ORBA appoints new executive director and leadership

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. — The Ontario Road Builders’ Association (ORBA) has a new leadership team and has appointed Walid Abou-Hamde as executive director.

Abou-Hamde holds an honours bachelor of applied science in chemical engineering and served as director of stakeholder relations to the minister of infrastructure and minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development. He most recently served as vice-president, corporate affairs and partnerships at Skilled Trades Ontario.

The following promotions took effect on May 1:

• Jasvinder Singh has been promoted to director of membership services and events planning.
• Guru Missar has been promoted into the role of director of marketing and communications.
• Xin Chen joins the ORBA team as head of finance.
• Abhinav Gupta has been promoted to senior manager of membership services and events planning.
• Ashley Manson has been promoted to head of human resources, administration and governance. 
• Simarpreet Kaur is currently serving as the manager of human resource, governance and administration while Manson is on parental leave.
• Doubra Ambaiowei, as the director of technical services, brings over five years of commitment and service.

Villeneuve and the ORBA board thanked Michael McSweeney who undertook a 12-month contract with ORBA and who worked to restructure, reposition and realign ORBA’s priorities to better match those of the governments ORBA works with, states a release. Villeneuve will remain CEO of ORBA until Oct. 31 at which time Walid will assume the position of ORBA CEO.