Automobility Panel Participant Bios
Christian Feilmeier is Vice President, Finance and Administration at BMW Group Canada, a position he has held since January, 2007. In this capacity, he is responsible for all finance, controlling, purchasing and human resources activities for the BMW and MINI brands in Canada. Prior to his arrival in Canada, Feilmeier was Head of Investor Relations in Munich from 2000 to 2006. Before that, he was in charge of Group Accounting from 1996 to 2000, also in Munich. Feilmeier was born in Regensburg, Germany and did his MBA at the University of Augsburg. He lives in Thornhill with his wife and their two children.
Christopher Hume is the architecture critic and urban issues columnist of the Toronto Star. In 2009, he won a National Newspaper Award, Canada’s highest award in print journalism, for his columns about architecture and urban affairs. Hume was named Toronto’s best newspaper columnist by NOW magazine in 2005 and Eye magazine in 2006. He appears frequently on radio and television as a commentator on city issues. Born in England in 1951, he came to Canada as a child. He was educated at the University of Toronto and Glendon College. Known as a champion of cities and the arts, Hume lives in downtown Toronto with his wife and two daughters.
Robert Latham is director of the Centre for International and Security Studies, and associate professor of Political Science, at York University in Toronto. Previously, he managed programs and conducted research in the international affairs at the Social Science Research Council in New York where he directed the program on Information Technology and International Cooperation. He also taught at Columbia University. Robert’s areas of research interest include the politics of knowledge and large-scale monitoring systems; security and IT; technologies of border surveillance; critical theories of sovereignty, transnational relations, migration, multiculturalism and international communication politics; human security and ecology; and global governance.
Steven Logan is pursuing doctoral studies in the Joint Programme in Communication and Culture at York University. His research interests include automobile culture, suburban history, and critical theories of nature and technology. His doctoral dissertation compares the Canadian and Czech post-war suburbs, particularly in relation to utopia, mobility, and nature. Between 2003 and 2007, Steven was editor of Carbusters magazine, one of the only publications dedicated to critiquing car culture, and he also edited a book-length compilation of articles from the magazine. Steven is a member of the York and Ryerson-based L.O.T.: Experiments in Urban Research, which organized the Leona Drive Project (2009), a site-specific art exhibition in North York that took place in seven post-war houses.
The panel moderator Bernard Wolf is a Professor Emeritus at the Schulich School of Business and the Associate Director of its International MBA program. Wolf has lectured widely in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, including China. He has organized many international conferences, both in Canada and abroad. In addition to Bernard’s academic work, he has acted as a consultant and advisor to a number of multinational firms and to the Canadian government. The media regularly interviews him on global developments in the manufacturing and service sector as well as various other global (as well as domestic) financial and economic issues including the impact of emerging economies (especially China and India), regional economic integration, exchange rate movements, pricing (particularly gasoline), technological change, outsourcing and mergers/acquisitions.
