Funding the Future

Lori Willcox is a is a cultural management professional with over three decades of leadership experience in the areas of organizational strategy, financial planning, revenue development, brand and campaign design, change management, and leadership training and skills development. As President of 3 Guineas consulting, Lori has worked with over 40 arts and media clients on long-range planning and resource & skills development to support strategic growth. 

Prior to forming 3 Guineas, Lori was a Vice-President at the Toronto International Film Festival, leading five operational teams -- Sponsorship, Philanthropy, Marketing, Digital Communications and Customer Service. Lori's attention to revenue initiatives and strategic partnerships generated over $50 million in earned and contributed revenue over a five-year period while simultaneously raising $100 million in capital project funding. Lori also served as a member of the organization’s five-person Executive Management team, chaired TIFF’s HR Committee and was Founding Chair of a “Futures Committee” that engaged employees with inspiring opportunities with visionary thinkers from outside the sector. 

Mentorship and skills development are an essential element of Lori’s current practice with arts clients, delivering hands-on team sessions and individual training. She has also taught specialized revenue development in arts & media programs at University of Waterloo, University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University as well as acting as a fundraising presenter for the TAC Leaders Lab and Rotman School of Management fundraising mentor to the MBA program at the Rotman School of Management.

Owais Lightwala is a professor, entrepreneur, technologist, and optimist. He builds at the intersection of AI, arts, and entrepreneurship, and is an Assistant Professor at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he teaches innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership in creative industries. He is currently working with Canadian Heritage on developing AI solutions for arts organizations.

Lightwala is the founding Director of The Creative School Chrysalis, a multidisciplinary performance hub at TMU shaping the future of creative experiences. He writes shoshin, a Substack exploring the intersection of AI and the arts. He speaks regularly at national forums and has been published in The Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Canadian Theatre Review, and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Chris Lorway is the President and CEO of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Chris brings senior leadership experience across a broad range of artistic disciplines in both Canadian and international contexts. Well-positioned to strengthen Banff Centre’s position as Canada’s creative leader in arts, leadership, and convening, Chris has a proved record as a global influencer in arts and culture. 

Chris is a Canadian citizen, born and raised in Cape Breton, and comes to Banff Centre from his recent position as both Executive and Artistic Director at Stanford Live in California. His artistic and community programs draw on the breadth and depth of Stanford University to connect performances to the significant issues, ideas, and discoveries of our time in a season featuring over 200 performances and events across four primary venues. 

Prior to his role at Stanford Live, Chris was Director of Programming and Marketing at The Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall, where his focus was on developing a cohesive brand identity for the institution and ensuring that programming in the halls reflected the diversity of the city of Toronto. 

Prior to that position, he was the inaugural Artistic Director of the Luminato Festival, where he commissioned or co-commissioned nearly 50 new works from Canadian and International artists. 

Before his return to Canada in 2007, he was a consultant in the United States with AMS Planning and Research and AEA Consulting. These two roles offered him detailed insight into the governance and operations of major cultural organizations, including Carnegie Hall, New York City Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the West Kowloon Cultural District and San Francisco Opera. 

Prior to his consulting experience, he worked for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where for two seasons he was part of the Lincoln Center Festival team. It was there he was introduced to some of the world’s top artists and companies. He also had roles in marketing and development at Lincoln Center and worked on the first phase of the $1.5 billion campus redevelopment project.