-DEBRA FRIEDMAN is an established and internationally exhibited photographer and educator living in Toronto, Canada. She has a BFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and an MFA from The Chicago Art Institute. She is the recipient of numerous visual arts awards from The Polaroid Corporation, The Canada Council and The Ontario Arts Council and has enjoyed several artists’residencies, notably at The Hambidge Centre in Rabuns Gap, Georgia and at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art.
-Tom Butterfield is founder and executive director of the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art. He graduated from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, in1976 and received a Canada Council Grant for photography before moving back to his homeland, Bermuda. In 1987. There, he started Masterworks Museum based on the notion that if Winslow Homer and other world prominent artists came to the island to create work, many other visual artists may have been inspired by the island as well. Today, the collection of over 1500 artworks including painting, drawing, sculpture and photography is housed in a state-of-the-art museum in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens attracting thousands of visitors each year.
-The Hon. Dame Pamela Gordon Banks DBE, JP
Dame Pamela Gordon Banks was the first woman, and youngest person, ever to serve as the Premier of Bermuda. As head of state, Dame Pamela led a Cabinet that fostered the continued growth of international business and educational advancement, during which Bermuda experienced unrivalled prosperity. Knighted by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, for service to her country, Dame Pamela helped to unify Bermuda with Britain’s other Overseas Territories, and marshalled their representatives in negotiations with the UK Government. Her years of public service brought Dame Pamela together with leaders as diverse as Benazir Bhutto, Fidel Castro, Eugenia Charles, Jean Chretien, Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. In more than 14 years in politics, Dame Pamela served in such varied positions as Premier, Leader of the Opposition, Minister of the Environment & Natural Resources, Minister of Youth & Sport, and Member of Parliament. To promote responsible governance, Dame Pamela has debated politics everywhere from CNN to the Oxford Union to Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government to the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. As a Fellow of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, Dame Pamela has extensively lectured university students keen to practice “the art of the possible”. Dame Pamela champions a vision of hope grounded in economic reality. She draws on the knowledge gained from earning her MBA at Queen’s University to advocate her vision with fellow members of the Council of Women World Leaders and the Global Leaders of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum.
