The People

The founders of The Visioneers International Network are Dr. Desmond Berghofer (Des) and Dr. Geraldine Schwartz (Gerri). They are an energetic and creative team who have worked as partners for three decades, combining their talents to found and operate a number of business and educational organizations focused on leadership development, and especially on ethical leadership and the creative management of change.

In The Visioneers International Network, they are joined by a team of exceptional people spanning a spectrum of ages and life stories, working together to capture the energy of the original Visioneers story to become the architects of our own positive social change movements through a global Web of Good Work.

Maureen Edwardson

Desmond Berghofer

Dr. Desmond Berghofer is a leader of new thinking for a sustainable future. He brings a lively and diverse perspective to his work, ranging from business management consulting to the writing of futuristic fiction. He is an educator, author and consultant on leadership and the creative management of change.

Desmond holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Alberta and a BA from the University of Queensland. He is the President of Creative Learning International which he co-founded with his wife and business partner, Dr. Geraldine Schwartz, in 1988. He is the author of The Visioneers: A Courage Story about Belief in the Future, a futuristic novel, which is the inspiration for the Visioneers International Network.  Desmond is the author of several other novels that speak to right action in the service of high ideals.

A lifetime of experience in teaching, government service and entrepreneurial work in business brought him to Vancouver, Canada, where he now makes his home. As well as being President of Creative Learning International, Desmond is Chairman of the International Foundation of Learning and co-founder of the Institute for Ethical Leadership. All three of these organizations are committed to acting to raise the quality of human interaction towards peace and sustainability.

Paul Adamson

Bill Borgen

Jim Haliburton

Jamie Magrill

Jamie Magrill completed his BSc from the University of British Columbia in 2018, with a focus on Cancer and Diabetes Research. He is most interested in creating strong community-based tools and platforms to build connectivity and improve outcomes for folks in the social, philanthropic, and environmental good-work and start-up communities. With five years of biomedical research experience, and six years of volunteer leadership in student services, healthcare, adaptive aquatics and STEM teaching and outreach across BC, Jamie comes to the table with a wide variety of experiences and skills that enable him to empower and guide people and projects to achieve their best results; helping the people who help make the world a better place.

With connections at organizations and institutions ranging from the University of British Columbia, Let's Talk Science Canada and Genome BC, to local changemaker organizations such as Stanstronge Pool and the Dr. Peter Centre for HIV/AIDS Palliative Care, to international institutions including Nobel Laureates For Education, Jamie is able to draw on a diverse network of changemakers to enact change at the local level, starting with the Vancouver Chapter of the Visioneers International Network!

Olga Nardy

Gerri Schwartz

Dr. Geraldine Schwartz is a psychologist, applied scientist and educator. As founder and Principal of the Vancouver Learning Centre, she has spent more than 30 years transforming the lives of hundreds of young people faced with learning challenges. She is founder and President of the International Foundation of Learning, a non-profit organization focused on learning for leaders. As co-founder of the Institute for Ethical Leadership, she is a strong voice for leadership grounded in right action.

Gerri has had a unique history of success in leading large projects of integrity and good work to successful fruition by working outside the margins of any particular organization to connect, invite and inspire both their leaders and their rank and file to work together on a new transformative enterprise.

People join her teams in order to accomplish a common goal. The common thread on this unusual career journey is that each project was based on a new and creative idea that didn’t exist, that pushed other projects and their participants to embrace advances just appearing on the horizons, not as wishful thinking, but as the result of sound science and research so integral to her doctoral training at McGill where she earned an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in Psychology and Education under the mentorship of outstanding leaders in the field.

Tatiana Speed

Tatiana graduated from UBC with an interdisciplinary degree in Political Science, ethnomusicology and women’s studies. She also received a jazz diploma in voice and piano from VCC. As a singer/songwriter dedicated to social change, Tatiana has taken her music around the world, performing for significant international events such as the Peoples Climate March in New York City, COP 21 in Paris, France and most recently in Islamabad, Pakistan for the World Peace Youth Summit.  Sharing a message of peace and unity, while raising awareness for different humanitarian causes, Tatiana has worked in collaboration with Indigenous communities, grassroots organizations and student initiatives raising money and awareness for disaster relief, climate change and women’s empowerment.  In 2015, Tatiana founded the initiative Music for Change, a workshop designed to raise awareness for Climate Change, which she has brought to universities and youth groups in Vancouver, New York, and Paris.   

Alongside her music-based activism, Tatiana has also been involved as a researcher, speaker and educator with Climates, a social change group made up of students and young professionals from around the world dedicated to finding innovative solutions to climate change while educating and empowering the next generation to take action. Now working with the Vancouver Chapter of the Visioneers International Network, Tatiana is as committed as ever to global transformation and bringing the world's change-makers and innovators together to achieve this.  

Lori-Ann Speed