Our team

Kebreab Ashame

Founder

Kebreab Ashame is the Founder of Ryding House. Drawing on his experience building two successful businesses, along with his experience with addiction and recovery, he established Ryding House with the goal of creating a high-quality, safe, and meaningful residential addictions treatment program. As an entrepreneur, he has strived to build opportunities for others. Kebreab is committed to expanding access to treatment for people who have faced barriers, and creating meaningful opportunities for people with lived experience to grow and contribute.

Margot Matheson

Clinical Director · MSW, RSW

Margot Matheson, MSW, RSW is the Clinical Director at Ryding House. She is a Registered Social Worker with over 12 years of experience across residential treatment, hospitals, shelters, and community mental health and addictions services. Her practice is also informed by her master's research examining addiction stigma in clinical practice, and her lived experience with addiction and recovery.

Her work centres on building relational and anti-shame clinical environments informed by both empirical evidence and lived expertise. She has a particular interest in challenging simplistic narratives about addiction, strengthening social connection and interdependence, and designing services that recognize recovery as a relational process shaped by the people, communities, and systems around us.

Stella Gill

House Manager

Stella Gill is the House Manager at Ryding House. She brings with her over eight years of leadership experience managing a high-paced, upscale hospitality environment, where she developed expertise in team leadership, operations, and creating welcoming spaces. She holds a Social Service Worker diploma from George Brown College and has two years of placement and volunteer experience supporting people in residential addictions programs. Her work is also informed by her personal experience supporting loved ones affected by addiction.

Stella believes that recovery happens not only through excellent clinical care, but also through everyday relationships, routines, and the environment people experience each day.