INVESTMENT ADVISORY COUNSEL CHAIR

Victor Thomas is President and CEO of the Canada-India Business Council. He is also chair of Precision AI, an ag-tech company at the forefront of the autonomous farming revolution. For two decades, he has held a number of leadership roles and has worked with high growth private sector companies in Canada and Australia with reach to India, China, South East Asia, USA, and the UAE.

He is the past chair of CARE Canada, and CARE International in Kenya. Mr. Thomas is a former chair of the Banff Forum, and is a member of its Advisory Council. He is a National Executive Member for the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference, the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region – North American Advisory Council, and Canada’s Energy for a Secure Future Advisory.

He has received several accolades for his leadership, including the Order of the Red Cross (2014), a top Indo-Canadian Award at a celebration for India’s 75th anniversary (2022), and the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal (2023).   

Mr. Thomas completed his Master of Administration in Leadership from the University of Regina, and is a graduate from the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School.

INVESTMENT ADVISORY COUNSEL MEMBER

Christian is the Founder and Managing Partner of Impression Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on investing in companies that either improve current financial products or develop new products that ultimately provide lower costs or better access for consumers. Impression Ventures has invested in over 20 businesses in Canada and the US. Investments include Wealthsimple, Symend, Brim Financial, Safekeep, Goose and many others. Christian sits on numerous corporate boards including Brim, Sensibill, Finaeo, Fraction, and 401Go.

Christian is a serial entrepreneur, having started four technology companies prior to Impression Ventures. He spent a decade in San Francisco, California building Virtual Greats, a luxury online property rights broker, and Millions of Us, a leading social media digital agency. Prior to that he built software for Second Life, LucasArts and Electronic Arts and sold solutions to Sony, Nike, Warner Brothers, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Intel and many other Fortune 500 companies.

He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of San Francisco, a Bachelor of Engineering Science in Computer Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Western University. In 2022 Christian was awarded with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Ontario Tech University.

INVESTMENT ADVISORY COUNSEL MEMBER

Prem Watsa has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited since 1985.

Mr. Watsa is the Vice Chairman of Hamblin Watsa Investment Counsel Ltd. since 2019, after serving as Vice President since 1984. Mr. Watsa is the Founder and Chairman of our publicly traded subsidiary Fairfax India Holdings Corporation. Mr. Watsa is a co-founder and a director of The BlackNorth Initiative. He is also a director of BlackBerry Limited. Mr. Watsa formerly served as Vice President of GW Asset Management from 1983 to 1984 and in various positions, including as a Vice President with Confederation Life Investment Counsel from 1974 to 1983.

INVESTMENT ADVISORY COUNSEL MEMBER

Ben Watsa is CEO, CIO, and Founder of Marval Capital Ltd. ("Marval") which began operations in 2017. Marval is an investment firm that focuses on the Indian market, specializing in small and mid-cap publicly listed companies. The firm manages nearly $400 million in assets under management.

Mr. Watsa has over two decades of experience in the investment industry. In 2001, he launched his career and spent over five years as an investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group at Banc of America Securities and then at Cochran Caronia Waller. Mr. Watsa then transitioned to become a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Lissom Investment Management Inc. He served for nearly eleven years and ran its small and mid-cap. North American fund before founding Marval.

In addition to Marval, Mr. Watsa serves as; a director of both Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and Fairfax India Holdings Corporation, the advisory board of Impression Ventures, and has been honoured with the position of director emeritus for his work and contributions as a director and the Vice Chair of the Investment Committee for the Rideau Hall Foundation.

Mr. Watsa was recognized as a top 50 Under 50 Indo-Canadian leader, and is also an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and of the Toronto Club’s Membership Committee.