Juanita Lee-Garcia is currently the Executive Director of the Upside Foundation. For five years, she led Venture for Canada’s partnership, social innovation and marketing teams, scaling the organization by 3172% growth in expenditures on charitable activities as a key member of the leadership team serving more than 5000 Canadian youth with 87% of participants expressing increasing career outcomes at 100% satisfaction rate.

Before her not-for-profit career, Juanita had a dual career in sales and academics. Previously, she worked in tech at Loopio in its bootstrapped stage and retail for Aritzia across sales management roles for over nine years.

She holds a BFA from Queen’s University, an MFA from Western University, and an MEd in Higher Leadership and Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto, OISE. She has presented her academic research across Canada and the US.

Juanita is a Latinx refugee-migrant first-generation settler in Canada, an artist, and an educator interested in the intersection of innovation, philanthropy, and large-scale systems change.