Meet the 2026 KPU alumni award winners

Three Kwantlen Polytechnic University alumni received alumni awards during convocation ceremonies in June.

Andrew Code, a director at PJT Partners’ Strategic Capital Markets team, won the Distinguished Alumni Award. Performing artist Argel Monte de Ramos received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Dr. Farah Rattansi, founder and clinical director of My Empower Therapy, took home the Alumni Excellence Award.

Code did not plan to go to university, instead he had wanted to be a mechanic. Yet, he ended up enrolling in KPU’s business program, later studying accounting.

He says he liked the small class sizes, which gave him the opportunity to speak to his instructors more, and the accounting program’s co-operative education option.

“Not only did [the co-op program] help me pay for school, but it gave me a level of professionalism coming out of the gate that is akin to the bigger schools with their internship programs at the big investment banks,” Code says.

Instructor Robert Ironside helped introduce him to the finance world and had a more open-minded approach compared to other instructors, Code says, adding that economics instructor Don Reddick had a similar approach to his teaching.

After Code graduating in 2014, he joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global professional services network based in London, U.K., in accounting.

He later moved into banking at CIBC, then landed an investment banking role in London, U.K. He now works at PJT Partners and transitioned into capital markets, which he originally wanted to do.

“The really cool thing is [the Distinguished Alumni Award] indirectly allows me to do what [Ironside] did for me to other students,” Code says.

He adds his advice to students is to find something to distinguish themselves from people who may have a leg up on them.

For Monte de Ramos, KPU was a place where he had the opportunity to learn and grow.

He immigrated to Canada at 15-years-old and says he felt pressured because of the lack of time to pick something to pursue in university, and expectations to choose financially stable career paths.

Monte de Ramos took some language and science courses at KPU before moving to the business program. Beyond his classes, he was an orientation leader, student ambassador, and volunteered with the Filipino Club.

He adds that he travelled to the U.K. for an exchange program that was “monumental” for him as it pushed him towards the performing arts.

“I was able to watch some West End shows and musicals, and that’s when I discovered I would regret it if I didn’t pursue that career,” Monte de Ramos says, who is also an independent singer and songwriter.

He graduated with a general studies diploma in 2018, and went on to earn a bachelor of performing arts degree from Capilano University and graduated with distinction as class valedictorian.

Since, Monte de Ramos has founded the theatre collective Momentum 180 and co-created the The Parallel Project, a book of monologues by BIPOC writers and actors.

“I wanted to provide mentorship for youth who don’t feel accepted by society’s expectations around performing arts or arts in general. I really felt that need of being that person for them,” Monte de Ramos says.

He continues anti-racism and inclusion work to help create safe spaces and opportunities for BIPOC artists.

When Monte de Ramos received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award, he said “he couldn’t believe it.”

“[The award] reminded me that if you put your mind into it, anything is possible, and all of those times when I almost gave up, but didn’t — … it was all worth it,” Monte de Ramos says.

Rattansi graduated from KPU in 2013 with an associate of arts degree in general studies. She was conflicted between becoming a weather reporter or working with children.

“[Being a weather reporter] was always my thing. My grandpa would get so excited watching the weather people, and I’m like, ‘I want to do that,’” Rattansi says.

In the end, she knew working with children was her path. She completed several more years of school to become a doctor.

Rattansi owns a pediatric therapy practice, My Empower Therapy, which has six clinics, and brought a U.S.-based brain treatment centre to Vancouver to expand accessible mental health treatment in Canada.

“[My Empower Therapy] was one of the first to bring a multidisciplinary team together so that parents would have a one-stop shop,” Rattansi says.

She adds she was very surprised to learn she had won the Alumni Excellence Award, which was the same day one of her first therapy students graduated.

“Be true to yourself. Only do something you actually enjoy because if you’re gonna take it as a job, you’re not going to survive,” Rattansi says.