Renée Hodgkinson

Title: Chief Operations Director, Leaders Today
Interesting Fact: Renée is careful to find a balance in life. She trains yearly for duathlons and captures the wonders of nature with a paint brush and canvas.

As director of Leaders Today, Renée oversees International Volunteer and Leadership Trips, the Volunteer Now! program, motivational speaking tours and the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative, a Toskan Foundation partnership that has distributed more than $1,000,000 to grassroots charities. Recipient of the Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award, she lives with determination and conviction, demonstrating to youth that we truly are the generation we’ve been waiting for. Renée’s education and efforts as a social worker have equipped her with both local and international experience.

After graduating high school, where she was school president, Renée volunteered with the Peterborough Family Resource Centre, enabling parents to network with other parents who share common interests. She has travelled extensively, having spent time in East Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. In her explorations, backpacking and volunteering in places of exquisite beauty, she came to settle for a year in Tanzania, southeast Africa. In 2001, she volunteered teaching music and home science at a secondary school for girls in the heart Tanzania’s Usambara Mountains. Afterwards she returned to Canada to pursue a career in social work, focusing on assisting women in transitional housing access independent living. Renée has also led International Volunteer and Leadership Trips to Ecuador, Arizona/Mexico, Kenya and India, and she has facilitated Global Leadership Seminars across North America and in the Middle East. By reaching out beyond borders in the service of others, she has travelled to over 25 countries and cultivated friends and partnerships built on solidarity. Always keeping her heart open to philanthropy of any kind, she continues to work and volunteer at a local women’s shelter in Toronto.

In her downtime, Renée pursues her passion for sports and team camaraderie skiing, rock climbing and playing ultimate frisbee. She leads her life with a passion and intensity that is admired and respected by friends and family alike. Her secret to live at Lev3l is not copious amounts of coffee, but instead being mindful of the words of a dear friend, Joe Opatowski: “I live my life in the service of others.”