Dear ADRIO Members and Dispute Resolution Practitioners
I trust that you are all enjoying this summer season!
Thank you to all of you who joined us for the 41st annual Professional Development conference and Annual General Meeting, two successful events!
Congratulations to our newly elected Board of Directors, Peter Bruer, Jeff Donnelly, Douglas Macdonald, Rosanna Macri, Carine Midy, Dayana Romero!
Congratulations to the appointed Executive committee: Jeff Donnelly (President), Sarah Albo (Vice-President), Jennifer Hyatt (Treasurer) and Steve Benmor (Secretary)
At the ADRIO AGM, I had the privilege of sharing the following milestones from the operations team in the areas of: Business development, membership retention and expansion, and strategic branding.
Business development
- Fully launched the Pathways to Experience (P2E) Program, to support mentorship for our members. 8 matches for 2025 and 11 matches for 2026. A special thank you to our Mentors for providing your valuable expertise to fill a gap in our industry.
- ADRIO welcomed a collaboration with the ADR Institute of Canada to launch the National Introductory Mediation Course (NIMC).
- In 2025, ADRIO successfully piloted this program with 10 participants, hired 1 Instructor, and 3 Coaches from ADRIO’s membership. The feedback received indicated that it was a great success.
- In 2026, ADRIO fully launched this program with a sold-out class of 33 participants, hired 1 instructor and 11 coaches from ADRIO’s membership.
- ADRIO conducted an environmental scan and contacted prospects to achieve 3 new revenue-generating partnerships.
- For 2026, ADRIO hosted another successful sold-out professional development conference, featuring 13 sessions and 17 speakers highlighting the work that is being done in Dispute Resolution.
Membership Retention and Expansion
- ADRIO has launched the organizational membership category with 3 members: Dentons, Kompass Professional Development, and 360 Kids.
- ADRIO entered into a new agreement with a post-secondary institution to register ADR students for student membership at ADRIO.
- We achieved an 85% membership retention rate for 2025. ADRIO also ended the year with 1009 members. A great place to be in December as this trend supports ADRIO’s membership growth.
- ADRIO has connected members to over 200+ job opportunities via an opportunities board conveniently delivered right to your inbox. CAMVAP, York U, DND are some of the employers looking for dispute resolution practitioners. Keep an eye out for those postings.
- ADRIC has been regularly posting roster calls that ADRIO reposts in our eblasts. I also repost them on LinkedIn to build awareness of these opportunities for our membership.
- ADRIO offered 3 well attended in-person networking events throughout the year, to inspire networking, professional development and community. It was a great time of engagement for brand new and seasoned practitioners to connect.
- The Executive Director Virtual Drop-In sessions are fully launched for a session every 2 weeks. ADRIO members, and members of the public, come together to discuss ADRIO membership benefits, career and designation pathways.
Strategic Branding
- ADRIO achieved a 13% increase in engagement on social media.
- ADRIO exceeded its target by building and maintaining 7 collaborations in the areas of government, industry, and association organizations. These collaborations ensure that we are collaborating and building awareness and connections with organizations to ADRIO.
- ADRIO held 3 virtual road trips across Ontario to promote ADRIO and ADR, for Ottawa, Kitchener/Waterloo region and London, Ontario.
- For Thought leadership, ADRIO continues to invest in AI Workshops for ADR Professionals to ensure that practitioners carve out time to clearly think through how they would like to augment AI tools into their practice. The consistent key message in each industry is that AI is here to stay and will grow, and it is important for each of us to learn more about how to augment relevant AI tools into our work in ADR.
Thank you to all of the practitioners who have been instrumental in providing a diverse range of ADR practices to positively impact thought leadership across Ontario.
Thank you to the ADRIO board of directors for your commitment to governance leadership to ADRIO. The team has gained traction and can report many areas of growth over the past year.
I encourage you to join Aspiring Practitioners Week to explore your ADR journey, strengthen the legitimacy of mediation, discover the power of forgiveness, and connect through dynamic speed mentoring to propel your practice forward. Check out the week’s programming here.
Our ADRIO team is inspired to serve our members and community, striving together to achieve remarkable milestones and finish 2026 stronger than ever!
Sincerely,
Pramila Javaheri, C. Med. Q. Arb, WFA
Executive Director, ADR Institute of Ontario