HR LEADERS AGENDA
This agenda is exclusive to HR Leaders pass holders. Access is reserved for senior HR professionals — Director, VP, Head and above. Every HR Leaders pass also includes the full HRFest Canada experience, but general HRFest passes do not include access to this track.
10:00am
Welcome to HR Leaders!
10:10am - 10:50am
Inside the Boardroom: What the C‑Suite Really Wants from HR Now
Transformation & the Changing Landscape
A CEO/CFO and CHRO lift the curtain on the real pressures around growth, productivity, cost and risk and what they need from senior leaders. In this candid, off‑the‑record conversation, you’ll hear how HR priorities land in the boardroom, which conversations change capital allocation decisions, and where HR is still seen as “support” rather than “critical infrastructure.” Expect direct insights you can use to reposition your agenda with your own CEO and board.
Lawrence Hughes
CPO, Porter
Tanja Fratangeli
CPO, IKEA
Marco Dube
EVP People & Culture, Hydro Ottawa
11:05am - 11:40am
Cyber Is an HR Problem: Accountability, Insider Risk and What Boards Are Now Asking
Legal, Risk & Compliance
Cyber sits on every board agenda now and the people side of cyber sits squarely on HR's. Senior leaders share real examples of incidents, near misses and AI rollouts that had to be paused or redesigned because of risk, accountability or governance gaps. How HR worked with risk, legal and technology to protect financial position and reputation when it mattered. Where accountability actually lives when something goes wrong. And what boards are now asking for in terms of assurance, questions that didn't exist 24 months ago.
Christian Kengne
Senior Director, Cybersecurity Technology, Fiera Capital
Sudha Dwivedi
Chief People and Culture Officer, Interac Corps
Amir Belkhelladi
Partner, Deloitte Canada
11:45am - 12:25pm
The Operating Model Reset: What's Actually Working Under Pressure
Transformation & the Changing Landscape
A senior CHRO walks through a real before-and-after operating model redesign; what they changed, what it cost, what it actually delivered in terms of cost efficiency, execution speed, risk management and clearer ownership. We'll work through the operating model archetypes that are holding up under pressure in 2026: headcount, spans of control, shared services, COEs and where work genuinely gets done. A quick self-assessment will help you locate your own structure on the same map and identify where it's enabling strategy versus quietly working against you.
Anna Filice
CPO, WSIB
Elizabeth McSavaney
SVP, Chief People Officer, Zurich Canada
Christie Rall
Partner, Mercer
Moderator
1:25pm - 2:10pm
The People Side of the Deal: How HR Realizes (or Destroys) M&A Value
Transformation & the Changing Landscape
Major transformations and deals are often sold on spreadsheets but delivered (or derailed) through people. In this panel, senior executives share real cases where HR was central to realizing value from transformations and M&A: from due diligence and workforce modelling to leadership selection, culture integration and tough calls on roles and locations. You’ll see how they quantified people‑related risks and synergies, how they reported progress to the board, and what they would redesign next time.
Carina Vassilieva
CHRO, Apotex
Jennifer Bouyoukos
Chief People Officer, PureFacts Financial Solutions
2:15pm - 2:50pm
Bargaining in 2027: Labour Relations as a Strategic HR Function
Legal, Risk & Compliance
Strikes are more frequent. Unions are more confident. Public sector settlements are setting precedents the private sector can't ignore. Two senior HR leaders join us for a candid conversation on what's actually shifting in Canadian labour relations — and how senior HR leaders are repositioning the function inside their organizations. Expect a conversation that moves between the strategic and the practical: bargaining as a commercial conversation with the C-suite, the union as a partner in employee experience, the financial framing senior leaders need to bring to the table, and the wider shift in how labour relations sits within HR strategy. The conversation senior HR leaders need to be having before the next round lands.
Matt Hopkins
Executive Director, People, Toronto Transit Commission
Travis Titley
Head of HR, Communications & Communities, Burgundy Diamonds
Alison McBratney
VP, Human Resources, CAA North and East
3:05pm - 3:45pm
Termination Risk Reimagined: Severance, Strategy, and Reputation in 2026
Legal, Risk & Compliance
Letting people go has never been riskier — or more public. This session unpacks how termination risk has shifted in 2026: changing notice periods, climbing damage awards, and rising exposure from bad faith conduct and reputational damage. We'll compare the executive exit, the mass reduction, and the "quiet exit" — and give you the language to brief your board before the next call lands.
Claudia Desjardins Bélisle
Managing Partner, Montréal, Miller Thomson LLP
David Tsai
Partner, Miller Thomson LLP
3:50pm - 4:25pm
The AI Implementation Files: Case Studies in Ethics, Risk and What Got Paused
AI & HR Tech
AI is no longer new but the lessons from real implementations are only just becoming clear. This focused session walks through detailed case studies of AI in talent acquisition, listening/analytics and learning, highlighting where ethics, bias, privacy and adoption challenges emerged in practice. You’ll see what governance models and contracts looked like, when leaders chose to pause or stop an initiative, and how they now evaluate ROI, value creation and risk in AI‑enabled HR tools.
Dr Kalifa Oliver
Executive Advisor, Author, & Sr. Director of Technology, Lowes
Michelle Loo
Chief DEI Officer, Linde
Diana Valler
CHRO. TravelBrands
4:40pm - 6:00pm
Networking Drinks
10:00am - 10:05am
Welcome to HR Leaders!
10:05am - 10:40am
The Economist in the Room: What 2027 Actually Holds for Canadian HR
Transformation & the Changing Landscape
What should senior HR leaders be modelling for 2027? A leading Canadian economist opens Day Two with a clear-eyed read on where the economy is heading, what tariffs and Canada–US relations mean for the labor market, and which recession signals to actually take seriously. The macro context every CHRO is expected to bring to the boardroom, connecting what's happening in the broader economy directly to the decisions already on your desk.
10:55am - 11:30am
Immigration & Global Talent: From Policy Shock to Strategic Advantage
Talent & Workforce Planning
Immigration rules and political signals are shifting fast across North America, with real implications for how senior HR leaders secure scarce skills, manage compliance risk and sustain diverse workforces. This session goes beyond "how the system works" to unpack the most consequential pathways and the risk hotspots and shows how one organization has embedded immigration directly into its workforce, DEI and risk strategy. The honest conversation about where immigration should sit in your 2026 talent agenda, and what to do when the policy ground moves underneath it.
Cosmina Morariu
Managing Partner, Fragoman
Pedro Antunes
Chief Economist, Signal49 Research
11:35am - 12:20pm
Workforce Planning & Leadership Pipelines that Don’t Break Under Pressure
Talent & Workforce Planning
Two organizations share how they actually run workforce planning with finance and strategy: time horizons, scenarios, governance rhythms and the trade‑offs that never make it into the slide deck. In back‑to‑back case stories and a joint Q&A, they’ll open up how they map critical roles, handle succession and manage senior performance—what’s working, what’s folklore, and what they’d redesign if they could.
Wylie Burke
Adjunct Professor in Employment Relations Studies, Queens University IRC
Cynthia Domjancic
Senior Vice President, HR, Ontario Power Generation
1:20pm - 2:00pm
The Rewards Audit: What's Working, What's Wasting Money, What's About to Stop Working
Total Rewards & Benefits
Three executive stories on how organizations have used data to redefine EVP, reshape total rewards and financial wellbeing (especially for lower-paid and under-represented groups), and build learning cultures that actually protect revenue, productivity, retention and labor cost in tight markets. Where the investment has paid off. Where it hasn't. And how senior leaders are now evaluating the trade-offs between cost, competitiveness and equity including which levers in their own portfolio may no longer be earning their keep.
Helen Ashton
VP, People, Culture & Customer Experience, Grand&Toy
2:15pm - 2:55pm
Selling the Stack to the CEO: An HRIS Transformation Story
AI & HR Tech
A CHRO and a senior tech executive walk through the full inside story of an HRIS and analytics transformation, from business case and vendor selection to rollout, adoption and the issues no one warned them about. How they sold it to the CEO and CFO. Where they overreached. Where they under-invested. The governance model that sits around the data now. And how the new stack actually shapes board-level discussions on people, cost, revenue and strategy, not just HR dashboards.
Julie Turner
CHRO, McCarthy
Shawn Gibson
CHRO, Info-tech
3:00pm - 3:25pm
Board Seats and Beyond: Expanding Your Influence as a Senior People Leader
Leadership & HR Careers
A senior executive or board member shares a candid perspective on building influence beyond your current role; board positions, advisory roles, and external leadership opportunities. How to position your experience for what comes next. How to decide which opportunities to accept and which to politely decline. And how to keep growing your career and your impact once you're already in the top job internally. The closing Day Two conversation for the leaders thinking about what's after this one.