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Sanjay Dhebar is Managing Partner at Leonnova and an award-winning faculty member and facilitator at the Schulich School of Business, York University. For more than a decade, he has served as a CIFFA instructor, developing and leading two courses within the CIFFA/Schulich Management Program: Selling Strategies for Logistics Professionals and Building a Strong Customer Service Culture for Your Organization. Through this long-standing relationship, Sanjay has helped freight-forwarding and logistics professionals strengthen their commercial capabilities, customer relationships, and leadership effectiveness.

With more than 20 years of experience as a commercial leader, educator, executive coach, and strategic advisor, Sanjay has worked with organizations across a wide range of sectors and industries. He has taught and delivered keynote presentations to leaders and professionals around the world, bringing a global perspective to his work. Known for his engaging and highly practical approach, Sanjay combines real-world business experience with academic rigour and evidence-based management principles, translating complex ideas into tools that leaders can immediately apply.

Sanjay is the creator of The Business Workout, an applied approach that helps leaders accelerate growth, align their teams, and improve organizational performance. He is also the author of Toolbox for Performance-Driven Leaders, which complements his executive education programs, leadership workshops, and keynote presentations.

A committed community and governance leader, Sanjay is a recipient of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Award. He previously served as Board Chair of the Education Quality and Accountability Office and as a director with Toronto Metropolitan University and the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Stevenson Memorial Hospital.

Ms. Snowden was CIFFA’s Executive Director from 2008 to 2019, representing the freight forwarding industry in the Canadian and global arenas. During her 27 years in the international freight forwarding industry she held several senior operational, sales and executive roles. She is actively engaged with the Canada Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) eManifest initiatives, contributes to Transport Canada programs, leads many of CIFFA’s Working Groups and is a frequent guest speaker at industry events. In retirement, Ms. Snowden continues to be a key contributor to the content creation and update of all CIFFA textbooks and educational material, along with teaching a variety of instrumental industry courses.

Mr. Sivière has been involved with CIFFA since 2010 as a lecturer as well as a valuable industry expert resource. He holds the accredited trainer designation issued by the Québec Ministry of Employment. Mr. Sivière looks back to over 35 years in international freight forwarding. His career began in Bordeaux, France, and continued in Canada (first in Halifax, then in Montréal). He has been involved in imports and exports via all modes of transport, in operations, sales and management positions, working as a consultant and in multinational freight forwarding companies.

CIFFA relies on Ms. Plumley’s expertise in process management and training while continuously working on improving CIFFA’s education programs.

Ms. Plumley has been working at Kuehne + Nagel International Inc. as the Canadian National User and System Coordinator, the National Training and Quality Manager and the National Route Development Manager South America.

Currently Ms. Plumley manages the sea freight process for North America creating processes to ensure optimal standards are set and followed.

Ms. McKay has been a valuable resource for the education team at CIFFA and has provided her expertise in the writing of the Customs section of the CIFFA textbook.

Ms. McKay’s first job was at a small company called Dawson Customs Brokerage. After writing her customs brokers license, she managed both, the Interport Truck Terminal brokerage business and the Pearson Airport brokerage business, and later became the quality and training manager, developing and delivering courses in skills, product and systems and trained hundreds of employees from all parts of the logistics chain.

Ms. McKay is currently analyzing the brokerage and freight forwarding operations and identifying and implementing efficiency gains in the Industrial Engineering Department of UPS Supply Chain Solutions.

Stephen McDermott brings over 25 years of experience in learning and development, with deep expertise in digital learning strategy and instructional design, including 14 years with CIFFA. He currently serves as Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at TraversEd. Stephen is an IATA-certified instructor and has extensive experience designing and delivering multimodal Dangerous Goods training programs for global logistics professionals, spanning air, ocean, and ground transport.

Mr. Magrath regularly appears as a CIFFA lecturer on transportation law and legal liability. He has also been a valuable resource in reviewing CIFFA’s education material. 

Mr. Magrath obtained his Bachelor of Laws from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and his degree in Commerce and Philosophy from Queen’s University.

He became one of two founders of Magrath O’Connor LLP and he is now a solicitor at Magrath’s International Legal Counsel. He is also the General Editor at Forwarderlaw.com.

Mr. Magrath is a civil and commercial litigator focusing on maritime, admiralty and transportation law, representing forwarders, carriers, ship owners, and cargo interests in litigation and dispute resolution before the Superior and Federal Courts.

Mr. Grootarz’s extensive travels all over the world and his experience in moving freight to these areas have made him a valuable resource for CIFFA.  He is an instrumental contributor to the content in CIFFA textbooks.

Mr. Grootarz started his professional forwarding career in 1964 in Germany.  After his immigration to Canada, he worked for freight forwarding companies in Montreal and Toronto.  In 1993 he started his own shipping agency specializing in liner representation of the newly independent Baltic States and in 2004 he founded another company specializing in transporting over dimensional and heavy cargoes to remote areas of the world. He is passionate about the yearly Young International Freight Forwarder of the year award (YIFFA), and assists in the creation of the dissertation question each year, while also providing feedback to each student. Mr Grootarz is also on the selection committee for the YIFFA.