Maya Roy is a seasoned policy maker and trilingual non-profit leader with over 20 years of experience in a range of sectors including child care, employment and workforce development, health care, immigration and settlement and the women’s sector. She speaks English, French, and Bengali.
Roy is currently the CEO of YWCA Canada, the nation’s largest and oldest gender equity organization. She served as Strategic Co-Lead on A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada: Making the Economy Work for Everyone, the first nationally-focused plan of its kind in the world.
Experienced in Canadian public policy development and global diplomacy, Roy has served on a range of committees and taskforces providing expert council to decision makers and elected officials. Roy served on the 2018 Gender Equality Advisory Council during Canada’s G7 Presidency and was the Co-Chair of the Future of Jobs Working Group. In 2019, she was a member of Canada’s official delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Roy currently serves on the board of Women’s College Hospital and is a member of Canada’s Expert Data Panel on Early Learning and Child Care.
She has also worked internationally in Brazil, India, Thailand, and the U.K. in human rights and violence prevention.
Her contributions have been recognized nationally and internationally. Roy was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has been a recipient of many honours including being named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40, Toronto Community Foundation’s Vital People, and has received the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA)’s Gender Equity Advocate Award.
Roy holds a Masters degree in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics, a Bachelors degree in Social Work from Ryerson University, and has completed the 2019 European Union’s Cultural Diplomacy Leadership Program.
Watch a recording of this session, hosted by University Librarian Selinda Berg: