Hill Climbers
Plugging into Energy Minister Hodgson’s team
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson has continued building his ministerial team, with a dozen more staffers confirmed in his office since Hill Climbers’ last update on the office in June.
As previously reported, Eamonn McGuinty is chief of staff to Hodgson, while Samir Kassam is deputy chief of staff and director of policy, Angelo Molhem is senior parliamentary and Quebec regional affairs adviser, Charlotte Power is an issues and communications adviser, and Arash Randjbar is a senior digital adviser.
Since hired to work under Kassam are senior policy and major projects advisers Martin Kolacz and Wale Oyebanjo, and senior policy adviser Marie-Christine Demers.
Kolacz is new to the Hill, and spent the last almost six years working in investment banking at Scotiabank, most recently as an associate director. He also has roughly a year and a half of experience working with the Program for Research and Investment Management as an energy sector analyst and later fund manager, and holds a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Alberta.
Oyebanjo is another ex-investment banker with Scotiabank, having worked for the bank in Toronto between August 2020 and March 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. Most recently, he spent a little more than two years as managing partner with the investment firm Threadleaf Capital. Oyebanjo has a master of business administration degree in finance and real assets from the University of Toronto, and is a chartered financial analyst. His online profile indicates he also holds a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degree from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. Oyebanjo’s digital CV includes past jobs in investment banking in Lagos, Nigeria, including with FCMB Group, Vetiva Capital Management Limited, and Sterling Bank, among other past jobs.
Demers previously worked for then-foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly, starting as deputy director of communications in early 2024, and most recently as a senior adviser for strategic initiatives.
Prior to 2024, Demers worked as an independent consultant, and as a seasonal lecturer in public and government relations at the Université de Montréal. She previously tackled strategy, corporate affairs, and European institutional affairs for GNL Québec, an LNG pipeline project in the province; and financing and business development for the Symbio Infrastructure Limited Partnership (which backed the GNL Québec and Gazoduq pipeline projects). Demers is also a past senior director for public affairs and community relations for Gazoduq, an ex-senior manager of public affairs and sustainability with Énergir, and a former senior consultant on management, public affairs, and corporate communications for Cohn & Wolfe in Montreal, among other things.
Bryn de Chastelain is director of operations to Hodgson. He previously filled the role of director of operations and planning to then-housing and infrastructure minister Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, having been hired to that team not long after the December 2024 shuffle that saw Erskine-Smith added to the front bench. Before then, de Chastelain had been a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Toronto. A Harvard University grad—he holds a master of public policy degree from the school—he worked as a graduate teaching fellow in economics and as a research assistant with Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs while at the school, and has also previously interned with United Nations Peacekeeping in New York.
Olivia Wright is a special projects and operations adviser. She last worked as a communications and digital adviser to then-immigration minister Marc Miller. Originally hired to Miller’s office as executive assistant to both the minister and his chief of staff in September 2023 following a summer internship with the federal Liberal Party, Wright was promoted to her most recent role roughly one year later. She also previously interned with the BMO Financial Group’s Indigenous banking unit, and, according to her LinkedIn profile, tackled national field work for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership campaign at the beginning of this year.
Santhana Thevarajah, a past assistant to then-Liberal MP Mary Ng, has been hired as an operations assistant in Hodgson’s office.
Chelios Vuong is in place as a senior strategic adviser for Ontario. Until earlier this year, Vuong had worked for Ng since 2018, starting as a special assistant for operations in her office as then-small business and export promotion minister. After the 2019 election, which subsequently saw Ng become minister of export promotion, international trade, and economic development, Vuong followed as Ng’s ministerial driver. Vuong was later promoted to policy adviser, then senior policy adviser, and finally director of operations as of last year. On the Hill, he also previously worked for then-Liberal MP Arnold Chan, and as a special assistant for operations to then-infrastructure ministers Amarjeet Sohi and François-Philippe Champagne.
Sean Mitchell has been tapped as senior parliamentary affairs adviser and issues management lead.
Mitchell comes from now-Culture and Identity Minister Steven Guilbeault’s old team as environment minister, having worked there from August 2022 until earlier this year. Originally hired as a special assistant for policy and parliamentary affairs to Guilbeault, Mitchell was later promoted to issues manager. He’s also a former assistant to then-Ontario MP Lloyd Longfield.
Carolyn Svonkin has stayed on with the office as director of communications to Hodgson. She was most recently director of issues management to then-minister Jonathan Wilkinson since October 2024, and before then was his press secretary as natural resources minister for roughly a year starting in August 2023. Between those two roles, Svonkin briefly served as director of communications to then-women and gender equality minister Marci Ien. A former Canada Jewish Political Affairs Committee fellow, she also previously interned with Navigator Ltd. over the summer of 2021, is a past intern and volunteer in Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen’s office, and interned in then-defence minister Anita Anand‘s office over the summer of 2022, among other things.
Working closely with Svonkin is Gregory Frame as press secretary and senior communications adviser. Frame last served as press secretary to then-Crown-Indigenous relations and northern affairs minister Gary Anandasangaree, a role he took up in September 2024 after almost a year as an issues manager and assistant to the parliamentary secretary to then-tourism minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada.
Frame is also an ex-aide to Ontario Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski, and his resumé includes past work as health policy analyst with Ward Health, and as a research and policy analyst with 3Sixty Public Affairs.
Finally, Sonja Blondeau is Hodgson’s private secretary, while Veronica Foreman has been hired as a special assistant to McGuinty as Hodgson’s chief of staff.
Blondeau has been working in ministers’ offices for more than a decade, crossing the partisan divide. Over the years, she’s been a scheduling assistant to Wilkinson as then-energy and natural resources minister and then-environment minister, and to Sohi as then-natural resources minister and then-infrastructure minister, as well as to then-Conservative international development minister Christian Paradis, then-Conservative environment minister Peter Kent, and then-Conservative industry minister Maxime Bernier.
Foreman graduated with a master’s degree in political science from the University of Guelph—where she’d earlier earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and government—in 2024. Up until the start of this year, she’d spent the last more than two-and-a-half years working part-time as a supply teacher with the Peel District School Board. According to her LinkedIn profile, she spent the first half of this year—up until joining Hodgson’s team—working as an email engagement co-ordinator for the federal Liberal Party.
Altogether, that’s 17 staff currently in place in Hodgson’s office.
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