Keynote Speakers 2022

Day 1 Opening Keynote Address (9:30AM - 10:30 AM)

Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier: Beyond Positive Thinking: Creating your Growth Mindset

Leadership and Workplace Mental Health Expert, Psychologist, Advisor and Speaker

Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier is an award-winning Leadership and Workplace Mental Health Expert, Psychologist, Advisor and Speaker. As one of only a handful of work psychologists holding both a PHD and MBA, Dr. Pelletier brings a mix of business and clinical expertise to her talks and client work. Her background includes leading mental health strategy in senior leadership positions for organizations such as Sun Life Financial, a Global 500 company. Dr. Pelletier has sat on the boards of the Canadian Psychological Association and the International Association of Applied Psychology and has been an active member of the Global Clinical Practice Network of the World Health Organization. She possesses a unique ability to translate psychology research about health, performance, and resiliency into strategies that professionals, leaders, and teams need to thrive. In her speaking engagements, Dr. Marie-Helene works with organizations and groups of all sizes to help improve their health and wellbeing, decrease risk of burnout and increase performance. She brings together research, future trends, and multidisciplinary perspectives to topics related to individual, team and organizational leadership resilience.

Session Description: Are your thoughts helping you or making things worse? For many of us, challenging times can bring thoughts that become our own worst enemy. In this keynote Dr. Marie-Helene challenges assumptions about how much you can influence your thoughts (and support those around you). The mental short-cuts, cognitive distortions and biases that can often derail our plans and intentions can be influenced. If not, these can lead to bad feelings (for you and others), sub-optimal performance, costly mistakes and missed opportunities. Being able to pick-up cognitive biases and untangling unhelpful thoughts result in having more clarity, more creativity, more mental agility.

Day 2 Opening Keynote Address (9:00AM - 10:00 AM)

Dr. Rumeet Billan: Psychological Capital: Today’s Competitive Advantage

Entrepreneur, learning architect, speaker, author and humanitarian

Dr. Rumeet Billan is an award-winning, internationally recognized entrepreneur, learning architect, speaker, author and humanitarian. Her mission is to raise potential and transform workplace cultures, by designing experiences that build resilience.

Dr. Billan is the President and CEO of Viewpoint Leadership and an expert on Psychological Capital. She completed her PhD at the University of Toronto and has designed and facilitated programs, courses, and training sessions across industries and sectors. In 2022, she led the Workplace Belonging Survey with US working adults. 

She also previously led the ground-breaking national research study on Tall Poppy Syndrome which reveals the impact of the silent systemic syndrome on women in the workplace. The survey of 1,500 professionals across Canada found that a shocking 87 per cent of respondents were cut down, attacked, and/or resented by co-workers for their success. In 2020, she co-led the Canadian Happiness at Work study, in partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, and was the inaugural National Ambassador for the Not Myself Today® campaign with CMHA.

Dr. Billan’s been named a Top 10 Power Women and has been twice named to Top 100 Most Powerful Women, both in Canada. She has been featured in Forbes, The Globe and Mail, Breakfast Television, and CTV Morning Live. Her talk on The Future of Education at TEDx was highly lauded and later adapted into a workshop for students across Canada. She recently authored her first award-winning and bestselling book, Who Do I Want To Become?, designed for anyone, of any age, who has been stumped by the question of what they’re going to be when they grow up. She also serves on the Board of Directors for G(irls)20, a renowned global non-profit that aims to mobilize girls and young women for economic advancement locally and worldwide, and CODE, Canada’s leading international development agency uniquely focused on advancing literacy and education.

Through her work, Dr. Billan provides a platform that encourages youth, women, communities and organizations to envision what could be possible. Since 2004, she has contributed to social impact initiatives that improve access to and the quality of education in North America, South America and Africa. In addition to building schools, supporting scholarships, breakfast programs, and soccer tournaments, her vision led to the creation and development of a teacher’s college in rural Kenya. In 2019, Dr. Billan made a donation of over a 280,000 brand new books from various publishers and authors to be distributed to children and youth in need across the Niagara region in Ontario, Canada. She continues to support causes and lead initiatives that promote human welfare.

Session Description: Resilience is a powerful skill that can be developed. It is the ability to bounce back from obstacles and setbacks to achieve higher levels of performance. It requires developing positive adaptation processes to help overcome the challenges that we face and the use of positive experiences to build confidence in our strengths and abilities. It also involves interventions that support and develop self-trust, objective reasoning, perseverance and possibility thinking. Research shows that these capabilities can be learned. This session focuses on how we can develop strategies to build our resilience by examining the capabilities of psychological capital and improve the experiences that we have to navigate the change we experience and reach our full potential.

Day 2 Closing Keynote Address (1:30PM - 2:30 PM)

Paul Huschilt: Humour, Resilience & Change

Speaker and storyteller

This presentation brings interactive humor to the subject of resilience, recognizing that finding life balance is a journey – not a destination. Managing all the demands and priorities on our time can prove to be overwhelming.

Paul Huschilt is an award winning speaker and storyteller who is passionate about helping people be mentally healthy during stressful times. He inspires people to be the best that they can be. From the big stage or from the small screen of any device, he delivers important messages in fun and funny ways.

Paul holds degrees in Management and Acting, a diploma in Career Counselling, training in Adult Education, and has sung with the Canadian Opera Company. This varied background and 20 years of professional speaking experience give Paul a one-of-a-kind style. He has the ability to promote learning and excite audiences whether together in a conference centre or apart in their dining room table home offices. Paul is an inductee into the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame.

Session Description: Let’s step back and reset as the world starts to return to normal. As Financial Healthcare Professionals, we have always faced stress - urgent demands, constant change, and a never ending stream of pressures and responsibilities. That was before. Now that stress is off the scale. Humour Resilience & Change gives us tips to help with strategies for our own well-being through these unusual times.

Paul Huschilt, Professional Speaker and Humour and Wellness Expert, will make us laugh and help us with ways to create a new relationship with stress and our own resilience. He will share his techniques on how to get the most out of life, keep the tides of change in perspective, and smile through just about anything as we reinvent normal. You will laugh while you learn and you may even find yourself singing at your desk.