Donald Kirkwood, Chair

Donald and his wife, Penny, arrived at Mulgrave from England in January 2003. They have been strong supporters of the School and have four children in attendance.   Donald was educated in the United Kingdom, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Management from the University of Birmingham. He has worked in sales and project management for both a major oil company and a major consulting firm. In 1995 he co-founded the Axon Group, a management consulting company, and served on its board of directors after it was taken public on the London Stock Exchange.  Since 2003, he has worked as an entrepreneur in property development and the technology sector.  Donald has been Chairman of the Board of Directors since 2008. Under his leadership, the contract of agreement with West Vancouver Montessori School was reached leading to the establishment of the new Mulgrave Early Learning Centre and construction of the new facility on campus at Mulgrave. In consultation with the Board and the parent community, Donald has engendered a strategic framework for the School - ’2020 Vision’ - which he shared with the community at the end of last year. He is also working with other key players to achieve a ’relief zone’ of land between the School and the residential development which will soon be constructed on the back boundary. In his capacity as Chair of the Board, Donald sits on the Board of the Mulgrave School Foundation in which capacity he was instrumental in establishing and part-funding the Greg Cusbert Scholarship. 

Munir Ali

Munir and his wife, Alida, have two children (now in Grades 8 and 9) who are in their seventh year at Mulgrave. Originally from Bangladesh, Munir was schooled in India, England, Canada (Toronto, where he graduated with honours) and at Indiana University.  He returned to Bangladesh where he was Director of Marketing at Olympic Industries and CEO of Asia Commodity Limited. As Director of the Aga Khan Educational Service for six years, he was involved in establishing an IB school that now has an enrolment of over 1,000 students.  While in Bangladesh, one of his achievements was the introduction of the Terry Fox Run to Bangladesh and organizing the personal attendance of Terry’s mother at the event one year.

Munir is involved in a broad range of business interests, including manufacturing, international trade and investment management. He and Alida have been strong supporters of the School and he looks forward to the opportunity of joining the Board this year.

Grant Ayers

Grant and his wife Kate have been active volunteers and generous supporters of Mulgrave for 11 years and now have a son who graduated last year and a daughter in grade 11. Grant has been in business in the Lower Mainland for almost 30 years. Since 1981 he has been CEO of Edgemont Moving & Storage and his company's trucks are a frequent sight around Mulgrave, providing moving assistance for the School's latest projects. Grant makes a significant commitment to volunteering, recently being recognized by the North Shore News as a "Local Hero".

He joined the Mulgrave Board in February 2004 and is a director on the Provincial Board of BC Summer Swimming, past president of the North Van Cruisers, Regional Director of the Vancouver & District of BC Summer Swimming, Vice President of Lower Mainland ringette and is a civilian instructor for Army cadets.

Mark Beddis

Mark and his wife Alice are enjoying their sixth year at Mulgrave, with daughters in grade 11 and grade 5. Mark has a degree in pure mathematics. Over the past 25 years, he has worked in commercial organizations and, during the 1990's, served as the Executive Director of the stock exchange in Hong Kong. He is a business consultant, specialising in the design and development of financial market infrastructure, with a particular focus on equities.

Kevin Coutts is an executive focused primarily on business acquisitions and dispositions. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree and his law degree (JD) from the University of Toronto. He practiced corporate and securities law for nine years with Davies Ward, a top Canadian business law firm based in Toronto. Kevin then left active legal practice in order to obtain an MBA from Duke University in North Carolina, graduating in 1997 as a Fuqua Scholar. He joined ClubLink (Canada’s largest owner/operator of golf courses), working in South Carolina as Director and subsequently Vice President US Acquisitions until 2001. He then relocated his family to Vancouver and in 2005 joined Intrawest (owner/operator of ski resorts, most notably Whistler Blackcomb).With Intrawest, Kevin was Director, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures initially and was Vice President, Corporate Development until early 2009. Kevin recently passed the qualification exams of the Law Society of British Columbia, but remains in non-practising status at present. He currently is pursuing career opportunities to next best contribute his unique mix of business and legal experience.

This is Kevin’s second year on the Mulgrave Board of Directors. Kevin, his wife Suzanne and their son Brent (grade 8) live in North Vancouver.

Sharon Glover 

Sharon Glover holds an MBA in Finance from Queen’s University and has a strong background in management and finance.  She is currently the Executive Director of the Association of British Columbia Forest Professionals, the body which regulates BC’s 5,300 forest professionals.  Prior to assuming this position, she was the Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.  Sharon has also operated her own public policy research consulting firm, and has been Executive Director of The Brewers of Ontario and Senior Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and Membership of The Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Sharon and her husband, David Guscott, have two children, James (Grade 7) and Paige (Grade 9) who have both attended Mulgrave since January, 2007. 

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Glen Ibbott 

Glen Ibbott and his wife Kelly Negrin have two children at Mulgrave, Angela in grade four and Jonathan in grade two.  Glen and his family joined the Mulgrave community in September 2007 from an IB school in Victoria.

Glen has a business degree from Simon Fraser University and has professional accounting designations in Canada and the US.  After a number of years at a large public accounting firm, he spent close to a decade as a finance director in the biotechnology industry.  Glen has recently moved to forestry where he is now Corporate Controller of International Forest Products.

A strong advocate for the importance and value of parental involvement at the school, Glen is delighted to serve on the Mulgrave board and to make his contribution to the continued remarkable success of Mulgrave.

 Scott McEvoy, Vice Chair, Chair of the Nominating Committee

Scott and his wife Lindsay have three children (Simon, William and Sascha) at Mulgrave. Scott is a partner with the law firm of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP practising in the Investment Management Group of the firm's Vancouver office having moved after twelve years in the Toronto office. Scott earned his BA at the University of Western Ontario, his law degree at the University of Leeds, a Masters of Laws at King's College, University of London and Canadian accreditation at McGill University. Prior to his law degree he worked in the audit and financial services divisions of a large public accounting firm, both in Montreal and in England. 

Pierre Martin 

John Pao has served on the Building & Grounds Committee of the Mulgrave Board ever since his family joined Mulgrave in 1995. He has been Chair of the Committee since 1998 and was a member of the Board of Directors from 1999-2006.

During his tenure as Chairman of the Building & Grounds Committee, John supervised the design and construction of the new school building and campus on Cypress Lane. More recently, he and his committee have steered the design and permit application for the new Early Learning Centre which is currently under construction.
  
John Pao is a Structural Engineer. He has been the President of his own company - Bogdonov Pao Associates Ltd. – for the past 25 years. His twin daughters graduated from Mulgrave in 2004 and his son, Brandon in 2009.

In John’s words, the job of building the school is never done. In his second term as a Director on the Board, and ongoing as Chair of the Building & Grounds Committee, he hopes to provide the leadership necessary to steer the school into its next phase of land and campus development.