Union Director Achievement Program, Canadian Credit Union Association
• Course, Essential Tasks of Pension and Benefit Plan Trustees – Pacific Business and Law Institute
• Course, Chair with Intention – Watson Director Education Program
• Cooperative Study Program – Bologna, Italy
• In addition, I have completed numerous education sessions in:
  • Cybersecurity risk
  • Financial oversight including financial performance, metrics, and audits
  • Enterprise risk management
  • Governance of subsidiaries
  • Technology and information systems governance
  • AI governance
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Pension governance
  • Anti-money laundering
  • Strategic planning
  • CEO and executive performance evaluation
  • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-racism
  • Reconciliation and Cultural Humility

I am a seasoned executive with a depth and breadth of governance, financial and organizational management experience in the banking, cooperative, non-profit and regulatory sectors. Over my career, I have been privileged to learn from and lead values-driven organizations with powerful change missions. I am the board chair of Vancity Credit Union, and Vancity Community Investment Bank, and a certified director with the Rotman School of Management’s Institute of Corporate Directors.

First elected to Vancity in 2016, I have also served as the chair and/or a director of Canada’s largest consumer cooperative, as well as of several non-profit organizations including Oxfam Canada, the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre, and Canadian Parents for French. I launched my career as a human rights investigator, and served as an adjudicator on several administrative justice tribunals where I worked to ensure a just and people-centered approach to the application and interpretation of legislation. I’ve also served as Executive Director in several complex regulatory and non-governmental organizations, raising and allocating millions of dollars, and transforming business performance and impact outcomes.

Through these roles, I have steered organizations with more than $35 billion in assets, navigated a range of regulatory environments, piloted and provided oversight to large-scale technology transformations, and led broad change processes to advance transformative visions like that held by Vancity. I have also consistently worked alongside racialized and equity-deserving populations, as well as small business owners, women, farmers and youth, to build and sustain movements for climate, economic and social change.

Finally, I regularly speak publicly to a variety of audiences, and am a writer whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The London Free Press, among other media.

Jobs I’ve held:

• Executive Director, Nursing Community Assessment Service, BC College of Nurses and Midwives
• Project Manager, Association of Canadian Occupational Therapy Regulatory Organizations
• Executive Director, Canadian Parents for French, BC & Yukon
• Executive Director, Pacific Peoples Partnership
• Asia Program Manager, Inter Pares

Boards I’ve sat on:

• Vancity Credit Union
• Vancity Community Investment Bank
• Vancity Foundation
• Oxfam Canada
• Canadian Parents for French – Canada
• Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society
• Victoria International Development Education Association
• Mountain Equipment Co-op

Administrative Justice Work:

• Chair/panelist, Employment and Assistance Appeal Board, BC
• Panelist, Property Assessment Review Panel, BC
• Investigator, Canadian Human Rights Commission
• Adjudicator, Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles, BC

I have been involved in community organizations, both in a work and volunteer capacity, for my entire adult life supporting the aspirations of marginalized peoples for economic, social, political, and climate justice. Whether volunteering locally or working internationally, I strive to use my privilege, voice and resources to learn and to strengthen institutions that are at the heart of creating strong and resilient communities.

In the non-profit sector, I’ve worked alongside racialized and vulnerable populations, as well as with small business owners, women, farmers and youth, to build and sustain movements aimed at defending women’s, migrants’ and LGBTQ2S+ rights, creating resilient, local economies, and building strong, inclusive democratic institutions. I also co-founded the Pacific Refugee Welcome Group, a volunteer organization that has sponsored the resettlement of several refugee families to Victoria.

My work with Indigenous peoples and Reconciliation has covered a range of issues. For instance, I helped create an international youth exchange program between Indigenous peoples in Canada and the South Pacific, aimed at strengthening mutual efforts to protect marine environments, promote Indigenous traditional medicine and defend cultural sovereignty and decolonization efforts. Together with Indigenous leaders in Canada, Asia and Africa, I’ve helped launch broad, multi-year, integrated programs aimed at empowering women around common global struggles for peace, reproductive rights and ending violence against women.

Highlights of my community work include:

• Creating international food security campaigns to protect farmers’ rights, intellectual property, and sustainable farming approaches
• Strengthening women’s access to capital through micro-credit and co-op development
• Engaging with governments to influence policy on issues such as affordable housing, labour rights, ending violence against women, and furthering gender rights
• Influencing Canada’s foreign aid programs to focus more explicitly on women’s reproductive health and rights, LGBTQ2S+ rights and human rights, and migrant rights
• Building alliances with school boards, parent groups, and governments to expand the number and quality of French-language education programs in BC
• Creating an international Indigenous youth employment internship program
• Sponsoring and resettling refugees in Victoria
• Creating Ecole Margaret Jenkins School’s first multicultural committee and programs

Community Organizations I’ve Been Involved With:

• Oxfam Canada
• Inter Pares
• Pacific Refugee Welcome Group
• Women’s Health International
• Victoria International Development Education Association
• Pacific Peoples Partnership
• Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society
• Canadian Parents for French – local, provincial, and national
• Ecole Margaret Jenkins School Parent Advisory Council
• Children’s International Summer Villages (CISV)

I joined Vancity’s board in 2016, and have served as chair for two years. I also chair our national impact bank, the Vancity Community Investment Bank. During this period, my understanding of the financial industry, Vancity’s lines of business, our members’ diverse financial needs, our regulatory obligations, emerging climate risks, health and human resources, and enterprise risk frameworks, has deepened considerably. Serving on the Audit, Risk, Technology, Governance, Equity and People, and CEO Succession committees has helped build the skills and competencies required to provide strong oversight to billions in members’ assets, while carefully stewarding Vancity’s values and strategy. This knowledge has also helped me, along with my board colleagues, guide Vancity through a fairly significant strategic and transformational shift over the past year that has included recruiting a new CEO and members of the executive team, launching a revitalized strategy, and (soon) launching a new digital platform.

With more than two decades of experience serving on community, provincial, and national boards, I bring strong governance experience to the board table. I also bring several decades of engagement in community organizations – both as a senior executive and as a volunteer – and with that, a strong awareness of the needs of marginalized peoples and equity-deserving groups, and of the role that values-led financial institutions can play in building strong and resilient communities.

I have piloted or provided oversight to multi-million-dollar technology initiatives, evaluated financial statements, plans and performance, navigated a range of regulatory environments in the finance, healthcare, and employment sectors, and engaged with members of cooperatives large and small to better understand how best to serve and represent their needs.

I’ve served on a range of board committees and pursued training and skills development regularly. Thus, I bring knowledge and skills in:

• Evolving best practices in governance
• Financial, enterprise risk and technology oversight
• Consensus-based decision making
• Strategic planning and change management
• Human resource management, succession planning and compensation
• Regulatory compliance
• Subsidiary governance
• Pension governance
• Social movement building
• Advocacy and campaigning
• Reconciliation
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism

Like many Vancity members, I believe in the transformative power of values-led banking. Members consistently choose Vancity over the big banks because Vancity puts our money to use in our own communities: lending to local businesses we love and patronize, supporting local organizations we value and need, creating pathways to home ownership for our friends and families, and standing with those living on the economic margins. Against a backdrop of seismic geopolitical shifts, radical inflationary shocks and powerful climate events, Vancity is needed – now more than ever – to help create thriving, resilient communities.

I’ve been privileged to lead Vancity through a recent revitalization. If re-elected, I’ll continue to support these efforts, which include delivering members a new digital experience that makes banking easier, and creating innovative financial solutions that better reflect your needs. We’re aiming to boost local businesses, drive affordable housing builds, strengthen Indigenous entrepreneurship, and help members find better and simpler ways to save. All while redoubling efforts nationally and globally to model climate-resilient, socially responsible growth. Strengthening our workplace for Vancity’s staff, those who have their fingers on the pulse of members’ needs and aspirations, is also critical.

I’m running because Vancity’s vision of a transformed economy has never been more relevant. In these destabilizing times, I believe the powerful insights and skills I’ve gained as your director over the years can help ensure that your credit union remains a beacon of strength, stability and hope.

As a certified director with more than 25 years of board experience, mostly in the co-op and social justice sectors, and with 14 years in BC's regulatory sector, I will continue to contribute strong governance, financial oversight, risk management and regulatory experience. I also offer a strong connection to community, and three decades working in creative solidarity and partnership with equity-deserving and vulnerable populations globally to create systemic change. Beyond anything else, I aim to contribute all that I’ve learned through engaging with Vancity members, staff, and community partners to help guide us through this period of enormous uncertainty and instability.

I’ve been privileged to lead Vancity through the creation of a bold new strategy and to steer us through a period of dynamic revitalization. It’s a strategy that insists on a values-led banking approach that puts members and our communities at its core. If re-elected, I will continue to pursue strong stewardship of all that you value in Vancity. That means ensuring that every dollar we earn is invested in you: in delivering better investment options and opportunities to save, and in finding financial solutions that offer you rental security or home ownership. It means having our members’ backs while you take risks and innovate, and supporting the critical work of community partners in their efforts to create resilient, equitable communities. Mostly, I aim to contribute to Vancity and our members’ success by continuing to listen and respond to you.

Whether working with staff, board colleagues or external stakeholders, I take a consensus-based, collaborative approach to leadership. I believe that the quietest voices can have the most powerful of impacts, and that our cooperative values invite us to create openness to the diverse knowledge, experiences and perspectives each of us brings. I understand that Vancity is a credit union that operates in a heavily regulated environment, within a financial sector that is fiercely competitive, and in a geopolitical context that is increasingly volatile. Effective, empathetic and distributed leadership must also be efficient, rapid and responsive.

So what does this mean in practice? It means creating an environment where strong data and facts co-exist with lived experiences and values, and where logic and instinct complement exceptional acumen and skill. I’ve furthered Vancity’s efforts to break down or decolonize traditional decision-making structures that have tended to exclude the needs of Indigenous peoples and vulnerable populations. And I’ve worked hard to build a strong and respectful relationship with Vancity’s staff – those who bring powerful industry experience, and regulatory and technical expertise to the table.

At a personal level, I am a leader who holds an unwavering belief in the transformative power of cooperatives to create healthy, sustainable communities. I embrace transparency, integrity and honesty in communications, and am committed to continuous learning and to receiving feedback. I use both to evolve personal and professional practices and to strengthen my ability to perform as chair and a board member.

Vancity members have always had unique concerns: that we divest from fossil fuels, tobacco and weapons, for instance. That we lead on climate action. That we offer banking services to those whom the big banks shun. In fact, the credit union owes its existence to the fact that the big banks largely fail at responding to their customers’ unique interests.

But how do we know what you really need and want? We’ve got to listen to members, and courageously translate words into action.

As a director, I’ll continue to encourage you to reach out directly to the board, and to let our front-line staff – at our branches and call centre – know your thoughts. I also recognize the importance of actively seeking your opinion on stuff that matters to you – whether we’re building a new app, or creating new products and services. And I’ll also look to data to learn where we’re meeting your needs or missing the mark.

In short, I intend to listen actively. And then to push for bold action. Because meeting the diverse needs of members is Vancity’s superpower. The real opportunity is to take what you’re telling us, and to shape it into the unique values-driven strategy that defines us. If re-elected, I intend to continue to put YOU at the centre of all we do.