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MCBC, as a corporation, is governed by a board of eight directors. The makeup includes five voting directors, all of whom are independent of the Shareholder, and three non-voting directors, with one each representing council, elder and youth constituencies of MCFN. While these ‘constituency’ directors do not vote in board meetings, their ability to move and second board motions ensures their voices are heard and their constituencies are represented.
The corporation, through the board of directors, is responsible to its shareholder, MCFN, through its annual general meetings.
Dion Willier
President and CEO
Dion Willier,a member of the Sucker Creek First Nation in northern Alberta, is the President and CEO Mississaugas of the Credit Business Corporation (MCBC). His distinguished business career encompasses two decades of steadfast dedication to First Nations economic development, including progressively increasing management responsibilities with Indigenous Services Canada (Ottawa), Enbridge Pipelines (Alberta and Ontario), WorleyParsons (globally) and, most recently, O’Chiese Business and Investment Center (Alberta). He also has enjoyed success as a respected management consultant. Throughout his career, he has gained broad, hands-on business management and transaction experience in the resource sector, infrastructure development and construction, emerging businesses, on and off-reserve business growth, and the range of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and limited partnerships. Well-versed in dealing with the issues that face First Nations economic prosperity, Dion is also deeply committed to the cultivation of meaningful relationships with the business community, industry organizations, governments and First Nations. This pursuit is all driven by a desire to ensure both the realization of the organization’s business objectives and the promotion of economic reconciliation in Canada. A graduate of the College of San Mateo (California), which he attended on a baseball scholarship, his path in the business community epitomizes a harmonious blend of tradition, leadership, innovation, and enterprise.
Neil Freeman
Director, Board Chair and Acting Chair of Audit Committee
Neil is CEO of NBF Group Inc., an energy sector business and market development consultancy. His long career in Ontario’s electric industry covered a succession of big-picture, industry-changing initiatives and innovations. He worked in corporate strategic planning during the breakup of Ontario Hydro, distribution business development during Hydro One Networks’ acquisition of 88 municipal utilities, the reintroduction of power system planning with the newly created Ontario Power Authority, and the creation of the second largest municipally owned utility in North America while at Horizon Utilities. He is most proud of having received the Canadian Electricity’s first Sustainability Leadership award, having earned a Canadian Urban Institute Brownfield Award, and being named a Privacy by Design Ambassador by Ontario’s privacy commissioner for his work on ‘big data’ projects. Neil graduated with a BA and MA from University of Waterloo, a PhD from University of Toronto, and a Chartered Director designation from McMaster University. He is the author of The Politics of Power: Ontario Hydro and its Government, 1906-95.
Warren Sault
Director, Chair of Audit Committee (on leave)
Warren Sault, B.A., E.E.T., is a Project Manager for First Nations Engineering Services Ltd. and a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Warren graduated Summa Cum Laude from McMaster University with a B.A. in Sociology. He has served as the Executive Director of MCFN and as the Economic Development Policy Analyst with the Chiefs of Ontario. Warren is the current Chairperson for Two Rivers Community Development Centre (TRCDC), an Aboriginal Financial Institution serving the business developmental lending needs for members of Six Nations, MCFN, and aboriginal clients within the Brant, Hamilton, and Greater Toronto areas. Warren is also a former Chair of the Board for the National Aboriginal Capital Corporation Association, an association of Aboriginal Financial Institution from across Canada.
Scott, a graduate of Carleton University, has the distinction of having both been Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, where he was instrumental in the development of the Government’s response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and a policy advisor to National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine, where he helped conceptualize and negotiate the Kelowna Accord. His 30-year career in the federal public service included being Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs, and President of the Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC), where, leading a period of human resource modernization, he was one of two Champions for Values and Ethics in the Public Service. Since retirement Scott has, among his many assignments, served as a board member and chair of the Institute of Governance and a member of the Auditor General’s Advisory Committee on Aboriginal Issues.
William is a senior executive at Canderel, a national real estate development and management company. Since 2016 he has served as project CEO for the Canderel subsidiary, Taza Development Corporation, and led a team responsible for one of the largest master-planned development projects located on First Nation land in partnership with Tsuut’ina. Spanning 1,200 acres that are adjacent to southwest Calgary, this $15 billion project is governed by Tsuut’ina jurisdiction and is being built out over the next 20 years. A seasoned and results driven leader with over 30 years of experience, William has an extensive background in real estate transactions and platform development, including having been active in every major city in Canada. He graduated from the University of Calgary Haskayne School of Business with a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree and completed several executive and leadership programs including Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Real Estate Program).
Lauren is a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. For several years, she been a policy advisor to Nishnawbe Aski Nation, the political body representing 39 First Nation communities across Treaty 9 and Treaty 5 in northern Ontario. Her career has also included Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, where she supported the Health Director and nine Program Managers, Indigenous Sport and Wellness Ontario, and a research assistant to the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice Indigenous at Osgoode Hall Law School. Lauren, who is currently enrolled in the accelerated MBA program of the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, is a graduate of Conestoga College’s program in International Business Management and Rotman School of Business’s Negotiations Program.
Jesse Herkimer
Director (Non-Voting Council Representative)
Jesse is an elected councilor of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, where he leads the Inclusive Prosperity, Economic Growth and Job Creation portfolio for his council colleagues. Over the two-plus decades of his business career, he has made his mark in both real estate and equity investing, as well as in the bulk raw material delivery industry where he sailed the world as a wheelsman on lake freighters. With this experience in hand and politics running in the family through his grandfather’s long tenure on MCFN council, he met the call of using his skills and experience in service to the community and its members. Success for him is measured by the prosperity that can be generated from the opportunities across MCFN’s traditional and treaty territory and the economic growth closer to home.
Margaret Sault
Director (Non-Voting Elder Representative)
Margaret Sault, a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and a former elected councilor, served as the Director of Lands, Memberships and Research of MCFN for an astonishing 46 years, from 1977 until her retirement in 2023. During that time, she was on the negotiating teams responsible for successfully resolving four land claims, including the Toronto Purchase Settlement. In her service to MCFN, she was also deeply involved in developing numerous educational publications and the recent “Sacred Trust” video, all of which have been used to bring broader awareness to the rich history of MCFN. Following the enshrinement of a ‘duty to consult’ in the Canadian Constitution, Margaret helped in the creation of the Department of Consultation and Accommodation in 2015 and, more recently, the creation of the Governance Department for MCFN. While now retired, Margaret continues to be active as a personal support worker, a second career she has undertaken since graduating as a PSW in 2009.
James Lemoine
Director (Non-Voting Youth Representative)
James, a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at McMaster University, where he has a passion for studying heat enhancement and control and energy systems more broadly. At McMaster, where he also received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, he is very involved supporting the needs of Indigenous students in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and also serves as President of the university’s chapter of the American Indian in Science and Engineering Society. In his service to the community more generally, James is a volunteer at the Hamilton Regional Indian Center, where he helps elders with technology issues, and a volunteer with Clean Air Hamilton, where he ensures Indigenous values are followed in public programing.
