Biography

A former public servant and, subsequently, senior program manager at the Canada Council, Barbara has a long history of involvement with the arts and culture community throughout Canada as a cultural bureaucrat, governance consultant, and communications advisor. She currently works in two capacities: as Principal with Meta4 Consulting, an Ottawa-based firm whose mission is to provide advice to non-profit organizations in the areas of strategy, governance, organizational performance, and performance assessment, and as Executive Director of the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation, an organization that supports exceptionally talented Canadian musicians embarking on a professional career in classical music performance.

Barbara was a Law Society of Ontario bencher from 1999 to 2003 and has been an adjudicator with the Law Society Tribunal since 2007. She was for 13 years a member of Ontario’s Consent and Capacity Board and served from 2016–19 as a CCB Vice-Chair. She is the current Board Chair of two non-profit charities: the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women and 10 Gates Dancing. Barbara is a trained writer-editor; a graduate of the University of Toronto, she is fluent in English and French and conversant in Spanish.