Talaga is of Polish and Indigenous descent, with her mother’s family from Fort William First Nation. Her great-grandmother was a residential school survivor, and her great-grandfather was an Ojibwe trapper and labourer. Talaga is a columnist at the Globe and Mail. Prior to this, she was a journalist at the Toronto Star for 20 years. She has been nominated five times for the Michener Award in public service journalism, and won, alongside her teammates, two National Newspaper Awards for Project of the Year. From 2017-2018, Talaga was the Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy through The Canadian Journalism Foundation, and in 2018, she became the first Anishinaabe woman to deliver the CBC Massey Lectures.

Talaga is also the bestselling author of two books. Her first book, Seven Fallen Feathers, won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award. It was also a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and the BC National Award for Nonfiction, and was named CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Her second book, and follow- up to her CBC Massey Lecture, All Our Relations, was also a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and a finalist for the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.

Today, Talaga heads up Makwa Creative Inc., a production company focused on amplifying Indigenous voices through documentary films, TV, and podcasts. Makwa’s first film, Mashkawi- Manidoo Bimaadiziwin Spirit to Soar, explores what has changed in Thunder Bay since the deaths of the Seven Fallen Feathers. It was released on CBC and CBC Gem in September 2021 and received the “Audience Award” for best mid-length documentary at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival. A four-part podcast accompaniment, “Where We Come From”, was also released on CBC Podcasts alongside the documentary.

In recognition of her work, Talaga holds three honorary doctorates from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ryerson University, and Ontario Tech University.

Nenshi served as Calgary’s mayor for three terms between 2010 and 2021, during which Calgary was named one of the best cities to live in the Western Hemisphere. In recognition of his leadership, Nenshi was awarded the World Mayor Prize in 2014 by the City Mayors Foundation. He is also the recipient of the President’s Award from the Canadian Institute of Planners and the Humanitarian Award from the Canadian Psychological Association for his contribution to community mental health.

Prior to his election, Nenshi served as Canada’s first tenured professor of non-profit management at the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University. Before entering academia, he was a management consultant for global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and ran his own firm, Ascend Group. His client list included the United Nations, where he explored how corporations can help the world’s poorest people, and the Gap. Today, Nenshi is an intentionally known voice on urban issues. He has presented to audiences across Canada and the world, including the World Economic Forum.

Nenshi is a graduate of the University of Calgary, where he served as president of the students’ union, and holds a master’s in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he studied as a Kennedy Fellow. He is a proud first-generation Canadian of Indian ancestry, whose parents immigrated from Tanzania. His family and his Ismaili Muslim faith instilled in him the ethic of seva, or service to the community, something he tries to live every day.