CIC Montreal Branch Leadership Biographies

CHRIS NEAL

President

Christopher Neal est journaliste et professionnel de la communication. Il a été correspondant indépendant en Amérique latine et journaliste à la Montreal Gazette et à l’Ottawa Citizen. Il a occupé des postes de direction en communication à la Banque mondiale, à l’Agence canadienne de développement international (qui fait maintenant partie d’Affaires mondiales Canada) et à CUSO International, une ONG canadienne. À la Banque mondiale, il a contribué à orienter les communications stratégiques sur la politique économique, les données et la recherche, les opérations en Amérique latine, ainsi que l’énergie et les mines. Depuis son retour à Montréal de Washington DC en 2016, il a siégé aux conseils d’administration du Quebec Community Groups Network et de la Quebec Writers’ Federation. Il est également vice-président de la McGill Community of Life-long Learning, et auteur de The Rebel Scribe – Carleton Beals and the Progressive Challenge to US Policy in Latin America, qui a été sélectionné pour le Mavis Gallant Award for Non-Fiction en 2022. Il est président du Conseil international du Canada (Section Montréal) depuis juin 2022.

Christopher Neal is a journalist and communications professional. He has been a freelance correspondent in Latin America, and a staff writer at the Montreal Gazette and Ottawa Citizen. He has held communications leadership positions at the World Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency (now part of Global Affairs Canada), and CUSO International, a Canadian NGO. At the World Bank, he helped guide strategic communications on economic policy, data and research, operations in Latin America, and energy and mining. Since returning to Montreal from Washington DC in 2016, he has served on the boards of the Quebec Community Groups Network and Quebec Writers’ Federation.

He is also Vice-President of the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning, and author of The Rebel Scribe – Carleton Beals and the Progressive Challenge to US Policy in Latin America, which was short-listed for the Mavis Gallant Award for Non-Fiction in 2022. He has been President of the Canadian International Council’s Montreal branch since June 2022.

Kyle Matthews

Director-at-Large

Kyle Matthews is the Executive Director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia University. He joined MIGS as Lead Researcher of the Will to Intervene Project in 2008 and was appointed Senior Deputy Director in 2011. At Concordia he founded the Raoul Wallenberg Legacy of Leadership project as well as the Digital Mass Atrocity Preventing Lab, which works to counter online extremism and study how social media platforms are being used as a weapon of war.

His work focuses on human rights, international security, the Responsibility to Protect, global threats, and social media and technology, and global cities. He works closely with the Canadian All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and has advised Members of Parliament on issues related to international peace and security. He previously worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where he was posted to the Southern Caucasus (Tbilisi), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and Switzerland (Geneva). Prior to that he worked for CARE Canada in Albania and later at its headquarters in Ottawa, where he managed various humanitarian response initiatives and peace-building projects in Afghanistan, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

In 2011 he joined the New Leaders program at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. He is a member of the Global Diplomacy Lab, a member of the BMW Foundation’s Global Responsible Leaders, and recently joined the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s advisory board on transatlantic cooperation for atrocity prevention. He is active member of the University Club of Montreal, the Montreal Press Club, the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, the Canadian International Council and the Federal Idea, a think tank devoted to federalism. He is currently a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Global Affairs and a Research Fellow at the Canadian Research Institute on Humanitarian Crises and Aid.

Malcolm Olafson

Treasurer

Malcolm Olafson is a long time member of the CIC and the CIIA in Toronto and Montréal. He is retired from Bell in a career information technology. In the 1990s he worked in Sierra Leone with the WFP and UNHCR.