Founding Director

An avid adventurist and citizen of the world, Anne-Marie Dekker has an insatiable curiosity and desire to bring together her past training and knowledge with the exploration of new learnings. Born in Jakarta of Dutch and Indonesian extraction, she can trace her much older ancestry’s DNA to India and China. Educated in Europe and North America, she originally studied languages and dance and ended in accounting and corporate administration. Armed with these varied disciplines, she embarked on her mission of adding, subtracting and learning how change is always possible.

Anne-Marie was part of a team that founded and launched the second Canadian privately owned independent television station CKVU in Vancouver. Initially as Executive Assistant to the Board and legal team, later she also served as its first female director on the Board and on the Audit Committee. Anne-Marie has worked on various film productions. One of the assignments was the Golden Globe and Emmy awards mini-series The Thorn Birds, one of the most watched dramas in television history. She also worked in China on the feature film Tai-Pan, based on James Clavell’s best selling novel. Anne-Marie was Associate Producer on the Canadian made movie Fatal Memories, and has worked as advisor on several Hallmark made for television stories. Anne-Marie founded Scarlett magazine, a unique business-lifestyle publication that celebrated the achievements of women. The Library Journal of New York recognized Scarlett as one of The Ten Best New Magazines the year it first published. 

Anne-Marie has served on the board of several not-for-profit organizations. During her tenure as president of the Canadian Society for Asian Arts, she quadrupled their financial donations. She has served as a member of the Board of the Goh Ballet Youth Ensemble, and as an Advisory Board member for KCTS, the PBS station located in Seattle. Until recently she was a Board member and an Audit Committee member of Friends for Canadian Broadcasting. She continues to serve as a board member of BC Film Foundation.

As a Certified Coach from the Co-Active Training Institute, and as alumni from other international certification programs, Anne-Marie has created and lead workshops for private groups and companies such as SAP, VanCity, Dress for Success, AFCC, IGH Institute of Gender Health Montreal, RCMP Civilian Members British Columbia, CPHR Vancouver Chapter. She has recently, for the second time, became a number one International Best Seller for the collaborative book Voices of the 21st Century: Women Transforming the World. Her favourite pastime is with her grandchildren, making them aware how fragile and the  responsibility each of us have to protect our planet. She is the family steward of properties and a couple of cottages on Savary Island in British Columbia. These properties and cottages have been in the family for over a hundred years. She feels very fortunate and never tires to know that deer make their homes in the salal, where they have their fawns; that eagles hunt for fish and rest on nearby trees; and where she can watch sunsets and storms, swim in warm water, and see humpback whales and orcas swim past.

It’s surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth.

– David Attenborough

Founding Director

Art Sterritt a member of the Gitga’at First Nation. Beginning in the 1980s, he spent five decades as an advocate and community organizer on behalf of Nature and the peoples of Canada’s North Pacific Coast. Art led the successful multi-decade effort to raise $120 million from public and private donors to secure concessions from provincial and federal governments to protect the 6.4 million hectare coastal Great Bear Rainforest, an area larger than Sri Lanka, and restored First Nations’ authority over its development. He subsequently played a central role in organizing Eleven First Nations with more than 30,000 members living along the North Coast and Haida Gwaii, into the Coastal First Nations, serving as its Founding Executive Director with a mission to develop a sustainable, conservation-based economy for the region. Additionally Art served as a founding member of the BC Treaty Commission, Founding President of the Tsimshian Tribal Council, Chief Treaty Negotiator for the Gitga’at First Nation, and President of the North Coast Tribal Council. A former commercial fisherman, he is an artist, sculptor, and goldsmith, whose Nature-inspired works hang in the Royal Ontario Museum,Royal BC Museum, UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, and Canadian Museum of Civilization, among others. Art lives in Prince Rupert, BC, where he continues his activism on behalf of coastal communities, First Nations, and Nature. Some of Art’s recognitions include:

2013 — 29th place on Vancouver Magazine’s list of 50 Most Powerful British Columbians for his efforts to protect the Environment

2014 — Number 18 on Maclean’s Magazine’s list of 50 Most Powerful People in Canada for his efforts to protect the Environment

2014 — Awarded the Bright Award for Environmental Sustainability from Stanford University, chosen from nominees representing North and Central America

2015 — Recognized with Canada’s Clean 50 Award in recognition of his contributions to Sustainable Development and Clean Capitalism in Canada.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

– Margaret Mead

Founding Director

J.P. is a leader in the Canadian asset and wealth management industry. His work roles have included bank brokerage Investment Advisor, mutual fund company Regional Vice President and National Sales Manager, financial services Business Consultant, and money management firm President & Chief Marketing Officer.

J.P.’s main strengths are in the areas of business strategy and sustainable investment solutions. His approach to work is collaborative, innovative and strategic. On the education front, J.P. has a BA in Economics and an MBA in Strategy & Leadership. In the community, J.P. has experience as a Concordia University West Coast Vice Chair and Alumni Mentor, Langara College Advisory Committee Member with the Financial Management and Computer Applications Program, and serves as an Advisory Board Member with the Simon Fraser University Beedie Endowment Asset Management Program. He has also guest lectured at the undergraduate and graduate level in sustainable business strategy. In his free time, J.P. loves spending time in nature with his friends and family, and enjoying activities like sailing, kayaking, skiing, biking, and hiking.

Founding Director

Sonny is an award-winning marketing strategist and creative director who has worked with clients such as Air Canada, Audi, BC Hydro, BC Lottery, Tropicana, Rio Tinto Alcan, Rogers Media, Subaru, and others. He is passionate about sustainability and wonders how marketers can, in good conscience, continue to sell more stuff on a Planet that can’t produce more stuff. With the Nature Agency, he plans to find the solutions, driven by the belief that marketing can play a role in the betterment of society and the Planet. Sonny has also had a life as a social and marketing entrepreneur leading projects that span marketing/media, live programs and events, sustainability, arts and culture, creativity, and social innovation. Sonny was founder of the Board of Change, a sustainability business network, and co-founded and produces the annual Leo Awards, BC’s awards program for film and television; he was a partner and creative director at Dinosaurs Unearthed, a traveling exhibition company that staged exhibitions all over the world; and was a founding member of the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival, the largest and most celebrated dragon boat event in North America, serving as its general manager for over a decade. He has produced global conferences, cultural programs and many other live productions. Sonny is a committed community steward with a strong record of engagement and leadership. He serves as a Board Director of Capilano University, Chinese Canadian Museum, KCTS 9/Cascade Public Media (Seattle, WA), Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of BC, and BC Entertainment Hall of Fame. He is a City of Vancouver appointee to the Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group and serves as a director on the Pacific Council of OMNI Television. Previously, he served on the Pacific Board of the World Wildlife Fund. Sonny is a published writer and thought leader having contributed to Adweek, Business in Vancouver, Huffington Post, Medium, and Strategy, and has spoken at many conferences and events. Sonny has been recognized as a Business in Vancouver 40 Under 40 recipient. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from UBC, where he also served as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing. In his spare time, he is an avid road cyclist always trying to ride faster than he did the last time.

It’s up to us.

– Nature Agency