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Roman Dubczak is Deputy Chair in the Office of the CEO at CIBC. He oversees strategic client and stakeholder relationships and acts as a senior strategic advisor to CIBC’s CEO. Mr. Dubczak joined the bank in 1992 and has worked in a variety of capital markets roles, having previously led CIBC’s Global Investment Banking, Global Equities, Equity Capital Markets and Corporate Debt Origination businesses. Mr. Dubczak is the current Chair of the Board of Directors for CIBC Mellon Trust Company and serves on the board of CIBC World Markets Inc.
Roman is a past Chair and remains a board member of the St. Joseph’s Health Centre Foundation. Currently he also Co-Chairs the Build Extraordinary capital campaign in support of a major addition to the hospital. In the past, Roman has also been a director and volunteer of many community organizations, most notably in Toronto’s Ukrainian community. Roman is a past Chair of the Investment Industry Association of Canada (IIAC) and is currently a member of the Dean’s Global Advisory Council at the Schulich School of Business. In June of 2025, Roman was awarded the King Charles III Coronation medal, recognizing his community service.
Roman was appointed by the Canadian Government in June 2024 as Canada’s representative to the Business Advisory Council of the Ukraine Donor Platform, a group of private sector businesspeople advising on the reconstruction and rebuilding of the Ukrainian economy.
Roman holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto and a Master of Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business, as well as CA, CPA, CFA, and ICD.D designations.
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the Soviet Union in 1963, Garry Kasparov became the under-18 chess champion of the USSR at the age of 12 and the world under-20 champion at 17. He came to international fame at the age of 22 as the youngest world chess champion in history in 1985. He defended his title five times, including a legendary series of matches against arch-rival Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov broke Bobby Fischer’s rating record in 1990 and his own peak rating record remained unbroken until 2013. His famous matches against the IBM super-computer Deep Blue in 1996-97 were key to bringing artificial intelligence, and chess, into the mainstream.
Kasparov’s was one of the first prominent Soviets to call for democratic and market reforms and was an early supporter of Boris Yeltsin’s push to break up the Soviet Union. In 1990, he and his family escaped ethnic violence in his native Baku as the USSR collapsed. In 2005, Kasparov, in his 20th year as the world’s top-rated player, retired from professional chess to join the vanguard of the Russian pro-democracy movement. In 2012, Kasparov was named chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Vaclav Havel. HRF promotes individual liberty worldwide and organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. Facing imminent arrest during Putin’s crackdown, Kasparov moved from Moscow to New York City in 2013.
The US-based Kasparov Chess Foundation non-profit promotes the teaching of chess in education systems around the world. Its program already in use in schools across the United States, KCF also has centers in Brussels, Johannesburg, Singapore, and Mexico City. Garry and his wife Daria travel frequently to promote the proven benefits of chess in education and have toured Africa extensively.
Kasparov has been a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal since 1991 and is a regular commentator on politics and human rights. He speaks frequently to business and political audiences around the world on technology, strategy, politics, and achieving peak mental performance. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford-Martin School with a focus on human-machine collaboration. He’s a member of the executive advisory board of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics and a Security Ambassador for Avast Software, where he discusses cyber security and the digital future. Kasparov’s book How Life Imitates Chess on strategy and decision-making is available in over 20 languages. He is the author of two acclaimed series of chess books, My Great Predecessors and Modern Chess. Kasparov’s 2015 book, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped is a blend of history, memoire, and current events analysis.
Kasparov’s next book is Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. (May 2017) It details his matches against Deep Blue, his years of research and lectures on human and machine competition and collaboration, and his cooperation with the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. He says,
“AI will transform everything we do and we must press forward ambitiously in the one area robots cannot compete with humans: in dreaming big dreams. Our machines will help us achieve them. Instead of worrying about what machines can do, we should worry more about what they still cannot do.”
The definition of a rebel is someone who goes against the grain. For close to forty years now, Blue Rodeo has taken the road less travelled – and succeeded far beyond anyone’s expectations. The band emerged in the early 80’s as a countrified rock band in the era of hair metal and glossy pop. Despite sticking out like a sore thumb (or maybe because of it), their single “Try” became omni-present on radio across Canada and set in motion a three decade long career of headlining every club, theatre and arena in Canada. In 1993, when grunge rock was squeezing commercial rock off the radio, they recorded their most acoustic album, Five Days In July, and scored their biggest hit selling over a half million copies of that one record alone.
Now celebrating their 40th anniversary, Blue Rodeo has proven to be one of Canada’s most enduring and important bands. They have received 31 JUNO Award nominations (winning 12) and 17 CCMA Awards (winning two). Since their formation in Toronto when they electrified the supercool Queen West scene — before dominating the soft-seaters and arenas of the nation — Blue Rodeo has sold more than four million albums, played thousands of shows, been inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, been named to the Order of Canada and been honoured with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.
The band has created a body of work that stands as a benchmark in Canadian music, weaving deeply resonant, distinctly Canadian stories that have influenced countless songwriters. Their songs have not only defined Blue Rodeo’s legacy but have also influenced the evolution of rock and country music, inspiring countless artists and becoming woven into the fabric of the nation’s cultural identity.
Reflecting back on four decades of success, the members are able to fully appreciate where Blue Rodeo sits in the pantheon of music. “Success seemed real when we were entertaining people in The Horseshoe. That was the top of the heap for us,” Cuddy says. “When you look back, you realize it’s just been this beautiful dream.”
The Tryzub Awards were created by The Myhal Family Foundation who saw a need to unify our community across Canada to celebrate the accomplishments of those who have achieved success in their chosen fields, have worked in support of Ukraine, Ukrainian causes, the Ukrainian-Canadian community and Canada overall.
2025 marks the very first awards gala that will be presented by the newly formed Tryzub Gala Foundation. This independent foundation will be responsible for all aspects of the awards, from programming, sponsorship and ticket requests, allocation of tax receipts and disbursement of funds.
Our aspiration continues to be to reach the entire Ukrainian-Canadian diaspora to celebrate our recipients and use the raised funds to support numerous causes that reflect the daily lives and interests of Canadian Ukrainians, and continue to assist the needs of Ukrainians that have fled the war. Our partnerships with various charitable organisations across Canada allows us to support grassroots charities that would otherwise struggle to meet the needs of the community.
John Iwaniura, Steve Merena, and Bob Workun were born in Poland with Ukrainian roots. They immigrated to Canada in the late 1980s and almost immediately began their careers in the trucking industry. John and Bob immigrated together, and met Steve and in 1997, they became business partners and founded Caravan Logistics Inc.
The Honourable Jason Kenney served as the 18th Premier of Alberta, where he led the development and diversification of the province’s energy sector, built partnerships with Indigenous communities and created new opportunities for businesses to grow and attract investment.
