The Hennick Centre’s continuous Growth and Success is dedicated in no small part to all faculty who have contributed their unique insights and expertise throughout the years by taking an active role in its leadership.
Cynthia Williams – Past Co–Director [2013-15 / 2016-18]
Professor Cynthia Williams joined Osgoode Hall Law School on July 1, 2013 as the Osler Chair in Business Law, a position she also held from 2007 to 2009. Before coming to Osgoode, she was a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois College of Law and, prior to that, she practised law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. Professor Williams writes in the areas of securities law, corporate law, corporate responsibility, comparative corporate governance and regulatory theory, often in interdisciplinary collaborations with professors in anthropology, economic sociology, and organizational psychology.
Her book The Embedded Firm: Corporate Governance, Labor, And Finance Capitalism, co-edited with Osgoode Professor Peer Zumbansen, was published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press and was featured at the Society for Socio-Economics (SASE) Annual Conference in 2012 at MIT.
Professor Williams’ work has been published in the Georgetown Law Journal, the Harvard Law Review, the Journal of Corporation Law, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, the University of New South Wales Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the Academy of Management Review, the Corporate Governance International Review, and the Journal of Organizational Behavior, among others.
Professor Williams has lectured and taught in China, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, the UK and throughout Canada and the United States.
Professor Williams also engages in policy work through her board membership in the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, a think-tank of academics and financial market participants; the Climate Bonds Initiative, an NGO established to create a new asset class, Climate Bonds, in order to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy; and as a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Finance Advisory Board.
James L. Darroch – Past Co–Director [2009-2018]
James L. Darroch is an Associate Professor of Policy at the Schulich School of Business, York University. He holds an M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Strategic Management and International Business from York University. Professor Darroch has taught at York since 1986. He was director of Entrepreneurial Studies from 1993 until 1996, Area Coordinator for the Strategic Management Area from 1996-1999, Director of the York Consulting Group from 1997 to 2005, and is currently Director of the Financial Services Program. He has twice been nominated for the School’s Teaching Excellence Award.
His research has focused upon strategic management of financial services firms, and especially on governance and enterprise risk management in recent year. This research has led to consulting assignments on strategic renewal encompassing leadership, strategy formulation and implementation issues with both small and large private sector organizations, including Bank of Montreal, Bata, Credit Union Central of Canada, DuPont of Canada, Inco, The Royal Bank of Canada, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Sony Music as well as public sector organizations, including, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, the Department of National Defense, The Ontario Ministry of Housing, and the Ontario Nurses Association.
In 1997, Professor Darroch joined the working group for the Toronto International Centre for Financial Sector Supervision (Toronto Center). This is a joint enterprise among the Schulich School of Business, the Canadian Government, The World Bank, the IMF and the Stability Forum of the Bank for International Settlements. He helped to design and implement a global leadership and strategy program targeted at senior supervisory and regulatory officials. From 2002 – 2006, he was academic program director for the Risk Management Curriculum at the Bank of Montreal. This program was the first of its kind and involved extensive work with the Chief Risk Officer of the Bank of Montreal both in planning and delivery.
Mary Condon – Past Co–Director [2015-2016]
Dean Mary Condon joined the Osgoode faculty in 1992. She served as Associate Dean (Academic) from July 2016 to April 2018 and then served as Interim Dean until her appointment as Dean in July 2019. Between 2008 and 2016 she was appointed by the Ontario government as a Commissioner and Board Member of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). For three of those years (2011-2014) she served as one of two full-time Vice-Chairs of the OSC. In that capacity she was executive sponsor of a number of policy initiatives. She also issued numerous adjudicative decisions as a member of the OSC’s tribunal. In early 2018, she was appointed a member of the board of the Capital Markets Authority Implementation Organization (CMAIO), an interim body set up to assist with the establishment of a Capital Markets Regulatory Authority for co-operating jurisdictions in Canada.
Dean Condon teaches Securities Regulation and Advanced Securities in Osgoode’s JD program and also directs and teaches in the Professional LLM in Securities Law program. In the 2009 winter term, she was awarded the Walter S. Owen Chair in Business Law at the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, where she was also the co-director of the National Centre for Business Law.
Dean Condon’s research interests are focused primarily on the regulation of securities markets, investment funds, online investing, and pensions. She is co-author of Business Organizations: Practice, Theory and Emerging Challenges (with Robert Yalden, Janis Sarra, Paul Paton, Mark Gillen, Carol Liao, Michael Deturbide, Mohamed Khimji, Bradley Bryan and Gary Campo). She is co-author of Securities Law in Canada: Cases and Commentary (with Anita Anand, Janis Sarra and Sarah Bradley), [3rd edition, 2017]. She is the author of Making Disclosure: Ideas and Interests in Ontario Securities Regulation (UTP). She has also written articles, book chapters and policy papers on topics related to securities regulation and pensions policy and has given invited lectures on these topics in Canada and internationally.
Between 2014 and 2016 she served as a member of Canada’s National Steering Committee for Financial Literacy. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the York University Pension Fund between 2005 and 2014.
Research Interests: Corporate/Securities Law, Pensions, Feminist Legal Studies
Graduate Research Supervision (LLM, PhD): I am interested in supervising topics related to financial markets, financial regulation, securities law, pensions and pension policy. I am open to a variety of methodologies that could be used to analyze problems or issues in these fields but especially interested in socio-legal approaches, feminist analysis or behavioural economic approaches.
Poonam Puri – Past Co–Director [2008-2013]
Professor Poonam Puri is one of Canada’s most respected scholars and commentators on issues of corporate governance, corporate law, securities law and financial regulation.
She is Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School. She was Associate Dean, Research, Graduate Studies and Institutional Relations from July 2011 to September 2013 then took on the role of Associate Dean until July 2014. She was also Co-Director of the Hennick Centre for Business and Law, a joint initiative of Osgoode Hall Law School and the Schulich School of Business at York University, from July 2008 to June 2013. Former Head of Research and Policy at the Capital Markets Institute, Rotman School of Business, University of Toronto, she is Director of the Business Law LLM at Osgoode Professional Development.
Appointed to Osgoode’s faculty in 1997, and a recipient of its Teaching Excellence Award in 1999 and 2009, Professor Puri is a prolific scholar who has co-authored/edited three books and written numerous articles, book chapters and reports. She has a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Toronto and a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from Harvard Law School.
Professor Puri’s work is academically rigorous as well as firmly grounded in the real-time of policy-making. It is for this reason that governments and regulators in Canada and internationally, including Industry Canada, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the Canadian Senate, the Wise Persons Committee on Securities Regulation and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, have sought her expertise. She has advised public and private company boards of directors, and has acted as an independent expert on significant securities litigation cases and class action matters.
In 2008, Professor Puri was appointed as one of two research directors of the Canadian Ministry of Finance’s Expert Panel on Securities Regulation, which has led to the proposed common securities regulator. In 2005, she was co-research director of the Task Force to Modernize Securities Legislation and also served as a member of the Ontario Securities Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2007. She was President of the Canadian Law and Economics Association from 2006 to 2008.
Professor Puri is a 2005 recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40™ award; the 2008 recipient of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce Female Professional of the Year Award; the 2010 recipient of the Professional Excellence Award from the Canadian Association of South Asian Lawyers; and the 2010 recipient of the Lawyer of the Year award from the South Asian Bar Association. In 2011, Professor Puri was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network.
Professor Puri is a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and is currently Chair of its Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee. She also sits on the Board of Directors of Women’s College Hospital and on the Board of Governors of Mount Sinai Hospital. She is a former member of the National Advisory Council for Statistics Canada.
Research Interests: Corporate/Commercial Law
