Robert Yalden (he/him) is the inaugural holder of the Stephen Sigurdson Professorship in Corporate Law and Finance at the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University.
Robert is a former Chair of the Board of Equitas (2007-13), has served as its Treasurer and continues to serve on a number of its Board Committees, including its Finance, Communications and Development, and Equity and Inclusion Committees.
Prior to joining Queen’s Law in 2018, Robert was a senior partner with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and an Adjunct Professor with McGill Law. After clerking for Justice Bertha Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada (1989-90), Robert was called to the Bar in Ontario (1991) and Quebec (1992). He joined Osler’s Toronto office in 1993 and was part of the team that opened Osler’s Montreal office in 2001. Fluently bilingual, he served in a number of senior positions during his 25 years with Osler, including as a member of Osler’s Executive Committee, as Co-Chair of Osler’s National Mergers and Acquisitions Group for over a decade and as the head of the Corporate Department in Osler’s Montreal office.
Why Equitas?
My involvement with Equitas is longstanding and is rooted in my family’s commitment to the values that it embodies. My passion for Equitas’s work continues to be fueled by the extraordinary impact that Equitas has both in Canada and internationally. It is a privilege to work with a diverse Board and a talented management team in helping the organization to grow and expand its impact, and over my almost two decades of involvement with Equitas I have seen it go from strength to strength. I have been particularly pleased both to see Equitas develop a broad range of domestic programming that now complements its deep and multi-faceted international programming, and to see significant growth in private sector funding for Equitas’ work together with the remarkable support we get from so many of our public sector partners. The field of human rights is one in which there is always more work to be done. I have long been, and continue to be, impressed with the tremendous depth of experience with human rights education that Equitas brings to the table.