“Bricks and Sticks” are equally crucial to Canadian Success”

Founder and CEO, Promerita Group

Ernest is the founder and CEO of Promerita Group. His experience includes being a founding partner of one of the leading portfolio and wealth management practices at Canada’s largest bank-owned investment dealer and wealth management company. He also has an extensive track record of entrepreneurial success, having been instrumental in establishing several significant enterprises in Canada and abroad. Ernest’s professional experience encompasses corporate acquisitions, structured financial products, equity, and debt financing, international trade, real estate finance and development, business start-ups, and multi-asset class investments.

With his roots in family business, his experience in wealth management and as a multi-industry entrepreneur, coupled with his corporate and finance background, Ernest is frequently relied upon by corporations and private family groups to provide strategic business and financial advice and to develop effective risk management, capital allocation, and investment strategies. He has presented these strategies and provided comparative analysis at provincial accounting bodies, international financial industry conferences, global tax and legal firms and has been a university guest lecturer.  

Ernest has an extensive history of community service as a board director and committee member of a number of leading organizations including the provincial board of the Certified Management Accountants (CMA) of British Columbia where he participated in the original proposal to merge national accounting designations, the national government relations committee for Canada’s preeminent financial advisory advocacy and policy association, Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission as well as the Insurance Council of British Columbia.

Ernest believes that people and organizations that adopt an entrepreneurial, pragmatic, and businesslike approach to achieving their objectives maximize their likelihood of success. He also believes that leaders have a fundamental responsibility to expand the scope of their organizational purpose from just short-run financial profits and business (or political) objectives to include the long term well being of the individuals they lead and the society in which they operate. Ultimately, he believes that we all have a responsibility to care for each other, serve our community, and be good stewards of the world that we all share.

Strategic Advisor, Promerita Group

Partner, Fasken

Geoff Cowper Q.C. is a partner at Fasken, one of the largest business law firms in Canada with more than 700 lawyers and agents in ten offices on four continents. As the national leader of Fasken's Litigation and Dispute Resolution Group, he is one of Canada’s leading trial and appellate counsel and is internationally recognized as a leading jurist in a number of aspects of commercial law. Geoff’s appearances before the Supreme Court of Canada have included leading cases concerning banking, contracts, trusts as well as constitutional and civil rights. He has also been counsel in leading private and public cases in Canada and internationally. These cases include investor-sovereign state and international commercial arbitration matters and have led to significant decisions with national and international dimensions respecting commercial law, public law and human rights.

Geoff has served the community in leadership roles in law reform, legal aid, housing services to the homeless, and international economic development and conservation.

He is the leader of Fasken’s Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group and is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Geoff was named Canada’s “Trial Lawyer of the Year” by Benchmark Canada for 2016 and is repeatedly cited as a leading counsel in many areas of law by a number of the profession's leading ranking services including Chambers & Partners and Best Lawyers.   

In addition to bringing preeminent legal expertise to his role as a Strategic Advisor to Promerita Group, Geoff brings significant investment, commercial and strategic business insight from his many years serving as a board member or investment committee member of several prominent corporate and charitable boards both regionally and internationally. Geoff is passionate about sustainable economic development and the rule of law, and education. He believes bringing people, communities and sustainable business initiatives together in a way that benefits all stakeholders is critically important in improving our society and economy.

Geoff was raised on the outskirts of Calgary, Alberta, and attended the University of British Columbia to study ornithology, but got sidetracked on a bird walk and ended up graduating with a degree in Law. He received his QC (Queen’s Counsel) in 1997 and in 2012, at the request of the Province of British Columbia, Geoff conducted an independent review of that province’s judicial system.