Biography
Vivene Salmon served as President of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) in 2019/2020. Founded in 1896, the CBA is the voice of the legal profession in Canada and represents 36,000 lawyers, judges, legal educators and law students. Salmon is the first racialized person / BIPOC / Black and first female corporate counsel in the over 125 year history of the organization to hold this position.
As President, Salmon chaired the Board of Directors, acted as the CBA’s main spokesperson, represented the CBA internationally and was responsible for governance, advocacy and the financial affairs of the organization. Salmon developed and chaired the tremendously successful CBA’s inaugural Leadership Development for Racialized Lawyers, which provided leadership skills and a networking forum for the next generation of diverse leaders in the legal profession.
Salmon hosted the popular podcast series: Conversations with the President”, which received the 2019 Canadian Law Blog Award for favorite Canadian Law Podcast.
She provided strong leadership to the organization managing the COVID-19 crisis and was the innovator behind and first Chair of the CBA COVID-19 Taskforce.
Salmon is the Chief Legal Officer of F8th Inc. where she is responsible for providing advice, support and recommendations to senior management and overseeing the company's compliance with privacy policy, legislation and related matters.
Salmon is a Certified Information Privacy Professional and holds the designation CIPP/C from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She has completed several Canadian Securities Institute industry accreditations, including: Chief Compliance Officer Qualifying Exam, Trader Training, and the Canadian Securities Course. She completed her J.D. at the University of Ottawa in 2009 and participated in an International Exchange at Lund University, Faculty of Law in Sweden. Salmon was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2010.
A committed volunteer in the legal and broader communities, Salmon has volunteered as a Board Member on several non-profit community Boards, including: Food for the Poor Canada, a charity which supports building schools in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Salmon was honoured as a Top 25 Women of Influence, Top 100 Canadian Black Women to Watch and was named a Top 25 Influential Lawyer by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. In 2021, she was honoured with the Canadian Corporate COunsel Association (CCCA) National Professional Contribution Award.