Board of Directors

Intellectual Property Ontario (IPON) is a board-governed provincial agency, with appointments made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council on recommendation of the Minister of Colleges and Universities. IPON’s Board of Directors consists of a diverse group of industry and IP experts to guarantee successful direction for the organization as it scales.

Board of Directors
Team
IP Advisory Panel

Karima Bawa

Board Chair

  • Karima has extensive expertise on the commercialization of university research and development, and capacity building in intellectual property (IP) strategy for Canadian innovators. Along with Myra Tawfik, Karima developed a massive open online course titled, “Foundations of IP Strategy” and authored the book The Intellectual Property Guide: IP Literacy and Strategy Basics for Supporting Innovation (2019).

    For the past several years, Karima has been involved in various initiatives designed to help organizations better protect and leverage their IP rights including serving as an expert on the Standards Council of Canada Technical Committee, where she represented Canada’s interests in the development of the IP Management Standard (ISO 50505). Karima also serves on several boards, and advises and supports technology start-ups and scale-ups. She is a scholar-in-residence at the University of Windsor’s Law and Technology Lab, where she has been involved in interdisciplinary studies related to IP literacy. Karima is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

    Karima was the chief legal officer and general counsel at Research In Motion (BlackBerry). In the 12 years she served there, she was a valued member of the senior leadership team and oversaw a global legal team. She was also a member of various strategic and operational senior management committees. Karima is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s executive M.B.A. program and B.Sc. program. She also attained a law degree from the University of British Columbia and is a graduate of the Rotman Directors Education Program.

Maura Campbell

Board Member

  • Dr. Maura Campbell is the President and CEO of the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO®), a not-for-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to advancing health technology innovation and commercialization. Dr. Campbell has more than 30 years of experience in all key areas of biotech, including private and public companies, universities and research institutes, and government-funded public sector research organizations.

    With expertise in technology transfer and commercialization of intellectual property, Dr. Campbell has held various roles in senior management, most recently as the Vice-President of Intellectual Property and Contracts for Turnstone Biologics, which recently went public on the NASDAQ. Previously, Dr. Campbell served as: Director, Intellectual Property at VBI Vaccines; Research Program Manager, and Manager of Technology Transfer & Commercialization at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Director of Intellectual Property for PainCeptor Pharma Corporation; and Manager of Technology Transfer at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems National Centre of Excellence. Dr. Campbell has also served as an IP consultant to a number of Canadian start-ups including Neurochem, Conjuchem, Aonix, AMRIC and Sussex Research Labs.

    Dr. Campbell received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Ottawa, and an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in biochemistry from Queen’s University in Kingston.

Elliot Fung

Board Member

  • Currently the Executive Director at the Medical Innovation Xchange (MIX), Elliot is a passionate supporter of the local technology ecosystem, and an experienced community leader. Over the past 20 years, Elliot has held various executive roles helping to advance the local technology ecosystem. He was Vice President, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Ontario Health where he brokered relationships between health service providers and the robust tech and social innovation communities in Waterloo, evangelizing new health technologies, processes and social innovations and helping health service providers adopt and pilot new innovations. He spent seven years at BlackBerry where he held various strategic positions helping to adopt and commercialize enterprise-level technology to some of BlackBerry’s largest global partners and has also served two terms on municipal council in the Township of Wilmot and one term as the Vice Chairperson of the Waterloo Regional School Board. Elliot studied Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Karen McClure

Board Member

  • Karen McClure has extensive experience helping IP-rich Canadian companies grow and scale through business models and commercial offerings that are underpinned by robust IP and data strategies. She learned the strategic value of IP very early in her career and continues to apply this learning and experience in leadership roles domestically and internationally. With a professional background in healthcare, technology, management consulting and financial services, Karen has led many “first ever” initiatives in the public, private and non-for-profit sectors.

    In her current role as Chief Investment Officer at the Digital Global Innovation Cluster, Karen helps bring together businesses, academia, community and government to collaboratively develop and commercialize Canadian-owned digital technology solutions around the world.

    Karen studied Mathematics and Business Administration at the University of Waterloo. She acts as an advisor to the National Research Council and serves her community as a Board Member of Halton Healthcare.