2026 Victoria College Emerging Leader Award Winners

Enxhi Kondi Vic 1T7 and Aliénor Rougeot Vic 2T2 each received an Emerging Leader Award. The award recognizes recent graduates, 40 years of age or under, who have excelled professionally or demonstrated notable accomplishments through professional work or volunteer service, including community work, humanitarianism and philanthropy.

^{Photo courtesy of Enxhi Kondi}

Enxhi Kondi: Elevating Nursing Voices

Enxhi Kondi Vic 1T7 has built her career around visible impact, advocacy and leadership rooted in care, moving from student leadership at Victoria College to the front lines of Ontario’s emergency health-care system.

Kondi is a registered nurse in the emergency department at Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, where she has emerged as a strong public voice for nurses during a challenging period.

She is receiving an Emerging Leader Award in recognition of both her professional excellence and her sustained commitment to public education, mentorship and advocacy.

Kondi’s passion for leadership and community engagement took shape during her undergraduate years, where she served on VUSAC, including a term as vice-president, and was an Orientation executive.

“I spent more time in the student council office than anywhere else,” she reflected. “That really spoke to my passions: planning initiatives, leading events and doing one-on-one work where you can see the impact right away.”

After graduating with an Honors Bachelor of Arts & Science specializing in health and disease, Kondi was guided toward nursing as a means of blending her academic and personal interests with an emphasis on meaningful, immediate impact.

“I wanted to see direct, visible impact,” she said. Nursing offered exactly that, whether through patient care in the emergency department or through teaching future nurses.

Victoria College was also central to Kondi’s personal life. She met her husband while both were Vic students.

Kondi has since become a strong advocate for the nursing profession beyond hospital walls. She regularly shares her experiences with Victoria College students through the Life After Vic series, encouraging students to consider nursing as a profession.

While working on the front lines at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kondi wrote a series of articles in the Toronto Star examining Ontario’s nursing crisis, which received widespread recognition and support from organizations including the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario and the Ontario Nurses Association.

Kondi trains and precepts new nurses in the emergency department and serves as a clinical teacher at Humber College. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes critical thinking and holistic patient care.

“I want students to go beyond tasks and skills,” she said. “I want them to learn how to think like nurses.”

Kondi also earned a Master of Nursing degree at Athabasca University, with a dual focus on teaching and leadership. It was most recently put to practice during her role as a professional practice and education leader where she led and supported organization-wide initiatives to improve nursing practice and quality of patient care.

The Emerging Leader Award prompted reflection on her journey and reaffirmed her sense of purpose.

“This award validates not only my own work in my profession,” she said. “It also reinforces what I have always known and advocated for: nurses are leaders, and our voices need to be heard. I hope my career journey inspires other nurses to emerge as future leaders.”

^{Photo courtesy of Aliénor Rougeot}

Aliénor Rougeot: A Voice for Climate Justice

From organizing student strikes to shaping national conversations on energy policy, Aliénor Rougeot Vic 2T2 has emerged as a leading voice for climate justice in Canada.

Rougeot graduated with an Honours BA in economics and public policy and was named a University of Toronto Alumni Association Scholar.

As a co-founder of Fridays for Future Toronto, the local chapter of the global climate organization, she helped mobilize tens of thousands of young people, including more than 50,000 participants in the 2019 Toronto school strike for climate. Her ability to engage and inspire a new generation of advocates has been central to her work. “You are never alone in this work,” she said. “A big part of organizing for change is finding others to join forces.

At Victoria College, she also served as an Orientation Leader, an experience that sparked her interest in building communities and mentoring others, skills that would become central to her approach to organizing.

Until the summer of 2025, Rougeot worked as a climate and energy program manager and then senior program manager at the advocacy organization Environmental Defence, where she advocates for a fair and equitable energy transition. Her work focused on ensuring that climate policy supports both workers and communities, while also raising public awareness about the urgency of the climate crisis.

She now is working on her Master of Public Policy degree at the University of Oxford.

Beyond her professional role, Rougeot remains deeply involved in community education and civic engagement. She facilitates workshops in schools and community settings and contributes to city-wide initiatives, including serving on the City of Toronto’s Climate Advisory Group.

Rougeot has been named one of Corporate Knights’ 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders and one of The Starfish’s Top 25 Under 25 Environmentalists.

“Vic alumni are hugely accomplished, and the fact that they chose my profile as one to highlight makes me proud and also a little daunted!” she said. “I’ll also be honest, receiving this award at a time where the climate crisis is slipping down the list of priorities because people are struggling to get by daily feels difficult. On one end, it energizes me to recall everything we have achieved to date. On the other, it also is forcing me to admit many of the things we did to advance climate action even five years ago need to totally change, because the context has changed. So it’s a good reminder that this work doesn’t stop.”

Originally published in the Spring 2026 issue of Vic Report.

This edition features Kathleen Wynne reflecting on teaching at Victoria College, a Q&A with Professor Ira Wells on his role as president of PEN Canada, and Bob Rae’s return to Vic One after his UN tenure.

Read the full issue →