Board of Directors
Marc Gingras, President
Marc is a Canadian entrepreneur and angel investor. In addition to being Chairman of Sopar, he is CEO of Foko – an Ottawa based startup. He sold his previous venture, Tungle.me to BlackBerry. He also teaches a course in Entrepreneurship at the Telfer School of Business. Marc has an MBA from INSEAD, a MASc in Management Sciences from the University of Waterloo and a BASc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ottawa.
Andre Bourassa, Vice-president
André has been a volunteer and Board member of SOPAR-Bala Vikasa for more than 30 years. Trained as an Engineer and an Economist, he mainly worked as a senior international policy and relations advisor for the Government of Canada. He did extensive work on the contribution of the mining sector to development in developing countries.
Veronique Gervais, Secretary
Veronique is a former high school teacher in Gatineau and has been working as a public servant for the Canadian Government for the last 15 years. In 2010, while studying at the University du Quebec en Outaouais, Veronique participated in a one month long CDD training program in India. It is then that she was first introduced to the Bala Vikasa family. She has remained actively involved by volunteering with SOPAR, by presenting our programs in different schools and raising money on her birthday. Veronique holds our mission dear to her heart, and to increase her support, she joined SOPAR’s board of directors during the summer of 2022.
Stephane Courtemanche, Administrator
M. Courtemanche has 30 years’ consulting experience in facilitation, coaching, conflict resolution, reconciliation and mediation. In the international field, he has worked on questions of decentralization and institutional capacity building, particularly with Morocco’s Ministries of Education and Interior, and with two large regional west African organizations: ECOWAS and the West African Economic and Monetary Union. M. Courtemanche holds a Graduate Certificate in International Development and a BA in Commerce from the University of Ottawa, and also studied Conflict Resolution at St-Paul University.
Louis Verret, Treasurer
Louis is originally from the Quebec region and holds a degree in Geography from Laval University. He is a proud father of a family of 6 children, including 5 daughters. For several years, he has been living in Chelsea and actively explores the trails of the Outaouais region through biking and hiking.
Professionally, he worked as a development officer at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for over 30 years, with several assignments abroad in countries like Cameroon, India, Brazil, and Mali. During his last assignments with Global Affairs Canada (GAC), he was responsible for programs in ‘fragile states’ facing security challenges, such as Haiti and Afghanistan, before being appointed as the Program Director for Development and Canadian Ambassador to Mali and Niger from 2017 to 2019.
In 2020, he retired from the federal government. From November 2021 to April 2022, he accepted an interim role as Chief of the GAC mission in Dakar, Senegal. He remains active in the development world through involvement with organizations like CECI, the Université de Sherbrooke, and the Canadian Ambassadors Alumni Association.