HRFEST AGENDA

This program has been pre-approved for 9.75 hours of Continuing Professional Development by HRPA.
9:00am

Registration Opens

10:00am - 10:10am

Welcome to The Hangar 2026!

10:10am - 10:45am

Canada’s HR Reset – The Decisions Defining 2026

Transformation & the Changing Landscape

Three of Canada's leading CHROs open HRFest 2026 with a candid take on where HR really sits right now - what's getting funded, what's been quietly killed, and the calls being made behind closed doors. Leave with a clear view of what's on the table for 2027, and how HR can shape the business case instead of reacting to it. 

Casey Woods

Head of HR Toronto, Lyft

Martine Lamoureux

Head of Talent & Culture, Ardene

Catia Goncalves

Director, Talent Acquisition, Walmart Canada

10:50am - 11:30am

Is Hybrid Still the Hill HR Should Die On?

Transformation & the Changing Landscape

Two teams. One question that refuses to go away. Is hybrid still worth fighting for, given new regulations, OHS obligations for telework and shifting business priorities, or is it time to reset the model? Hear the strongest arguments on both sides, vote live, and leave with the exact language you can use the next time this debate lands at your executive table. 

Tiffany Smye

Leadership Coach & Talent Strategist, TCS Talent Consulting
Moderator

Paulette Haynes

Founder & Managing Officer, Haynes Law Firm

Hannah Yardley

Chief People & Culture Officer, Achievers

11:35am - 12:15pm

The Trust Gap: Why Your Team Isn't Using AI

AI & HR Tech

Adoption stats look great on paper. The reality on the ground is a workforce quietly working around the tools you invested in. Two people leaders  compare notes on what that gap really signals: why skepticism runs deeper than the technology, why forcing adoption backfires, and what shifts when people feel some ownership over how AI shows up in their work.

Loren Blandon

Culture & People Lead, Google Deepmind

Shawn Gibson

CHRO, Info-tech

12:15pm - 1:35pm

Fresh Paint: A Creative Reset for a Busy Brain

Two days of big ideas is a lot for one brain to hold. Step away from the slides, the note-taking and the networking, and do something refreshingly different: pick up a brush. In this 20-minute creative break, Fresh Paint hands you a little kit of your own and guides you through a simple, no-pressure painting moment designed to quiet the mental noise and re-engage your mind in a completely different way. No art experience required, just a genuine pause that leaves you clearer, lighter and ready for what's next. Take your kit home to keep the creative resets going—and discover a simple way to bring creative wellness to your team.

Roxane Tracey

Founder, Fresh Paint Studio

1:05pm - 1:45pm

The Wellbeing Receipts: Where Investment Actually Moves the Numbers

Total Rewards & Benefits

Burnout, childcare gaps and mental health challenges are no longer side stories; they’re central to workforce performance. This session connects wellbeing to the hard numbers: retention, productivity, absenteeism and safety. You’ll hear how everyday leadership behaviors, flexibility and benefits design show up in the P&L, and leave with the exact language to link wellbeing investment to business outcomes.  

Kristy Jones

VP of HR, Achievers
Moderator

Tammy Sergie

Chief HR & Privacy Officer, EHN Canada

Michelle Brooks

Chief People Officer, Onward Advisory

Dr. Jason Abrams

VP of Medical Affairs, Medcan

1:50pm - 2:50pm

Success Isn’t the Same as Fulfillment: How to Build The Career You Crave

Wellbeing & Culture

You built a successful career. So why do you still feel unfulfilled? In this keynote, Irina Posan introduces Identity Lag—the gap that forms when you outgrow the version of success you once worked so hard to build—and shares a practical path to creating a more fulfilling career and life without starting over.
 
You will learn how to:
  • Get clear on what you truly want from your career and life now.
  • Redefine success around who you have become and what matters most to you.
  • Make meaningful change without starting over by building on the experience and success you already have.

Irina Posan

Career & Leadership Coach

2:55pm - 3:35pm

Risk Radar 2026–27 - The Calls Keeping Canadian HR Up at Night

Legal, Risk & Compliance

Termination clauses, severance and non-competes. Pay transparency and AI disclosure. Restructurings and reputational risk. This is where every "what if?" question lives. Employment lawyers and senior HR leaders compare notes on the biggest risks on their radar and invite the room to vote on which ones keep you up at night. Leave with sharper messaging for your executive team and board, plus a prioritized wish list of the guardrails and decisions you need next.

Meaghen Russell

Partner, Dentons Canada LLP
Moderator

Erin Kuzz

Employment Lawyer, Sherrard Kuzz LLP

Simone Ostrowski

Partner, Whitten & Lublin

Barbara Green

Partner, Robins Appleby LLP

3:40pm - 4:15pm

View From the Top - A North American CPO on What Canada Gets Right

Transformation & the Changing Landscape

For our final session of the day, a leading North American CPO joins us for a candid fireside on what they see from the top and what they think Canadian HR is getting right, getting wrong, and missing entirely. Expect a frank conversation on the differences between leading people in Canada vs. the US, where Canadian HR has a genuine advantage, and the bets they're personally making for 2027. The honest closing conversation that sends you into drinks with something real to talk about. 

Krista Skalde

Operating Partner and Chief Talent Officer, Inovia Capital
Moderator

Katya Laviolette

4x Chief People Officer | Board Director | Executive Advisor, 1Password

4:15pm - 4:20pm

Thank you for joining The Hangar on Day 1!

4:45pm - 5:00pm

Networking Drinks and HRD Rising Stars Trophy Presentation Ceremony

10:10am - 10:55am

Coming for HR: What AI Is Actually Doing to the Function

AI & HR Tech

Three leading voices in AI sit down to talk honestly about how the function itself is being reshaped — which HR roles are already changing, which ones are quietly disappearing, which new skills are becoming the new minimum, and what the HR team of 2028 actually looks like. 30 minutes of candid conversation, 15 minutes of your questions. The session HR teams need but most conferences won't put on the agenda.
11:00am - 11:30am

Legal Hot Seat: Live HR “Ask Me Anything”

Legal, Risk & Compliance

The session where you get to ask the questions you usually pay for. A live, no-holds-barred Q&A with one of Canada's sharpest employment lawyers, covering whatever's actually on your mind: AI in hiring and Ontario's disclosure rules, posting pay ranges, the latest on termination and severance enforceability (bonuses and LTIPs included), non-competes, non-solicits, telework, harassment obligation. Bring your real scenarios. Hypothetical questions welcome too, but the real ones make better answers.

Lisa Goodfellow

Partner, Miller Thomson LLP
Moderator

Daniel Wong

Partner & Chair, Employment Law Group, WeirFoulds LLP

Kaley Dodds

Employment & Labour Lawyer, Gowling WLG

11:35am - 12:00pm

Deals and People: The M&A Landmines That Take HR Down

Transformation & the Changing Landscape

Most HR teams discover what they don't know about M&A on the day the deal closes. This 20-minute session covers the share-vs-asset-deal basics every HR leader needs in their back pocket, plus the human issues that quietly derail deal value: holding onto the key talent who actually make integration work, handling employees on leave when ownership changes, and communicating through a process where you can't say half of what you know. Compact, candid, and the session you'll wish you'd attended next time the rumour mill starts up.

Karin Adams

VP, Talent & Total Rewards, TMX Group

Margot Lackenbauer

CHRO, BDO Canada
Moderator

12:50pm - 1:10pm

No Spin EVP: What to Promise When You Can't Promise Much

Total Rewards & Benefits

The honest conversation about what employers are still over-promising and what candidates and employees have stopped believing. How do you actually align EVP with the real employee experience when hiring is slower, budgets are tighter and the gap between the brochure and the desk has rarely been wider? You'll hear how the best Canadian employers are positioning what they genuinely offer, using employee voice credibly, and avoiding the platitudes that quietly torch credibility. Leave with phrases and guardrails you can use in your next job ad, interview, or town hall. 

Karen Ta

Senior Manager - Partner Experience, PwC
Moderator

Nicola Meyer

Canada Market Leader, Employee Experience, WTW

Margot Perlmutter

Head of HR, CANNEX

Sania Sanzgiri

Human Resources, North America, Neo Performance Materials

1:15pm - 1:40pm

The Caregiving Crunch: The Quiet Workforce Crisis Hitting Canadian Employers

Wellbeing & Culture

Childcare costs are biting. Eldercare is rising. And employees are balancing caregiving responsibilities with their own health needs, with implications for attendance, performance and retention. This session looks at what Canadian employers are actually trying, from subsidies and backup care to scheduling flexibility, women’s health support and helping employees navigate the benefits they already have.

Tina Tellis

Former CIBC
Moderator

Krista Skalde

Operating Partner and Chief Talent Officer, Inovia Capital

Lori Cassleman

CEO, June Health

1:45pm - 2:10pm

Skills Over Titles: Hiring and Mobility When Headcount Freezes

Talent & Workforce Planning

Three short talks on the talent strategy everyone says they want and most organizations are still botching. You'll hear how Canadian employers are running skills-based hiring in a market that's simultaneously talent-short and demand-cooled, why internal mobility has become the talent pipeline that actually matters, and what it takes to upskill front-line managers in Ontario's shifting regulatory landscape. Three speakers, three angles, one clear picture of where this is heading.

Marc Belaiche

President & Co-Founder, Toronto Jobs
Moderator

Simon Trevarthen

CEO, TRIEC ( The Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council)

Alexandra Tillo

Senior Talent Marketing Strategist-Country Marketing, Indeed

Catia Goncalves

Director, Talent Acquisition, Walmart Canada

2:15pm - 2:40pm

Trauma‑Sensitive HR: Leading When People Are Not OK

Wellbeing & Culture

The process may be routine to HR. It’s rarely routine to the employee. HR doesn’t choose whether people bring trauma into the workplace, but it does choose how its processes are experienced. In this practical, thought-provoking session, Lola Obomighie introduces her SAFE HR Framework, a practical, human-centred framework for leading performance management, investigations and restructuring discussions with clarity, fairness and compassion. Participants will leave with practical language, boundaries and behaviours they can apply immediately to protect psychological safety while maintaining accountability, procedural fairness and service excellence. Because trauma-sensitive HR isn’t softer HR, it’s more disciplined, more intentional and more human. 

Lola Obomighie

VP People, Culture & Organizational Effectiveness, Northumberland Hills Hospital

2:45pm - 3:00pm

Psychological Safety, the Real Version: Stories From the Other Side of Restructure

Wellbeing & Culture

Three HR leaders take the mic and tell the truth about rebuilding trust after restructures, layoffs and the kind of weeks no one warns you about. Each tells one real story; what broke, what they tried, what actually worked, and what they'd never do again, across hybrid teams, frontline workforces and everything in between. Expect specifics, not slogans, and a few moves you can quietly steal for your own team. 

Edith Pencil

Director of Employee Services, Performance Auto Group

3:10pm - 3:35pm

L&D on a Diet: Building Learning Cultures When the Budget Disappears

Learning & Development

The first thing to get cut is almost always learning and development and the long-term cost of that decision is bigger than most CFOs realize. This 25-minute setup session looks at how the best Canadian HR teams are protecting learning cultures with shrinking resources: blending AI-enabled learning tools with real human mentorship, making development sharper instead of bigger, and proving the ROI in time for the next budget conversation. Stick around afterwards for the crowd-solving session that turns this into your own problems, solved by the room.

Jackie Dacanay

Regional Director of Learning & Development, Fairmont Hotles and Resorts

Karen Ta

Senior Manager - Partner Experience, PwC
Moderator

3:40pm - 4:00pm

L&D Live: Bring Your Budget Problem, Solve It With the Room

Learning & Development

Real L&D challenges from the audience. The whole room solving them in real time. Following on from L&D on a Diet, this open-mic session hands the floor to you - bring the specific budget problem you're wrestling with right now (the program you can't afford to lose, the case you can't make to finance, the team you're trying to keep developing on a shoestring) and let the room work it through with you. Live polling, peer exchange, and the most useful 20 minutes you'll spend if L&D is in your remit. Sign up to share your challenge or come to listen and steal good ideas. Either way, you'll leave with more than you came with.

Nura Askar

Director of Learning & Development, Intact

Anupama Joshi

Head of Talent, FutureSight

Diondra Filicetti

Founder, Driven By Co
Moderator

10:05am - 10:50am

Comp 201: Diagnosing a Pay Structure That’s Quietly Broken

Total Rewards & Benefits

Most pay structures look fine on a slide and fall apart on closer inspection. In this hands-on diagnostic workshop, you'll learn how to spot the cracks in existing structures using a real-world case; misaligned ranges, compressed levels, grades that no longer reflect the work. You'll walk through the techniques for adjusting ranges and levels to improve transparency, internal equity and market alignment, and leave with a diagnostic checklist you can run against your own structure on Monday. 

Kim Oliver

Managing Director, WTW

Glenda Oldenburg

WTW

10:55am - 11:40am

From Surveys to Storytelling: Making People Analytics Land with the C‑Suite

AI & HR Tech

The dashboard isn't the deliverable, the decision is. Join this session as Dr Kalifa Oliver walks through how to turn engagement and EX data into clear narratives that drive business decisions, not just slides that get nodded at. You'll practice framing insights, choosing the visuals that actually land, and linking people data to financial and operational outcomes. Leave with a narrative framework you can use the next time you walk into the boardroom with a survey result. 

Dr Kalifa Oliver

Executive Advisor, Author, & Sr. Director of Technology, Lowes

11:45am - 12:30pm

After the Deal: M&A Workforce Integration for Canadian HR

Transformation & the Changing Landscape

Deals get signed in the boardroom. They get won or lost in HR. In this case-based workshop, you'll work through HR's real role in Canadian M&A, mapping workforce and severance exposure pre-deal, structuring offers in asset deals, retaining the key talent that makes the deal work, and communicating through the process without over-promising. Leave with an M&A workforce integration checklist and a clear view of the calls you'd need to make in your first 90 days post-close

Audrey Bainbridge

Senior Consultant, M&A, Marsh

12:35pm - 1:20pm

The L&D Team of One: Using AI to Design Training That Works

Learning & Development

In many organizations, training now sits with a small team or with one person who also carries a much broader HR role. Budgets are tighter and expectations haven't changed, which is why so many people are turning to AI to help build programs. Used well, it saves real time. Used carelessly, it produces training that doesn't change how people work. In this hands-on lab, you'll take a real learning need from start to finish with AI, see where it adds value and where it falls short, and learn how to get consistently better results from it. You'll leave with tested prompts and a simple process you can apply to your next learning program.

Key Takeaways:
  • A clear, step-by-step way to use AI when designing a training program, from understanding the real need to building the activities.
  • Prompts tested live in the room that produce specific, useful results.
  • The common mistakes AI makes with training content and how to catch them early.
  • How to decide which parts of the work to give to AI and which to keep, so your time goes where it has the most impact.

Caitlyn Beattie

Founder & CEO, Origami HR

2:10pm - 2:55pm

Leading Without the Mask: Recognizing the Adaptive Strategies That Drive Leadership Under Pressure

Leadership & HR Careers

Behind every leadership gap is a pattern that once kept someone safe. In this fast-paced, interactive session, HR leaders and people managers will get a hands-on introduction to the Mask Mapping™ framework — exploring the unconscious adaptive strategies that drive leadership behaviour under pressure. In just 30 minutes, you’ll identify your dominant pattern, see how it shows up in your team, and leave with one concrete insight you can apply immediately in your organization. Consider this your first look at a methodology that goes deeper than any personality profile you’ve encountered before.

Kristina Holle

Founder, Holle Consulting | Leadership & Culture Transformation Expert | Executive Coach | Author | Speaker

3:00pm - 3:55pm

Feedback Lab for Teams: The Golden Rule That Changes the Conversation

Learning & Development

An interactive workshop where participants reflect on real feedback conversations that went badly, both as giver and receiver, and rebuild them using one Universal Truth that makes every feedback conversation more successful. Join Katie Duarte, Feedback Specialist, for research-backed insights that will transform the way you approach feedback conversations and leave with a roadmap of actions that make tough conversations more connected and more effective.

Katie Duarte

Founder and Principal, Action Potential Solutions

10:05am - 10:50am

How They Actually Got the Job: Three HR Leaders on the Moves That Worked

Leadership & HR Careers

Join us for this opening session with a Director, VP and CHRO talking honestly about how they got to where they are today. The lateral moves that opened doors, the promotions they nearly turned down, the bets that didn't pay off but mattered anyway. Not generic career advice. Real Canadian HR career paths from the people ahead of the game.
10:55am - 11:35am

Owning the Benefits Conversation: The Skill That Gets HR Generalists Taken Seriously

Total Rewards & Benefits

Benefits is where a lot of ambitious HR generalists quietly feel exposed and that gap gets noticed. This session helps you close it. Learn how to speak confidently about benefits strategy without being an actuary: what really drives plan costs, the questions to ask your broker, when a plan no longer fits your workforce, and how to bring a credible benefits view to the leadership table. Because owning it gets you taken seriously.

Pascale Mapleston

Founder & CEO, The Benefit Code

11:40am - 12:10pm

Promoted, or Replaced? What AI Means for the Mid-Career HR Move

Leadership & HR Careers

Join this session as we delve into which HR careers are quietly getting reshaped by AI. Which roles are growing? Which are being absorbed? Which new skills have become table stakes for a Director-level move that didn't require them three years ago? A candid conversation with senior HR leaders and a workforce strategist on what the next promotion actually looks like in an AI-shaped function and how to position yourself for it.
12:10am - 12:25pm

The Hidden Weight We All Carry: Why Mental Health and Resilience Matter in an Age of Constant Change

Leadership & HR Careers

Today’s challenges rarely happen one at a time. As we navigate workplace changes, evolving technologies, and personal life transitions, the cumulative impact can take a toll on our well-being. This talk explores why mental resilience is essential in an age of constant change and shares practical strategies to help you stay grounded, adapt, and thrive through uncertainty.

Stephanie Fairborn ND

Workplace Wellness Presenter, GoodLife Fitness

12:25pm - 12:40pm

Mindfulness session

Leadership & HR Careers

Join this guided mindfulness session where GoodLife will lead you through simple, practical techniques to calm a busy mind, release tension and return to the festival focused and re-energized.

Lisa Greenbaum

Group Fitness Instructor, GoodLife Fitness

1:05pm - 1:45pm

Internal Comms Without a Comms Team: HR's Quiet Second Job

Leadership & HR Careers

Most HR leaders have a second job they were never hired for: internal comms. The restructure announcement. The AI rollout email. The benefits change FAQ. The manager messaging when something blows up. This session is the practical toolkit for the comms moments HR ends up owning whether you have a comms team or not, the principles that actually land with employees, the templates you can adapt, and the language that holds up when the news isn't good.

Ira Dubinsky

Head of Product Marketing, ContactMonkey

1:50pm - 2:30pm

AI in HR Lab: Build Three Real Use Cases, and Keep Them Under Control

Leadership & HR Careers

This practical, hands-on session will help HR leaders move beyond theory and leave with three concrete AI use cases they can start on Monday, plus a simple governance checklist for each one: what the agent is allowed to do, what it must never do, who checks its answers, and how to catch hallucinations, bias and personal data leaks before they reach an employee.

Amine Salah

Partner & Principal Consultant, AI Governance & Product, AureliaOPS

2:35pm - 3:15pm

Human & Profitable: ADHD in the workplace

Leadership & HR Careers

ADHD is often stigmatized as an excuse for laziness and misbehaviour. Yet high performance workplaces often attract people with ADHD. Maybe ADHD isn't what we think! Every person with ADHD experiences different symptoms and strengths. Many rely on the support of others to thrive at work. We'll get into what ADHD is and what makes a fast-paced workplace so attractive to the ADHD brain. You’ll see how and why the positive and negative traits show up at work, and what role folks without ADHD can play in unlocking their colleagues’ potential.

You'll learn concrete language and tools you can use right away, both for supporting a colleague and for supporting yourself. Just like every role contributes to a profitable and efficient workplace, so does every thinking style."

Sarah Ennor

Founder, Growth Counsel