The CES Executive Committee is pleased to inform CES members that one nomination for the 2020-2022 Presidency was received: Doaa Saddek, BA, MA, MPhil (Cantab), PhD put her name forth as Presidential nominee to lead CES' Board of Directors for the next term, which begins July 1, 2020.

In accordance with CES Bylaws (Section 5.02) and Policies (Operational Policy no 1, paragraph 3b) regarding the Election of Officers, this nomination is subject to a review period of four weeks (until April 27, 2020) to inform CES Members of the nomination and invite feedback. HERE 

Doaa Saddek Presentation Letter

Why I am interested in the position of the CES President

It is with great pleasure that I am submitting my candidature to the role of CES President. CES is an organization to which I owe a lot in supporting me to establish myself as a professional evaluator in Canada.

When I first came to Canada 12 years ago, I had 9 years of experience in evaluation within the field of international development. As an immigrant, it was important for me to adapt my transferable set of skills to function in the Canadian context. It was CES that gave me this opportunity by introducing me to a wide new network of brilliant evaluators, whose support has enriched my professional experience. In addition, during the years I spent as a PhD student in Canada, I benefited from the discounted high quality professional development opportunities that CES offers to support students who are interested to build a career in evaluation.

As I witnessed how CES has been a valuable organization to me as a member, in my capacity as a President, I would like to continue with what my predecessors have succeeded to establish and foster innovative and creative ways to address members’ needs in collaboration with the indispensable CES volunteers, Chapters, Fellows and all other key CES’ sister organizations, such as Canadian Evaluation Society Educational Fund (CESEF), Consortium of Universities for Evaluation Education, International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE), EvalPartners and the Francophone Evaluation Network (RFE).

My Experience with CES

I have been an active CES Board member in various roles, since 2016. These roles prepared me very well to assume the position of CES President. My work with the National Board made me fully aware of CES’ past and current operations and prepared me well to help make CES the organization of tomorrow.

I started on CES National Board as a national representative for the National Capital Chapter (NCC), which I served for three years with the wonderful NCC Board members. Then, I assumed a number of other roles on the National Board, such as Chair of the Professional Learning Committee (PLC), member of the Strategic Planning Working Group, CES treasurer, member of the CES IT Working Group and CES Board member on the Fellows’ Selection Committee for two consecutive years.

During my term as PLC Chair, the committee launched the CES e-institute, for which I participated in early planning with the previous PLC Chair. Moreover, the committee published its first Professional Learning (PL) strategy, which continues to guide the committee’s operations to-date. Furthermore, as someone who believes in the power of communication, I reached out to the Chapters’ Professional Development leads in order to foster their input into the implementation of the PL strategy. PLC also responded to the Chapters’ needs and launched the first adjustment in 5 years to the Essential Skills Series (ESS) in order to ensure it continues to meet the needs of emerging evaluators in Canada.

As a member of the CES strategic planning working group, I drafted, with my colleague Johann Jacob (the previous C&M committee Chair), the Society’s first logic model to guide the strategic planning consultations with CES internal and external stakeholders.

As the current CES National Treasurer, I led the CES auditing process for 2019-2020. I also review and present to the CES board the monthly financial statements and monitor the expenditures to make sure they align with the budget.

As President, I would like to focus on three priorities: Doaa Saddek

-   Working on the implementation of the new Strategic Plan. Over the past couple of years, intensive consultations have been conducted with various CES stakeholders in order to encourage their participation, input and recommendations into the CES five-year plan. In collaboration with CES stakeholders and Chapters, I will work to address these recommendations in order to better serve CES members and respond to the distinct needs of different regions.

-   Supporting Diversity and Inclusion in membership and operation. Over the past three years, CES worked hard through its Diversity and Inclusion Working Group to research the best ways to support diversity and inclusion in our membership and operations. As a woman from a visible minority population, I see it as a priority to work together with the CES Chapters, Fellows, Credentialing Board, and Curriculum Advisory Board to understand and try to eliminate the barriers that could be affecting the participation of the less represented populations in our membership and in the professional development opportunities CES offers. I believe frequent communications with current and prospective members through different venues could help us better identify ways to make CES more accessible to all.

-    Promoting professional development and designation. CES professional development opportunities and the CE designation have developed very much over the past years to help support CES members in keeping up with the evolving demands of the profession. Through my professional network and with the support of my colleagues on the CES National Board, I will work on promoting the CES evaluation competencies, the CE designation and the various means of professional development (Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation (CJPE), the e-Institute, CES conferences and Chapter offerings) that CES supports to ensure CES’ work is clearly visible and evaluators across Canada are aware of these opportunities and can benefit from them.

Relevant Skills and Abilities

I have 20 years of professional experience conducting evaluation studies and social science research. I designed performance measurement and data collection strategies, with a broad involvement with government, non-profit and international organizations and academic institutions both in Canada and abroad.

I am currently a senior evaluator in the Canadian federal government, where I work on implementing the Treasury Board’s Policy on Results, while evaluating government funded programs in various sectors and providing recommendations to policy makers regarding the relevance and performance of these programs.

Throughout my professional experience, I supervised and mentored a large number of junior researchers and evaluators, many of whom now hold senior positions in international development organizations.

I have a PhD in Public Policy from Carleton University, a master’s degree in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK and a master’s degree in Economics from the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt. I communicate in English, French and Arabic.

I am driven by my passion for the field of evaluation and my dedication to CES when I am applying for the position of the CES President and I believe that with the support of all the brilliant minds and talents that CES currently has, I can help answer members’ needs and make CES the organization we all hope for.