GPLLM faculty and advisory board members honoured with Zenith Awards

The Global Professional LLM Program would like to congratulate Sheila Murray and Dorothy Quann who were recently recognized with a 2013 Zenith Award. 

The Zenith Awards honour women lawyers who have led their clients, firms, companies, departments, faculties, profession, colleagues and/or communities; and have been a role model for other women in the profession.  

Sheila Murray is a member of the GPLLM faculty. Ms Murray is executive vice-president, general counsel and secretary of CI Financial, Canada’s second largest independent mutual fund company. In this role she is a member of the executive team of CI and provides strategic, securities regulatory and governance advice to the company and its board of directors.

Ms Murray joined CI in 2008 after a 25-year career at Blake, Cassel’s and Graydon LLP where she practiced securities law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and corporate reorganizations.  At Blakes, she acted for both bidders and target companies in public merger and acquisition transactions, and for issuers as well as underwriters and agents in public offerings of debt and equity securities.  She was involved in many cross-border financings and international take-overs. 

Ms Murray was a member of the securities advisory committee to the Ontario Securities Commission and was a member of the team of Blakes’ parents that advised the Canadian securities regulators on the reformulation of securities regulation and the creation of new rules and policies.  Sheila was the chair of Blakes’ legal personnel committee and the co-chair of the strategic initiatives committee.  She has been a panelist or speaker at a number of conferences on securities law and governance topics and has taught the securities law component of the Intensive Program on Business Law, Business Associations and Corporate Finance at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Dorothy Quann is a member of the GPLLM Advisory Panel. She is vice-president and general counsel for Xerox Canada.

Ms. Quann is a member of the executive committee for the Legal Leaders for Diversity and the YMCA of Greater Toronto’s audit committee, of which she is a past member of its board of directors. She received the Federated Press Women Leader of the Year Award in 2012 and is a 2010 recipient of The International Alliance for Women (TIAW ) World of Difference 100 Award, which recognizes women from around the world who have contributed to the advancement of women in business. She is also a member of the common law honour selection committee at the University of Ottawa.

Dorothy is a member of the International Women’s Forum and past president of the Association of Canadian General Counsel and the former chair of the international development committee of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), the former chair of National Law Day and a past member of the national executive of the CBA. Further, she is a former member of the awards committee of the Ontario Bar Association, former director for the Ontario board of the Information Technology Association of Canada, as well as the advisory committee to Catalyst in its study of associate female lawyers in Canadian law firms. Dorothy is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Law Society of England and Wales.