Katya Laviolette is the Chief People Officer at 1Password, where she doubled the fully remote workforce to nearly 900 employees in 2022, across five countries, and hit a record 83% offer-to-acceptance rate. Katya believes that HR programs must be strategically aligned with business priorities and does so with a global mindset. She’s passionate about creating a positive work culture and has been recognized for her ability to influence and drive business innovation through both talent and organizational development. Prior to joining 1Password, Katya held executive positions at SSENSE, TC Transcontinental, CBC/Radio-Canada, Rio Tinto, Bombardier Aerospace, and Canadian National Railway. She’s also a Board Director with Sanimax and Laps, two global organizations focused on the circular economy.Katya is also a member of the Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines agréés (ORHRI), as well as a certified coach with Integral Coaching Canada. Katya is actively involved in her community, having served many years on the Board of Pour 3 Points (P3P), as well as mentoring women leaders within the Governance au Féminin organization.

Jack is the Co-Founder of Carbon Neutral Club, a Canadian climate tech company focused on empowering employees to play an active and productive role in sustainability. Jack comes from a background in technology, building “tech-for-good” solutions for organizations like Interac, RBC, and McKinsey & Company. Carbon Neutral Club’s community includes clients such as Capital One & Kraft Heinz who are engaging thousands of employees globally to understand and be rewarded to take part in sustainability efforts.

Faye Pang is the Canada Country Manager for Xero, the global small business platform with more than 3.7 million subscribers worldwide that’s dedicated to making business beautiful. Faye has over 15 years of experience building and scaling businesses from the ground up. Prior to joining Xero in 2020, Faye helped launch Uber Freight into the Canadian market. She also helped launch the Uber Eats app in Toronto, scaling the business from 80 restaurants on launch day to 20,000 partners by the end of her tenure. With a continued focus on the growth and expansion of local enterprise, Faye is passionate about building and growing resilient technology partnerships that work to benefit the global small business ecosystem.

Michael Millar is the CEO and Founder of Verto Inc. Michael brings 17+ years of experience designing system-wide digital health innovations to improve patient and provider experiences. Michael combines his deep understanding of modern technology with a system-level understanding of the complexities of healthcare management to create innovative solutions for long standing problems with legacy digital health ecosystem optimization. Michael’s varied experience, including working as an eHealth Strategy Lead at the Ministry of Health in Ontario and AVP of Business Intelligence in finance for the Home Trust Company, combined with his 14+ years of software development helps him navigate the complicated world of digital health with confidence and clarity as he works to transform healthcare.

Osama co-leads Kruzee, an online platform that makes it easier for new drivers to get licensed, insured, and on the road. Starting his career at Monitor Deloitte in strategy consulting, he worked closely with C-suite clients across North America, helping solve their toughest problems.Shifting into the startup sector, he took up the role of Head of Growth Verticals at Juno, spearheading the launch of new business units and helping the leadership team build a sustainable growth path.Now, as Co-CEO at Kruzee, Osama is expanding the business throughout Canada, making driver’s education more streamlined and efficient for the next generation of road users.

Jason is a seasoned marketing and sales executive with a track record of launching brands, scaling businesses, and leading large teams of high performers. Jason has both launched his own omni-channel CPG brand – PORTA – and served as the VP of Marketing for several $500M+ revenue brands like Tim Hortons, KFC and Pizza Hut. He was named an Emerging Leader under 40 in 2022 by The Peak and Marketing Magazine’s 30 under 30 in 2014.

Shannon Katschilo currently serves as the Country Manager of Canada at Snowflake. Katschilo brings over 15 years of client connection-building and employee stewardship to her role, scaling Snowflake’s presence in the market and taking a data-first approach to improving experiences at all levels of operation. Prior to Snowflake, Katschilo served as the General Manager and AVP of Sales at Medallia where she exhibited a 600% increase in new logos by excavating whitespace and striving to maximize customer satisfaction. Katschilo is committed to sharing her knowledge throughout the industry by devising and chairing meetings, hosting client events, and regularly presenting at conferences and webinars. In addition, she is passionate about female mentorship and sponsorship, and prioritizes bringing an equitable lens to data-driven decisions by creating opportunities for women and underrepresented groups to take on leadership positions within the field. Katschilo holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies, Business, and Environment from the University of Waterloo.

CEO and Co-Founder of Thrive Career Wellness Platform. Thrive has over 500 customers around the world using the platform for career transition and internal redeployment, including some of the largest corporations in Canada.

Brett partners with founders and leaders to help them solve business problems through a Talent and people Ops lens. Having worked with Canadian-based startups that have collectively raised over $300MM, Brett’s work focuses on startups from Seed to Series B, helping them to rebuild Leadership teams, launch effective People programs and reinforce high-performing & engaged cultures.

Sarah is the Founder of Growclass, the best place to learn growth marketing and a big community of marketers. She’s the Author of We Need To Talk About This, a monthly newsletter thousands of millennial women read. Before founding Growclass, Sarah was one of the early hires at the Canadian Fintech giant Wave, which H&R Block acquired. She then led growth teams at Tilt, which was acquired by Airbnb.

Brendon Bernard is a Senior Economist at Indeed.com, based in Toronto. He has been the Canadian lead of the Indeed Hiring Lab since 2018, combining publicly available data with the wealth of information internal to the Indeed hiring platform to make sense of the Canadian labour market. Brendon was previously an economist with Finance Canada, analyzing the U.S. economy and developing Canadian financial sector policy. He holds a Master’s in Economics from the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia.

Michael has over 10 years of experience leading teams to develop end-to-end product experiences with a focus on strategy.

Katherine is a Toronto-based creative who merges her background in the startup/tech space with her love for fashion and streetwear. She’s a partner at Counter Culture, one of Canada’s top creative/influencer agencies. She spends most of her time ghostwriting strategies for brands and startups to (re) introduce themselves to the world and managing some of the top creators on the internet. She also leads partnerships for Embrase, the team behind some of the leading tech conferences globally, and has been a part of their journey for the past decade. Find her on social @beachykj, always in sneakers, creating content for brands from Jordan to Complex, and building out one of the fastest-growing startups in the sneaker space, the womxn’s one-stop sneaker shop, Common Ace.