Dan Dixon
Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, The Minto Group

Dan Dixon has been with The Minto Group since 2003, where he has held various roles including Vice President of Project Finance and his current role as Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs. Dan also represents Minto as a member of the Canadian Rental Housing Providers for Affordable Housing, a consortium of real estate investment trusts (REITs) that have joined forces to promote the transfer of assets to not-for-profit housing providers. As a member of the National Housing Accord, Dan was instrumental in producing the group’s 2023 report A Multi-Sector Approach to Ending Canada’s Rental Housing Crisis.

Benjamin Gianni
Associate Professor, Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, Carleton University (co-moderator)

Benjamin Gianni is an Associate Professor in the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism at Carleton University where he leads the Urbanism program, teaches courses on housing design and the history of housing, and coordinates a certificate program in real-estate development.

Meg McCallum
Executive Director, Alliance to End Homelessness, Ottawa

With almost two decades of experience in the housing and homelessness sector in Ottawa, Meg serves as the Interim Executive Director for the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, a coalition of organizations working together on systems planning and coordination, public education, and advocacy. The Alliance works collaboratively to research and understand homelessness, advocate for structural change, and ultimately end homelessness. From 2006 to 2018 Meg was the Director of Membership & Communications for Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC), one of the largest private non-profit landlords in Ontario. During that time, she was a steering committee member of both the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa and the Ottawa Social Housing Network and served as the President of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association.

Ling Meng
Planner and Urban Designer, Vancouver

Trained as both an architect and urban designer, Dr. Meng has brought his formidable design skills to cities and projects throughout North America and Asia for more than 30 years. This includes 18 years at Bing Thom Architects where he was a director and lead urban designer. A native of Tianjin China, Ling received his Bachelor of Architecture from Tianjin University before receiving a master’s degree and a PhD in Urban Design from the University of Tokyo. Ling emigrated to Canada, where his practice has been based ever since. He is fluent in Mandarin, Japanese, and English. He is a Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners as well as a Registered Professional Planner in British Columbia.

Zhan Pu
Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development

Dr. Pu holds a PhD. in Economics and currently serves as Deputy Director of the Policy Research Centre at the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. She was a former visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of North Carolina.

Joe Qian
School of Planning, University of Waterloo

Dr. Qian is an Associate Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. His research interests include comparative urban planning and policy, land use planning and urban form, land use reform and policy in China, and heritage conservation and planning in China.

Patricia Roset-Zuppa
Vice-President, Policy, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Patricia Roset-Zuppa is Vice-President, Policy at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). She joined CMHC in 2009, wanting to make a difference in housing in Canada. Patricia played a lead role in the development of Canada’s first-ever National Housing Strategy. Before CMHC, Patricia worked in residential real estate, housing policy, and urban research in Canada and the United States. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Florida, an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, and a master’s degree in Geography from Utrecht University in the Netherlands where she was born and raised.

Cliff Youdale
Chief Development Officer, Ottawa Community Housing Corporation

Cliff Youdale is the Chief Development Officer for the Ottawa Community Housing Corporation. He is responsible for Ottawa Community Housing’s building assets worth over $3 billion. A professional engineer with over 30 years of experience, Cliff has developed long-term strategies for the maintenance, repair, and replacement of OCHC’s aging stock. With specific focuses on new construction, capital repair, preventative maintenance, and green initiatives, his team delivers comprehensive and proactive programs that will ensure OCHC’s building assets serve tenants well into the future.

Xiaofen Yu
Dean, China Institute of Housing and Real Estate Studies

Professor Yu serves as the Dean of the China Institute of Housing and Real Estate Studies, a collaborative initiative between the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and Zhejiang University. Her teaching and research focus on real estate economics, specializing in macro policies, market research in real estate, urban economics, and technological innovation. Xiaofen has contributed to numerous research projects funded by the People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Land and Resources.

Randolph Wang
Senior Planner, City of Ottawa (co-moderator)

A native of Shanghai, Randolph Wang holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree (major in urban planning) from Tongji University and a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Manitoba. At the City of Ottawa, Randolph has been responsible for development review, policy, and urban and community design studies. During his tenure as a senior planner at the Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute in the 1990s, Randolph completed several significant planning studies that supported the transformation of that city. He is a member of the Urban Design Committee for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CT- BUH) and has served on the Urban Design Peer Review Panel for the City of London, Ontario.