Lydia Bugden

Lydia is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Stewart McKelvey, being called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1992 and the Ontario Bar in 1994.  After seven years as in-house counsel Lydia joined Stewart McKelvey in September 1999, becoming a partner in 2001 and CEO in 2015.  She is recognized in her profession previously being named Top 40 Under 40 by LEXPERT Magazine, and over the years has been noted as a leading corporate-commercial practitioner in a number of legal publications.  She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2020.  Lydia is currently Past Chair of the Board of Directors of the QEII Health Sciences Centre Foundation.  She is a recipient of The Progress Club’s "Women of Excellence" Award, was named one of the top leading women lawyers in Canada receiving a L'Expert "Zenith Award" and, for the past five years, has been named one of Atlantic Canada’s Top 50 CEOs by Atlantic Business Magazine, being inducted into the Atlantic Business Magazine Top 50 CEO Hall of Fame in the spring of 2022.