Our Team
Barbara Insley – Chair and Executive Director
Barbara and her two daughters created their family through international adoption. Both girls were born in Ethiopia. Her eldest was recently diagnosed with AGU and Barbara is dedicated to changing this disease’s outcome for her daughter. Barbara has extensive volunteer experience. She is a past Board member of Public Dreams Society, past Board member of the Eden Project as well as a past Member and Chair of the CFA Institute Disciplinary Review Committee. She is a Board Member of the BC Chapter of the Private Capital Markets Association of Canada and a prior board member of the Rare Trait Hope Fund, a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the same mission as Rare Trait Hope Society.
Barbara has spent her career in the financial services industry. She studied finance and economics at Simon Fraser University before completing her law degree at the University of British Columbia in 1993. She was called to the BC Bar in 1994. In 2003 she became a CFA charterholder and in 2019, she obtained her Certified Information Privacy Professional (Canada) certification. She is currently Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Operating Officer at a private investment dealer.
Judy Rudin – Director
Judy Rudin is a communications management professional with 25 years experience providing media and public relations expertise to corporate, governmental and social business clientele.
Judy has overseen, directed or authored winning communications projects in Canada and the United States. She is a past Vice President of the Western Magazine Awards, and a former member of the International Association of Business Communicators.
A native of Vancouver, BC, Judy has volunteered her time on a number of boards, including the Canadian Institute for the Blind, BC/Yukon Division. She sat on the organization’s finance and governance subcommittees and chaired several high profile fundraising events. Judy is a life-long learner currently exploring the impact on cognition and behaviour of rare diseases which are genetically based.
Leslie Rose – Director and Secretary
Leslie Rose is Senior Legal Counsel in the Corporate Finance Division of BC’s securities regulator. She is driven to ensure a fair playing field for everyone in BC’s capital markets. In the past 20 years she has developed securities regulations in a number of areas critical to ensuring investor confidence. She was instrumental in introducing rules allowing equity crowdfunding by start-up and early stage companies that followed the example set by charitable crowdfunding. Leslie was called to the BC Bar in 1995. Prior to shifting her career towards regulation, Leslie practiced corporate finance, securities and corporate/commercial law primarily for public companies.
Rare Trait Hope Society is Leslie’s first foray into the non-profit world. Her closest friends have children suffering from rare disorders and for that reason she feels it’s an excellent fit.
Marie-Noelle Savoie – Director
Marie-Noelle is a lawyer who spent most of her career in the financial industry. She became a lawyer in the province of Quebec in 2009 and in B.C in 2022. She is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP) and Canadian Risk Manager (CRM). She currently works in the gambling industry as the VP Legal, Compliance, Security and Chief Compliance Officer at BCLC.
She is passionate about giving back to the community. She has served on many non-for-profit boards through the years in Montreal and Vancouver. She joined the Rare Trait Hope Society because she believes in helping families with children with ultra-rare diseases. Having children herself, she is aware of the great blessing of having healthy children.
Sanyin Bekrich – Head of IT
Sanyin Bekrich is a technology consultant with over 20 years of experience. He founded Metier Consulting Inc., a Vancouver-based full-service web development studio specializing in custom solutions. Sanyin provides the IT vision to enable business strategies, working with a number of new ventures in e-commerce, real estate, online education and geographic information systems. His hands-on style of management spans all aspects of a project, from ideation to business development, from seed funding to resourcing.
Prior to Metier, Sanyin has held positions as senior developer with Bayleaf Software, Radiant Communications, and Devlin, leading the architecture design, technical development, and implementation for clients such as the British Columbia government, St. Jude Hospital, Capital Direct, Vancouver General Hospital, Ayotte Drums, TomLeeMusic, Steve Nash Fitness Club, etc.
In his spare time, he is writing and producing music at his recording studio.