Juliet ‘Kego is Financial Advisor with one of Canada’s leading Financial Institutions; an international Speaker-Poet, and a Master-Certified Leadership Coach-Trainer-Consultant.
She is a passionate proponent of the cooperative movement and the solidarity economy using an ecosystem approach, and committed to fostering financial inclusion, dignity and shared prosperity, by bridging the gap between formal and informal cooperative institutions.
She is the Co-founder of Whole Woman Network Social Enterprise, and Whole Women Network Co-operative (WWN Co-op); a worker co-operative focused on culturally informed financial literacy, peer-to-peer funding and cooperative education for historically underrepresented Women and Youth, using an iterated digital model of ROSCA – Rotating Saving and Credit Association (SUSU) and community-based ‘village banking’ models.
Juliet is one of the ten founding members of Black Women Professional Co-operative Inc.; a multi-stakeholder consulting co-operative offering strategic planning, ESG advisory and business analysis training services, while providing linkages for Black Women co-operators from the global South and North to share resources towards socio-economic agency.
As a Feminist and Poet, her poems amplify the lived experiences of women and girls, with proceeds from all global poetry recitals and speaking engagements supporting the education and empowerment of vulnerable demographics in under-served communities.
Her professional and educational experience spanning several companies (Honeywell Group, American Express, Emex Systems, MIS Systems, Edward Jones Investments, & Sun Life Financial), and multi-disciplinary fields: Engineering, International Business, Gender Studies, Wealth Management and Financial Advisory. She has an MBA from the Manchester Business School, UK, and a Credit Union Development Educator designation (CUDE), from the International Centre for Co-operative Management at St. Mary’s University, Canada. She is a coach-strategist for organizations and leaders in civic and corporate sectors.
A recipient of several awards including the 2023 Co-operative Spirit Award by the Ontario Co-operative Association (OCA), for outstanding contribution to Awareness, Diversity & Equity building in the Co-operative sector, and CWCF’s 2024 Mark Goldblatt Merit Award.
She serves on the board of organizations in Canada, USA, Nigeria, such as: PARO Women’s Enterprise Centre, Canadian Association for the Studies in Cooperation (CASC), Global Rights, and BOATS Foundation (Life Bank). She is the Board Equity Advisor to Canadian Worker Co-op Federation (CWCF); a member of the Black Food Sovereignty Advisory Circle under the City of Toronto Confronting Anti Black Racism unit (CABR); and a founding member of the Banker Ladies Council of Canada and the ROSCA Network.
Dr. Lucenia Ortiz currently serves as Chair on the Board of Directors of the Multicultural Health Brokers (MCHB) Cooperative since 2020. From her experience as a newcomer from the Philippines in 1994, she developed a passion and commitment to work with culturally diverse communities in creating opportunities to support their advancement in the new homeland. She served for almost a decade as Co-Executive Director of the MCHB Coop where she was involved in numerous initiatives to promote the health and well being of immigrants and refugees in the city. She is also an intercultural facilitator and coordinates the Coop’s Journeys Program which offers intercultural learning and education for service providers and organizations. Lucenia holds a PhD in Human Ecology at the University of Alberta with a focus on health equity for ethnocultural populations. Her research: Multicultural Health Brokering: bridging cultures to achieve equity of access to health.” was the first to document the work of cultural brokers in Canada which led to several research on the cultural brokering practice. Lucenia retired in 2020 from the City of Edmonton as a planner involved in social development initiatives such as the development of multicultural facilities and the Mayor’s Task Force for Poverty Elimination . She also served as Co-Chair of the first Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council from 2019-2021 as well as on several Boards in the nor-for-profit sectors.