Born in Edmonton, Rikia completed her secondary schooling in Treaty 8 territory before earning a B.A. from the University of Alberta. She began her career with the Government of Alberta, working in Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs, Energy Econometrics, and Agricultural Marketing before being posted to Alberta’s trade office in London, where she developed a lasting interest in international business and Canada’s place in the world.

Rikia earned an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management, still ranked first in international trade, where she received the top award in Marketing. Recruited to Backer Spielvogel Bates Worldwide in New York, then one of the world’s largest advertising networks, she helped 154 newly acquired agencies in 147 countries share market intelligence, coordinate regional accounts, and pursue global new business. She later led the TWA account through its Chapter 11 restructuring before moving to the agency’s largest account, a $180-million global beverage business.

In Canada, Rikia led public relations for Walt Disney Entertainment productions, managed banking and telecommunications accounts at BBDO, and served as Director of Client Services at Canada’s largest multicultural marketing agency before founding Rikia Saddy Strategy.

In 2008, she joined the executive team of STEMCELL Technologies, where she developed the strategic positioning that supported the company’s growth into Canada’s largest biotechnology company. She has continued to advise organizations in technology, healthcare, education, finance, philanthropy, and social impact, in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East.

Her public-interest work has frequently required her to bring together evidence, institutions, and stakeholders with differing priorities. She successfully built the case for digital mammography in British Columbia, developed the vision for a new inflammatory bowel disease centre at St. Paul’s Hospital, and aligned a board, a university, and a lead donor around the Centre for Prevention at UBC, the Canadian Cancer Society’s first major capital project outside Toronto.

Her research on Canada’s philanthropic landscape for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation informed the federal government’s Feminist International Assistance Policy and its subsequent ten-year, $14-billion commitment to women’s and girls’ health and rights. In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, she initiated a coalition of 25 grassroots, women-led organizations that secured $750,000 in legacy funding and hosted a visit from the Prime Minister.

A 2012 alumna of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference, Rikia has chaired the Strategic Innovation Committee of the Couchiching Policy Conference and served on the boards of the Central City Foundation and Oxfam Canada. She has also volunteered on civic, provincial, and federal political campaigns for more than one political party, giving her practical experience of democratic institutions and public decision-making across partisan lines.

Rikia’s ability to assess evidence and competing arguments was recognized early. As a national high-school debater, she received the Tom Lawson Award for best exemplifying the spirit of debate. The discipline of reading widely, separating the essential from the peripheral, constructing a needs case, seeing both sides of an issue clearly, and explaining an optimum course of action has remained central to her work.

Raised within a family shaped by Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish traditions, Rikia developed an early respect for pluralism and the possibility of common purpose across deeply held differences. She has maintained a lifelong commitment to learning French and has written and spoken on Canadian unity, democracy, education, business, and public affairs.

She has been quoted in The Globe and Mail, published in The Tyee, and profiled national and Quebec perspectives on Canadian unity for CBC’s The National. She is the author of We Are Canada, a Red Maple Award finalist.

Rikia believes in a strong, united Canada and has made her home in Vancouver for 30 years.