A native of California, Roger D. Friesen has combined a career in international business with a passion for humanitarian work.

The son of missionary parents in Latin America, Friesen spent his childhood in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. After graduating from Fresno Pacific University with a major in Business Administration, he returned to Colombia with Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), establishing an early micro-financing model to assist small business owners and entrepreneurs in Colombia and Panama, cementing his belief that business can, and must, drive a community’s well being.

Returning to Fresno Pacific University as Director of Development, he drove recruitment and established an innovative fund-raising program to solidify the university’s constituent support. Locating to Canada, he led marketing for Palliser Furniture, expanding sales into the US market and later helped reposition the company to compete with Asian import values. His work with mega-brand Universal Furniture played a key role in its sale to China’s largest furniture manufacturer and exporter.

Friesen is currently founder and president of Casana Furniture—a leading importer of contemporary wood furniture for home, with operations in Winnipeg, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Over his career, Friesen has been both a strategic thinker and a change agent. His successes owe to his ability to define and implement a viable business model based on market realities, and to maintain a clear focus on priorities.

Friesen’s passion for business development has run parallel to his interest in a range of philanthropic causes. Having focused efforts and raised awareness—in addition to millions of dollars—for educational, medical and developmental enterprises, he’s a sought-after advisor. He has served as board co-chair for the furniture chapter of City of Hope (a leading research hospital for cancer and diabetes in Duarte, CA) and board chair for Ten Thousand Villages, where he recently led the retailer’s successful turn-around.

Friesen currently serves on boards for EQ3 Ltd, Palliser Furniture, LCC International University, City of Hope, American Furniture Hall of Fame, and Premier’s Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).

Sarah J. Smith is founder and president of Sarah’s Hope Jewelry, a for-profit company started in 2004 to fund non-profit organizations that provide small business microloans and training for women in the USA and developing world. Each piece of jewelry in the line is inspired by and named after a woman entrepreneur who is striving to overcome poverty through small business ownership. Smith travels to meet many of these microloan and small business training recipients and has seen first-hand the issues these women face as well as the importance of micro credit and small business training in their business success.

Smith’s Hope is based on Biblical principles that honour God and keeps the interests of customers, producers, and people in impoverished situations at heart. The domestic and international supply chains are managed in-house with concentrated work in the 10/40 window where Business As Mission (BAM) remains central to the work that is done.

Smith combines a background in business and pastoral ministries that shapes the mission and message of Sarah’s Hope Jewelry. She has experience in corporate America, with Ford Motor Company, and has owned three businesses, the first started at age 14. She is an ordained pastor and has served as both a church planter and as a pastor of an established congregation. Smith has a Doctorate of Theology in Homiletics (University of Toronto, Canada), a Master of Theology in Homiletics (Princeton), a Master of Divinity (Southern Seminary) and a Bachelor of Business Administration (University of Wisconsin-Madison).

Business Bio: Sarah’s Hope Jewelry is a socially responsible company whose proceeds fund small-business microloans and training for women in the developing world and in the USA who are overcoming poverty through small business ownership. Each piece in our line is inspired by—and named after—these women entrepreneurs. The line features pendants, earrings, bracelets and rings, set with E’Sperene stones in rhodium plated sterling silver.

The son of Russian immigrants, Mr. Arthur A. DeFehr, O.C., is an extraordinary businessman, humanitarian, and philanthropist who has bettered the lives of others in Manitoba and around the world.

The holder of an MBA degree from Harvard Business School (1967), he is the CEO of family-owned Palliser Furniture in Winnipeg. Palliser operates in Canada, United States, Mexico and Indonesia with over 2,000 employees. It is one of Canada's greatest success stories in furniture manufacturing.

DeFehr currently is or has been a member of the Trilateral Commission, YPO/WPO, the World Economic Forum, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Member of Sagit and later Itac during period when FTA and later NAFTA were being discussed, Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, and former Chair of the Business Council of Manitoba and member of the boards of Canadian Mennonite University, LCC International University, IDE Canada, and the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre.

Dedicated to alleviating global poverty and hunger, DeFehr was a founding Chair of Board, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB), Past President of International Development Enterprises (IDE), and the founder and Chair of the Soviet Union Network established to promote links between church-related entrepreneurs in the Soviet Union and the West.

He has served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to Somalia and played a critical role in organizing the cross-border program for Cambodia, promoted business ethics in the former Soviet Union and served as the First Director of the Mennonite Central Committee agriculture and refugee program in Bangladesh.

Additionally, DeFehr served as strategic advisor to the Asia Pacific Gateway Corridor Initiative, Co-Chair of Manitoba International Gateway Council, and was Honorary Conference Chair of North America's SuperCorridor Coalition.

DeFehr played a pivotal role in creating the Lithuania Christian College in Russia and the Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

DeFehr's recent interests have focused on immigration policy for Manitoba and Canada with active participation on international policy.