As the Vice President of VCIB, Jennifer leads the development and implementation of the bank’s growth strategy in the areas of commercial and business banking, social purpose real estate, and climate finance.

Jennifer has over 23 years of extensive banking and financial leadership experience and prior to joining VCIB, she was the Vice President, Loan Operations and Customer Relations at Infrastructure Ontario where she oversaw the loan administration, business development, and grant management activities associated with the Infrastructure Ontario loan program.

Jennifer has honed her loan portfolio management and commercial-lending expertise through the years in previous roles at Equitable Bank, Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company, and Northern Birch Credit Union.

Leading the team at VCIB, Jennifer is driven by the belief that what you finance has a huge impact on our planet and communities.

Frances Yip is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of VCIB, as well as CFO of Vancity, Canada’s largest community credit union. At VCIB, Frances focuses on building a solid and trusted financial institution and creating long-term value. Frances leads financial strategy, providing insight and discipline in service to the sustainable growth that supports our business, our people and our planet.

Frances is an authentic and influential leader with a focus on strategic planning and operational effectiveness, and she has a record of building and leading engaged, high performing teams that deliver value through financial insight and continuous improvement. A Chartered Professional Accountant and CFA charterholder with over 18 years of experience in the financial sector, she served as VP Finance and VP Financial Planning and Analysis at Coast Capital Savings, one of Canada’s largest credit unions, for more than seven years prior to joining Vancity Group.

Frances was recognized as one of BC’s Most Influential Women in Finance in 2019. With a passion for the transformative power that education and mentorship play in social mobility and equity, Frances has acted as a devoted mentor to students and young professionals for more than 13 years. She is also an active leader in her local community, serving as volunteer director and treasurer of both ArtStarts in Schools and the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House Society.

Frances fills her free time exploring the beauty of the Vancouver region with her two energetic young boys.

Kevin Mathias is the Chief Risk Officer of Vancity Community Investment Bank (VCIB) and the Interim Chief Risk Officer of Vancity, Canada’s largest community credit union. With over three decades of experience in the financial sector, Kevin brings a wealth of expertise in strategy development and execution, governance, risk management, and commercial banking.

Kevin is accountable for Vancity Group’s overall enterprise risk management strategy in all core risk categories including strategic, credit, market, liquidity, operational, and people risk. The scope of his responsibilities includes oversight of retail, commercial and special credit, privacy, compliance, anti-money laundering, enterprise risk management, fraud, corporate insurance, and corporate security.

Prior to joining Vancity Group, Kevin held various leadership positions at Coast Capital Savings Credit Union and the HSBC Group, where he worked with diverse teams in Canada, the United States, Hong Kong, London, and India.

Beyond his professional achievements, Kevin holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA), a Bachelor of Commerce, and is an Associate of the Institute of Canadian Bankers (AICB).

As VCIB’s Managing Director of Climate Finance and Commercial Real Estate, Eric leads the growth of the bank’s lending portfolio, which is designed to support organizations and projects driving positive change across Canada.  

With over a decade of experience in commercial real estate, Eric has held numerous leadership roles at VCIB, including as Director of Commercial Real Estate, where he led a team of impact real estate experts to arrange debt financing for projects driving positive social and environmental change.  

In his current role, Eric is a driving force behind VCIB’s impact real estate and climate finance strategies — facilitating financing for cleantech projects and emerging climate solutions, while also supporting community and impact-focused real estate projects like affordable housing, green buildings, housing co-operatives, and spaces for arts and culture. 

Wellington Holbrook is the President and CEO of Vancity Group – which includes Vancity, Canada’s largest community credit union, and Vancity Community Investment Bank (VCIB), Vancity’s federally chartered bank. With a 30-year career in Canada’s financial services industry, Wellington has focused his career on cooperatives and banking institutions with missions that extend beyond profits.

Prior to becoming CEO of Vancity Group, Wellington held progressively senior roles at financial institutions across Canada. At connectFirst Credit Union, Wellington served as Chief Operating Officer before taking on the role of CEO, leading the credit union through mergers and the integration of several credit unions under a new brand. At ATB Financial, he led their retail, business and agriculture banking lines of business and, as Chief Transformation and Technology Officer, he led an ambitious digital, business and cultural transformation at the largest Alberta-based financial institution. Serving as the Senior Vice-President of Operations at the Business Development Bank of Canada, Wellington played a pivotal role in leading and shaping the bank’s business across Western Canada.

Fluent in French and English, Wellington holds a B. Comm from the University of Manitoba and an MBA with distinction from the University of Oxford. In 2008, he was invited by the Clerk to the Privy Council of Canada to partake in a year-long program focused on foreign diplomacy and where he honed his leadership skills.

Wellington has served on several boards, and currently is Chair of the Calgary Telus Convention Centre. He is an avid music fan and amateur musician. He and his wife have two adult children.

Joining the Vancity Community Investment Bank board of directors in June 2012 was a natural fit for Rick due to his experience leading Vancity’s member-facing lines of business and more recently moving to the SVP Enterprise Risk role.

Rick’s leadership strengths include the ability to build member value in tandem with a more holistic approach that supports community well-being, and he started his financial services career in commercial banking where the emphasis on personal relationships was paramount. Rick then went onto a series of progressively senior roles at TD Canada Trust, TD Waterhouse Private Investment Counsel, and Fidelity Investments before joining Vancity in 2007.

Rick has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Saskatchewan with a double major in finance and marketing. He is a certified financial planner and personal financial planner and has completed his ICD, Director Education Program. Rick serves on several boards, including Credential Financial Inc. and the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Coast BC.

Rita Parikh is the Chair of the Board of VCIB and Vancity Credit Union. She brings more than two decades of governance, fiscal management and social justice work to the organizations and is committed to tackling systemic challenges, creating positive change for people and the environment, and fostering inclusive and sustainable communities.

In the past, Rita has served as the chair and/or director of large cooperatives like Mountain Equipment Co-op and several non-profit organizations including Oxfam Canada, the Vancity Community Foundation, the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre, and Canadian Parents for French. She has also chaired or sat as a member of several governmental administrative justice tribunals including the British Columbia Employment and Assistance Appeal Tribunal, and the Property Assessment Review Panel.

Rita is a recognized leader in the Canadian healthcare regulatory sector and is the Executive Director of the Nursing Community Assessment Service within BC’s largest health regulator, the BC College of Nurses and Midwives. Through her leadership roles, Rita has moved organizations through significant cultural and strategic transformations and provided oversight to organizations with billions in assets. Rita earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa, and a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the London Free Press, among other media outlets. Rita is grateful to the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples for their careful stewardship of the traditional territories upon which she lives.

Julia Deans is the former President & CEO of Habitat for Humanity Canada, a 45-local member federation focused on safe and affordable housing for all. With degrees from Queen’s University, Columbia University and Osgoode Hall Law School, Julia practiced law with Torys LLP in Toronto and Hong Kong and built a business in Singapore before becoming CEO of CivicAction, Futurpreneur Canada and the Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation, Chair of Ontario’s Expert Roundtable on Immigration. She has been named to WXN’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, a YWCA Toronto Woman of Distinction, and a Woman of Influence Canadian Diversity Champion, and received the Pearson Centre for Progressive Policy Leadership Award, the Goodman School of Business Distinguished Leader Award, and le Prix Hommage RelèveON 2020. Julia has her ICD.D, is a director of InvestEco Capital and the Canada Post Community Foundation and is an Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Joel is a member of VCIB’s Board of Directors as well as the Vice Chair of the Board of Vancity Credit Union. He brings broad experience in technology and entrepreneurship and a deep understanding of what it takes to keep up with the rapid pace of technological growth. He has been a Vancity member for nearly 30 years.

Joel earned a master’s degree in computer science at the University of British Columbia. He entered the software business immediately after graduating, eventually leading large teams on major software projects at several companies. In 2006, he co-founded Hothead Games, BC’s largest independent video game publisher. During Hothead’s first fourteen years, Joel grew the organization to two hundred employees while leading all of Hothead’s core technology work.

He is currently the VP of Software Development at Spare Labs, a Vancouver startup whose technology platform enhances public transit systems around the world. Growing up in Manitoba, Joel credits his prairie childhood for instilling a commitment to the co-operative business model. From 2011 to 2018, he served on the board of Modo the Car Co-op, during a time of great growth for the carshare. He was the chair of that board from 2012 to 2015. He holds an ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Throughout his career, Joel has built his leadership style on the principles of collaboration, trust and empowerment. His personal values have always guided him into professional work that creates positive impact on both employees and the larger community. He is proud of Vancity’s leadership role among co-ops in BC, and how it uses values-based banking to create healthy, vibrant communities.

Mary was a co-founder of ShoreBank Corporation (the first and largest specialized community development bank holding company in the United States) and became its president in the early ‘80s.

Mary now brings her expertise in raising and deploying equity and deploying the deposits of social investors in neglected markets to her role at VCIB. She managed expansion activities of ShoreBank, including the formation of ShoreCap International in 2003—an equity investor in regulated microfinance and small business banks in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe which is closing its 3rd round in 2017 to invest in financial services in Africa.

Outside of her role at VCIB, Mary is Chair of Basix and a director of BSFL (a regulated non-bank financial institution subsidiary) in Hyderabad, India. Mary is also a director of Grassroots Business Fund and Rapid Results Institute. Mary is a founder for the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, and acts as director for two ex-ShoreBank affiliates and one former subsidiary.

As a long time advocate for affordable housing, Elain worked as a developer for non-profit and co-operative housing in the public, private and non-profit housing.

Elain brings her years of experience on the Board of Vancity Credit Union to the Vancity Community Investment Bank board where she is Chair of the Audit Committee. She is excited about the potential in a values-based bank to build stronger and healthier communities by building the social finance market in Canada.

In addition to her governance work at VCIB, Elain serves on the board of three non-profit organizations. She has served on various corporate boards and has extensive experience in all aspects of governance.