Rita has managed businesses and research labs and has applied her management knowledge as a business strategy consultant to small businesses and social enterprises. She earned her Master of Business Administration and Doctoral degrees in Management at the University of Guelph.

Rita took a deep dive into the greenhouse industry during postdoctoral work in 2017 that looked at value creation opportunities from the adoption of robotics by Ontario vegetable greenhouse growers. Rita enjoys the work of building the GTN and the challenges of bringing together greenhouse-related technology businesses with research experts and specialized research facilities in a rapidly changing, innovation ecosystem.