James Boothroyd, Principal

If, as an airport security officer, you unzipped the wheely suitcase of James Boothroyd, various hats would spill out:

• Wooly toque: Jim (as most people know him) is Canadian – loves nose icicles, black flies and k.d. lang’s Juno Awards rendition of “Hallelujah.”

• Grass-stained ballcap: in his childhood/youth, little Jimmy ran successful summer gardening and painting businesses.

• Mortarboards: for degrees in History (BA, Simon Fraser), Spanish (Dip., Seville), Latin American Studies (MPhil, St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge), International Journalism (MA, City University of London) — one too many, some say.

• Fedora with PRESS label wedged into ribbon: Jim began as a reporter, feature writer and editor for British and Canadian media — minor (Police Review, McGill News) and major (daily papers, The Independent, London, and The Gazette, Montreal).

• Blue beret: fluent in French and Spanish, Jim has worked for UN and government agencies such as the World Health Organization; Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and German Technical Cooperation (an arm of the German government) in Switzerland, Peru, Cameroon and elsewhere.

Now, though, Jim is best known for his communications and engagement expertise at the busy intersection of public health and environmental issues.

As its director of communications and engagement, he led the largest department of the David Suzuki Foundation (2010–2012) in spearheading a major shift away from conventional advocacy (publishing reports, meeting with deputy ministers) toward public engagement (listening to and agreeing on solutions with tens of thousands of Canadians, including many who may not consider themselves “environmentalists”).

His clients since then have included the Canadian HIV Trials Network, WHO and the University of British Columbia’s Peter Wall Institute for Scholars, as well as leading environmental groups.

In 2016, James co-founded EcoAnalytics with Québec’s largest environmental NGO, Equiterre. The cooperative market research initiative aims to support Canada’s environmental movement, and is supported by a coalition of leading environmental groups — Greenpeace, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, etc — top university researchers, and philanthropic funders.

He is also the author of Project Green Bloc, sponsored by the Vancouver Foundation and Evergreen, which tests novel approaches (household ecological footprint surveys, dialogues, collective action) for mobilizing neighbourhoods to address hyper-consumption and climate change.

Off the job, Jim is regularly seen sporting a yellow latex swim cap (hideously early in the morning, doing lengths), a bike helmet (later, commuting), and chef's hat (later still and more occasionally, cooking for his family).

Oh, and did we mention he can dance merengue, hat-less?

Seriously though, his professional associates are even more talented. These include Susan Mavor, Public Communications (design) and Neil McBean of Rival Schools (digital marketing). For more on them, see Associates.