FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 March, 2026
Cardus today announced the launch of the Entrepreneurial NextGEN (ENG) Fellowship, a formation program designed for Christian business leaders in Canada who seek to integrate faith, entrepreneurship, and civic purpose. Applications for the inaugural cohort are now open, with the first gathering scheduled for September 2026.
The ENG Fellowship will bring together twelve business leaders annually in a blended program of five in-person gatherings across Canada and four online sessions. Drawing on two millennia of Christian social thought, the program addresses themes including vocation and calling, leadership and organizational health, the public role of enterprise, and ethical challenges facing today’s business leaders. Fellows will also be connected with mentors drawn from Canada’s senior business community.
“Business leaders who are motivated by Christian faith carry enormous potential to renew the communities and institutions around them,” said Ray Pennings, executive vice president and coounder at Cardus. “The ENG Fellowship exists to cultivate that potential—giving NextGen Christian entrepreneurs the formation, peer community, and intellectual framework to lead with excellence and conviction. As a think tank drawing on Christian social thought to strengthen the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good, Cardus is excited to bring this initiative to life and grow Canada’s movement of enterprise for the common good.”
The program is directed by David Smith and Lois Benham-Smith, two veteran Canadian business and civic leaders who came to Cardus with a shared conviction that senior Christian entrepreneurs are an under-leveraged force for social renewal, and an underserved one. David Smith is a former president of Compass Group Canada, one of Canada’s largest employers, and Lois Benham-Smith is a founder and former executive director of a leading Ontario pregnancy care centre.
“We have both sat at the top of organizations, and we know how challenging and lonely executive leadership can be,” said David Smith and Lois Benham-Smith, ENG program directors. “There are many programs that invest in the people these leaders manage, but there are very few that invest in the leaders themselves. We came to Cardus because we believe that Christian business leaders, formed together in community, can be one of the most powerful forces for good in this country. The ENG Fellowship is how we do that.”
The ENG Fellowship is open to Canadian Christian business leaders in senior executive or ownership roles, typically leading organizations with $10 million or more in gross revenue. Applicants are expected to demonstrate an active Christian faith, a record of civic or community engagement, and a vision for their business as a force for the common good. The program fee is $4,995 plus travel. The application deadline for the inaugural cohort is June 15, 2026.
Further information and the application form are available at cardus.ca/ENG.
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Cardus is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.