Caribbean Canada Emerging Leaders Dialogue 2025 Chair Wes Hall, High Commissioner for Canada in the United Kingdom Ralph Goodale and President of the Duke of Edinburgh Commonwealth Study Conferences Canada Agnes Di Leonardi.Supplied
The organizer: Sandy Di Felice, Agnes Di Leonardi and a team of volunteers
The pitch: Raising around $1.5-million
The cause: The Caribbean Canada Emerging Leaders Dialogue 2025
After more than a decade as an executive in the Canadian auto sector, Sandy Di Felice was asked to join the board of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences Canada. But she wasn’t quite sure at first how the charity operated.
She’d been approached by the organization’s president Agnes Di Leonardi, who also held senior positions in the auto industry and shared Ms. Di Felice’s passion for leadership development.
“When I got onto this board, I’m like ‘What do you guys do? How do you do it?,’” Ms. Di Felice recalled from her home in Toronto. She quickly realized that the charity meshed perfectly with her interests.
It’s part of an international organization – the Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences – which the Duke set up 1956. The conferences are held every few years in various locations and they bring together aspiring leaders from a variety of fields to explore strategies and challenge assumptions. Since 1956, more than 8,000 people have participated.
Canada has hosted the international gathering several times including in 2023 when 248 delegates came from 35 Commonwealth countries.
“It really is about how do you bring people together to dialogue, to tear down their biases and their barriers to find the solutions to solve the problems?,” said Ms. Di Felice, 56, who is a consultant and an instructor at Centennial College and Seneca College.
The Canadian affiliate, which Ms. Di Leonardi co-founded, has hosted several regional events and in May, 2025, it’s holding the Caribbean Canada Emerging Leaders Dialogue. Around 110 delegates will gather in Toronto and travel to seven Caribbean countries for meetings and presentations. Princess Anne, who took over as president of the international charity after her father died in 2021, is expected to attend the closing plenary.
The Canadian board needs to raise around $1.5-million to cover the costs and the charity has received support from corporate sponsors including Power Corp. and Air Canada.
Ms. Di Felice said her involvement has only intensified her interest in leadership training. “I want to create great leaders,” she said. Not everyone can become a chief executive or a prime minister, she added, “but if somebody can develop a food bank in their community, develop a crisis hotline, or think about how they want to spend their time critically to create impact, I’m all in.”
Paul Waldie