Meet our CHI Family!
We are delighted to introduce our national team, located across the country in every community we serve.
Together, we deliver a consistent quality of service that you've come to expect from CHI. When you work with us, you can count on a friendly face to meet every host family and welcome every student to Canada.
At the same time, each individual is backed by the support of over 20 colleagues, more than half of whom have been with CHI for over 5 years.
Our combined experience of matching tens of thousands of students over the last 15 years lends our whole team the credibility and expertise that has earned us a reputation for excellence and professionalism that is unmatched in our industry.
Click on a region to see our local associates:
Toronto
| Area
| Photo |
Name |
About |
Contact |
| Toronto |  |
Christie Slocombe | Christie has worked with us since 1995. Christie's personality and experience as a teacher, homemaker and public service volunteer make her ideally suited to interview students and to select prospective hosts. She is well traveled and is as sensitive to the feelings of students and hosts as she is skilled in helping them to understand and accommodate the differences in their roles, customs and expectations. Christie has three grown children. | email Christie | Toronto |  |
Deirdre Lebel | Deirdre is an executive relationship manager in Toronto. She works with our students, hosts, clients, and overseas agents. Deirdre has extensive experience working with international students and has traveled around the globe. | email Deirdre |
| Toronto |  |
Emma Archer | Emma joined us in January 2010. She comes to us from a major independent language school in Toronto, where she worked for 7 years with agents, students and hosts. She has first-hand experience with every aspect of our market. Emma has travelled extensively across North America and the UK holding sales conferences and providing training seminars. Emma lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter. | email Emma | Toronto |  |
Jacqueline Kok | In addition to both publicly funded School Boards in Toronto, Jacqueline leads our Client Service Teams for Trent University, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and several international student education agencies. She also directs our national practice for students from Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China. Jacqueline was born in Malaysia and lived in the United Kingdom, before settling in Canada. She therefore identifies and is sympathetic with the challenges our students face and the value of our services, including our pre-departure orientation, to help manage the expectations of students and their parents alike. She has two adult sons. | email Jacqueline | Toronto |  |
Kathleen Knegt | Kathleen has been with CHI for 5 years. In that time she has contributed to our organization in so many ways, from matching and interviewing to management. Kathleen is now part of our Toronto team, overseeing all flight arrivals and departures and processing all applications in Toronto. Kathleen is a proud mother of two and has one lovely granddaughter. | email Kathleen |
| Toronto |  |
Dee-Anne Miles | Dee Anne has been involved in every aspect of our work with students and their hosts, as well as agents and several client School Districts. For several years, she directed the Client Service Team for one of our national Agents, providing direction and support to our colleagues in ten communities across four provinces. She now travels across the country on special projects focusing on host screening interviewing and due diligence, and presently oversees our Client Service Teams in Red Deer and Edmonton. Dee Anne's professional qualifications include special education for the hearing impaired and the supervision of volunteers in a national community service organization. Dee Anne has two grown children. | email Dee-Anne |
Ottawa & Upper Canada
| Area
| Photo |
Name |
About |
Contact |
Ottawa & Toronto |  |
Suzanne Hunter | Over the years, Suzanne developed the relationships we enjoy with our students and their hosts in Alliston, Innisfil, Barrie and Collingwood. In addition to the support she provides our students in the small towns in the Ontario Lake District, she also supports our teams in Ottawa and Toronto. We first met Suzanne and her family as hosts. Suzanne and her husband Brad have three lovely daughters. | email Suzanne |
| Ottawa |  |
Michelle Linnane | We first got to know Michelle and her family as hosts. She is naturally warm, energetic, interested in different cultures and gifted at making people feel at home. She supports our Algonquin College program, in addition to recruiting and interviewing new hosts, and managing student and host relationships, all while running a web-based small business and raising her two children. | email Michelle |
| Ottawa |  |
Brenda St. Jean | Based on our successful experience over almost ten years with the international student program of the Ottawa Carleton District School Board, Brenda now directs our national best practices team on high school students in our academic year programs (AYP). Brenda's previous commercial experience includes writing, editing and property management. We first got to know Brenda and her family as hosts. She and her husband Raymond have three children. | email Brenda |
| Ottawa |  |
Linda Russell | We first met Linda as a host. She has come on board our staff team as a relationship manager specializing in interviewing prospective new hosts. | email Linda |
| Brockville |  |
Nelson Williams | Nelson leads our Client Service Team for the Upper Canada District School Board, based in Brockville. In addition to managing our day-to-day relationships with hosts and their students, he plans and manages all aspects of our groups programs in the Thousand Islands. Prior to his work with CHI, Nelson graduated from McGill University with a certified management accounting degree. He has since been involved with international students for 20 years. His work in this field includes being a House Master in an independent boarding school in Quebec, and founding The Fulford Academy in Brockville. Nelson and his wife Diane have three sons. | email Nelson |
| Cornwall |  |
Brenda Manning | Brenda manages our student and host relationships in Cornwall and the small communities nearby Cornwall in Eastern Ontario. We first met Brenda as a host, who remains very interested in other cultures and has traveled extensively. Before joining our team, she had many years experience in day care and more recently developed and managed her own business in women's health and fitness. Brenda has one adult stepson, who now lives abroad. | email Brenda |
British Columbia
| Area
| Photo |
Name |
About |
Contact |
| Vancouver |  |
Diana Cirillo | Diana leads our Client Service Team and manages our day-to-day relationship for Coquitlam District School District 43; one of our multinational corporation clients; and several international student Agents (in Saudi Arabia and Mexico, for example) who we represent across the country. We first met Diana and her family as hosts. She and her husband Angelo have three young children. | email Diana |
| Victoria |  |
Sandrine Contant | Sandrine grew up on a small and quite isolated island in the Strait of Georgia. She manages our relationships with clients in Victoria and overseas to ensure their students enjoy their overall experience. Her previous commercial experience was as an entrepreneur, with her own business. She has three young children. | email Sandrine |
Alberta
| Area
| Photo |
Name |
About |
Contact |
| Edmonton |  |
Jocelyn Kaiser | Jocelyn returned to Canada last spring from five years in Korea where she was responsible for the Elite English Program at The Foreign Language Education Centre of Sungshin Women's University in Seoul. She now helps to manage our relationships with the students enrolled in the Edmonton Public and Edmonton Catholic School Districts. | email Jocelyn | Edmonton |  |
George Fu | George and his family came to Canada some years ago from the People's Republic of China (PRC). After working with a local immigration and settlement firm, he established his own international student agency serving such clients as Edmonton Public Schools (EPS), Grant MacEwan University and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). George now leads our Client Service Teams for EPS and ECS. In addition, he works with Jacqueline to provide direction and support to all our students from the PRC. | email George |
| Red Deer |  |
Ashley Guenther | We first met Ashley and her family as hosts, following our selection last March as the Homestay Service Provider to Red Deer Public School District 104 (RDPSD) and Red Deer Catholic Regional District (RDCRD). Ashley provides local orientation and support to RDPSD and RDCRD students and their hosts, as well as recruiting additional hosts, to support the further growth of both programs. | email Ashley |
| Red Deer |  |
Llona Ford | We met Llona through her daughter Ashley. They now work together, supporting each another in every aspect of our work in Red Deer, focusing on new host recruitment and due diligence. She and her family are naturally welcoming and outgoing and take a personal interest in the life of all of our students, at school and in the community. | email Llona |
New Brunswick
| Area
| Photo |
Name |
About |
Contact |
| Fredericton |  |
Pamela Harvey | Pam joined the CHI team in March, 2010. Her 35 years as a teacher and guidance counselor in Fredericton bring a wealth of experience and knowledge of the needs and feelings of students and parents. Her responsibilities as a Relationship Manager involve recruiting and interviewing new hosts, managing student and host relationships and providing custodianship to Canada Homestay students in School District 18. Since her retirement in 2006, she has worked as a Language Assessment Examiner for School District 18 International Student Program. She is well aware of the challenges our international students face as they embark on an exciting educational journey in Fredericton. Pam and her husband Scott have three grown children and two adorable grandchildren. | email Pamela |
Nationwide
| Area
| Photo |
Name |
About |
Contact |
| Nationwide |  |
Jennifer Wilson | Jennifer leads our Executive Committee and overseas our client programs and services in Western Canada, based in Victoria. In addition, she manages our Best Practices process, which supports our nationally recognized due diligence and is the Director responsible for our corporate learning processes, intellectual property, human resources and technology. Her experience in the development, codification and training in best practices is based on her professional qualifications as a Registered Midwife, first in Manitoba (where she was recruited to help establish the profession, as part of the province's overall health care system) and now British Columbia. Jennifer has two young children. | email Jennifer |
| Igloolik |  |
Nathan Speedie | Nathan joined our team last year after returning to Canada from teaching ESL abroad, first in Korea, then in Mexico. He therefore understands first-hand the challenges that our international students face in adjusting to different cultures, customs and languages. With CHI, Nathan supports his team nationwide in various capacities including technical support, community development, and communications development. | email Nathan |
| Nationwide |  |
Cathy Jordan | Cathy is responsible for our record keeping and financial relationships with students, agents, hosts and client educators, based on her many years experience in banking. She is also responsible for the on-going development and integrity of our very reliable and user-friendly computer systems, including our proprietary database, which provides real time access to many clients and any member of our team worldwide, through our wide area network. Cathy is well traveled, with family overseas. | |
| Nationwide |  |
Robin and Fraser Wilson | Robin Wilson founded Homestay Toronto Limited (HTL) in 1995 and later with her husband Fraser,
The Canada Homestay Network Inc. and Canada Homestay International (CHI). Robin's experience in tourism
and hospitality includes over ten years as the innkeeper of Robin's Nest Bed & Breakfast. Previously, Robin
was a Director and then Chair and President of what is now called the Toronto Botanical Gardens.
As our Managing Director, Robin's responsibilities include overall client satisfaction, risk management,
quality assurance and policy. She also maintains our human resources and student insurance programs,
which include recruitment and due diligence; new associate orientation and training; our periodic appraisal processes;
and our benefits program.
Fraser focuses on policy and strategy, client relationships management and business development.
Before becoming a Partner of what is now Ernst & Young, Fraser worked in general management,
marketing, business development and finance, in several industries in Canada, England and the United States.
Fraser and Robin have three children and four grandchildren. |