Meet the Team
Lyndsay Poaps
Executive Director
Lyndsay Poaps is passionate about engaging people in community building and decision making. Before joining Leadnow, Lyndsay founded Frontrunner: a campaign school for young women. She brings a background in public policy to Leadnow and is a former City of Vancouver Park Board Commissioner (2002-2005). She is an Action Canada fellow, a former Urban Fellow with the City of Toronto, and the spokesperson for the City of Vancouver’s Engaged City Task Force. Lyndsay holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Simon Fraser University.Logan McIntosh
Campaigns Director
Logan joined Leadnow in the spring of 2012, organizing decentralized days of action on climate, democracy and a fair economy. She managed Leadnow’s national organizing program in the lead up to the 2015 federal election. Using a digitally-enabled, narrative-based, distributed organizing model, we engaged 5,626 volunteers who had over 51,617 live conversations! She became Leadnow's Campaigns Director in early 2017. Logan loves working with the Leadnow community and is committed to exploring how we can use digital tools to scale the impact of our organizing program and bring new people into the political process.
Jolan Bailey
Campaign Manager, Tech and Data
As Campaign Manager, Tech and Data, Jolan supports Leadnow's tech development and priorities. Before joining Leadnow, Jolan helped galvanize opposition to pipelines and tankers in BC, through tried and true, boots-on-the-ground organizing. Jolan believes that the key to people-powered change is empowering regular people to step up to lead campaigns in their communities, and is excited to create pathways for Leadnow members to play a leadership role in our campaigns.
Chloe Lawson
Community Support Coordinator
Chloe comes from a background in fundraising and advocacy, and has worked on campaigns for a number of causes including gender equality, animal welfare, environmental justice, and human rights. She works in many areas of the organization providing administrative backing and fundraising support, while connecting with Leadnow community members and supporters on a day-to-day basis.
Brittany Smith
Senior Campaigner
Brittany joined Leadnow doing digital acquisition on the Vote Together campaign to defeat Harper before leading the people-powered push against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She now works on a variety of rapid-response and longer-term campaigns. She holds a Master's degree in human rights, and has worked with NGOs, grassroots movements, and the UN, on issues such as women’s rights, transitional justice, & monitoring state violence – in places like South Africa, Bangladesh, and Palestine. Other than winning, she's mainly concerned with strategy and communications (which are, indeed, two key ingredients for winning).
Rachel Tetrault
Field Organizer
Rachel joined Leadnow in 2015, and hit the ground running with a massive face to face organizing effort that helped defeat the Harper Conservatives. Since then, Rachel has been working with teams on the ground to build capacity and coordinate collective action in key moments: canvassing at farmers markets, flooding government consultation processes, showing up at MPs offices, hitting the streets with National Days of Action in communities from coast to coast to coast, or delivering thousands of petition signtures to decision makers. Rachel is always looking for new ways to support, cultivate and empower the Leadnow network of local organizers so we can amplify our impact and continue to build our capacity for the long haul.Rachel Nelems
Social Media Coordinator
Rachel brings a passion for politics, intersectional feminism and memes to her role as the Social Media Coordinator. Before Leadnow, she worked in PR and on election campaigns. She has a BAH in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of King's College and Dalhousie University. She is based in Toronto.Board
Eugene Kung
Eugene Kung is a Vancouver based lawyer practicing in the areas of human rights, environmental, regulatory, administrative and constitutional law. Born and raised in Burnaby, B.C., he holds a B.A. in Political Science from UBC and a J.D. from Dalhousie Law School. Eugene has served on boards and steering committees of several organizations working on democracy, poverty reduction, human rights and social and environmental justice. In his spare time Eugene is a mediocre musician, a so-so snowboarder and a horrible hockey player.
Marie-Marguerite Sabongui
Marie-Marguerite is a campaign strategist and environmental policy specialist. A Montreal native, she holds a BA from McGill and a Masters in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University. She began organizing in the Canadian youth climate movement. Most recently, she developed strategies and executed campaigns to mobilize the public in democratic rights, education, and human rights at Purpose, and was Chief of Staff of Here Now, a global climate movement accelerator. As a Jeanne Sauvé Fellow, she toured across Canada as one of the first Climate Reality Canada Leaders. Fun fact: she has a Lego action figure from a previous life playing a children’s TV superhero.
Sadia Rafiquddin
Born in Sargodha, Pakistan, Sadia Rafiquddin draws inspiration from her parents’ move to Canada as refugees in 1990. She is a freelance writer, broadcaster and photographer focusing on human rights stories for clients including The Walrus, CBC, Ferst Digital Inc., Philanthropic Foundations Canada, Hacking Health and Apathy is Boring. Her radio documentary Engaged at 14: “I was worried about science class. And now I am getting married?” for CBC’s The Doc Project aired nationwide.
The Women’s Executive Network has recognized Sadia with the Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women award. She holds an Honours B.A. in International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto, Trinity College and a Master of Human Rights from the University of Sydney. She can be found on Instagram @sadiarafiquddin and Twitter @SadiaRafiquddin.
Patricia C. Barrera
Patty is a geek, an organizer, a paddler and holds graduate degrees in economics and political science. She’s an educator & campaign strategist. She’s developed, coordinated and run municipal, national and international campaigns. She cut her teeth in the student movement (CFS), and by fighting globalization and free-trade on the streets and in negotiating rooms through Common Frontiers and the Hemispheric Social Alliance. Patty now works in the Education Department in Canada’s largest union in the private sector, Unifor. In past lives, she has worked in Political Action and Government Relations in Unifor, at the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).
Jamie Biggar
Jamie was one of Leadnow's co-founders, and served as founding Executive Director and then Campaign Director from 2010 to 2016. Before co-founding Leadnow, Jamie completed a Master’s Degree in political ecology – which is basically politics that takes economic power and ecological integrity seriously – at the University of Victoria. He co-founded two student-led climate and sustainability organizations, and served on the board of a range of social, environmental and educational organizations. Jamie now serves on the board of the World Wildlife Fund of Canada, and he's the Director of Communications and Campaigns for the Centre for Social Innovation.
