Susan McIsaac

Catch Susan on Do Radio: It's Not About Trees with John Lunn 01-07th December 2025.

Susan McIsaac joined Right To Play International in June 2019 as the Chief Philanthropy Officer, and became Chief Executive Officer in January 2021.

Prior to joining Right To Play, Susan was the Managing Director, Strategic Philanthropy at Royal Bank of Canada, where she provided strategic advice and guidance to RBC’s ultra-high net worth clients in developing their family philanthropic and legacy plans.

In the previous two decades, Susan was a senior executive with United Way of Greater Toronto, where she served as the organization’s Chief Development Officer and then as President and CEO. Under her leadership, United Way mobilized people and resources to address many of the region’s most pressing challenges, including income inequality, housing, precarious employment, and youth success. During her tenure, the organization increased its revenue from $58 million in 1998 to $118 million in 2015.

Susan has been involved in the community throughout her life as a volunteer and director of numerous organizations, and was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal in 2012 in recognition of her efforts. She was named by the Women’s Executive Network as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in 2014 and won Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Region Builder Award in 2017.

Show notes

In this powerful episode, Susan McIsaac — President & CEO of Right To Play International — takes us inside one of the most challenging leadership environments in the world: delivering education and child protection programmes across conflict zones, climate-affected regions, and rapidly shifting political landscapes. From her early career in banking to leading one of Canada’s largest charities, and eventually stepping into global development, Susan shares how a lifelong instinct for purpose and impact shaped her path.

She describes today’s global context as a period of “great change”: declining government aid, volatile donor priorities, intensifying climate shocks (from Pakistan’s floods to cyclones in Mozambique), and growing political scrutiny of international NGOs. Yet, she sees equal opportunity — in digital tools, in the creativity of local teams, and in the rising global emphasis on evidence and impact measurement.

Susan explains the sector’s move toward localization: shifting power, funding, and delivery to community-rooted partners. This is not just strategy — it’s necessity. Partnerships in Sierra Leone and Lebanon illustrate a new model where Right To Play acts as facilitator and technical expert rather than sole implementer, expanding both scale and resilience.

She is candid about financial pressures, the emotional toll on in-country teams, and the tension of “doing more with less.” But her optimism is grounded in people: the resilience of staff, the dedication of donors, and stories like Aisha — a girl from rural Mali whose journey from a Right To Play classroom to the UN in Geneva embodies the transformative power of education.

Her message is clear: hope lives in human beings, in community, in partnership — and in the courage to keep going.