Hilary Black is a cis-gendered White settler woman living as a guest on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, Tl’elhum or ĆU,ÁÁN, on Salt Spring Island.  

Hilary has been a leader in harm reduction, medical cannabis advocacy, and social impact for more than 30 years. She approaches her work with compassion and conviction, advancing health equity through community-driven change and partnership.  

In 1997, Hilary founded the BC Compassion Club, Canada’s first medical cannabis organization, creating a national model for patient rights and access to legal cannabis care. Her advocacy helped pave the way for medical cannabis legalization in Canada and demonstrated how harm reduction could transform both policy and practice. She later became the  first woman to join the C-suite at Canopy Growth Corporation as Chief Advocacy Officer, where she led the company’s first social impact and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives and helped establish Canada’s first academic professorship at the University of British Columbia, dedicated to studying cannabis as a harm reduction tool in response to toxic drug poisoning deaths.  

At Changemark, Hilary leads social impact strategy and partnerships that embed equity, inclusion, and justice across research, evaluation, and system design. She works with the leadership team to build business strategies grounded in social impact, ensuring the company’s growth and operations reflect the same principles of compassion, accountability, and community that drive its work.