People

Prior to becoming the inaugural Executive Director of the Dhillon Centre in 2016, Christie Stephenson spent more than 15 years at leading socially responsible and impacting investing firms, and previously worked in politics, government and the non-profit sector. Christie is currently a member of the Climate Governance Experts Network of the Canadian Climate Law Initiative, the Metro Vancouver Zero Emissions Innovation Centre’s investment committee, the British Columbia Securities Commission Corporate Finance Stakeholder Forum, and the International Impact and Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium.

She is a regular print, radio and TV media commentator and a frequent speaker to industry and public audiences on topics related to governance, business ethics and responsible investing, and teaches environmental, social and governance investing. She was a 2019 Clean50 Honouree for Sustainability Education & Thought Leadership and the Dhillon Centre has been recognized three times by the BC Business “Business of Good Award” for Thought Leadership. She has served as a judge for both Governance Professionals of Canada’s Excellence in Governance Awards and the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada’s Corporate Reporting Awards and delivered training through Directors College, Governance Professionals of Canada, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada and UBC Sauder Executive Education.

Christie also has more than two decades of diverse director experience, having served on the boards of a national charity, numerous non-profit organizations, several academic governance bodies, a union local, cooperatives with both business-to-consumer and business-to-business operating models, a multi-employer pension plan, a reporting issuer and one of Canada’s domestic systemically important financial institutions (D-SIFI), and private companies from start-up stage to large mature entities.

Professor Kate White is the Senior Associate Dean, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Science at the UBC Sauder School of Business, and serves on the Dhillon Centre’s Advisory Board.

Professor White’s research focuses on how to encourage ethical, prosocial, and sustainable consumer behaviours. She was honored as one of the top 5 Marketing Researchers in the world by the American Marketing Association and she has been inducted to the College of Arts and Sciences, Royal Society of Canada. She has received the Senior Research Excellence Award from the Sauder School of Business, the UBC Killam Research Award, and the Canada Clean 50 Award for Thought Leadership in the Domain of Sustainability.

Professor White currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and is on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Professor White has consulted on various behaviour-change projects with organizations such as The City of Calgary, Health Canada, Starbucks, Lululemon, My Sustainable Canada, Big Rock Brewery, The United Way, the SPCA, and Celgene Health Care. Professor White’s industry collaborations tend to focus on uncovering behavioural insights and shifting consumers towards various types of positive behaviour change.

Kirstin Appelt is the Research Director for the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics, the Research Director for the Decision Insights for Business & Society group, and the Academic Director of the Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights, all at UBC Sauder School of Business. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University and her B.A. magna cum laude in Economics from Dartmouth College. 

Dr. Appelt’s research explores how to structure choices to help make it easier for us all to make the best decisions for ourselves, society, and the planet. Dr. Appelt partners with organizations across the public, non-profit, and private sectors to help them use insights from the behavioural and decision sciences for social good. Dr. Appelt has worked on environmental, social, and economic sustainability challenges with partners, including the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG), BC Hydro, the California Health Benefit Exchange (Covered California), Columbia University’s Center for Decision Sciences, Fraser Health Authority, Google, the Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH), Temple University, and WorkSafeBC. Dr. Appelt currently co-chairs the BIG Difference Advisory Board and the annual BIG Difference BC conference planning committee. She also hosts the Calling DIBS podcast.

Carol Liao is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Business Law at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, and the UBC Sauder Distinguished Scholar of the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the UBC Sauder School of Business. She is Principal Co-Investigator of the Canada Climate Law Initiative, advancing knowledge on board fiduciary obligations and climate governance. An award-winning teacher and widely published scholar, she is the recipient of the 2021 Influential Women in Business Award from Business in Vancouver, the 2022 Women of the Year Award (Equity and Inclusion Champion) from BCBusiness Magazine, and was named as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network.

Dr. Liao’s research focuses on corporate law and sustainability, climate governance, gender and racial justice. She is a past Bertram Scholar of the Institute of Corporate Directors and a former senior associate in the New York Mergers and Acquisitions Group of Shearman & Sterling LLP, one of the world's leading global law firms. She has delivered over 150 inviteed talks around the world on sustainable business, and has been quoted over 75 times in new media on corporate governance and equity issues.

Dale Griffin is the Advisory Council Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Sciences and the Interim Director of the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the UBC Sauder School of Business. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from UBC, and a PhD from Stanford University. He has taught at leading universities in Canada, Great Britain and the United States, and most recently was at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Professor Griffin teaches courses in Consumer Behavior, Marketing Research and Strategic Decision Making at the MBA, PhD, and executive levels, and a course on Strategies for Responsible Business at the undergraduate level. He also consults in legal cases on consumer decision-making and risk communication. He was formerly a Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs and for Strategic Communication at the Sauder School.

In 2005, Professor Griffin won both the Sauder senior research prize and the UBC Hampton research prize for his work on understanding how consumers and managers make decisions. He has been an invited speaker at many major university business schools including Harvard Business School, University of Chicago, ULCA, New York University and Duke University.