Keynote Speakers 2024

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

Mark Black

Live Life from the Heart

This program is more than just a talk - it's a transformative experience. Mark, a captivating speaker with a profound personal journey, will guide you through the art of embracing acceptance. He'll share insights on how to skillfully navigate the uncontrollable, channeling time and energy into impactful endeavors. 


In today's high-pressure environment, it's easy to lose sight of passion and purpose. Live Life from the Heart™ is the key to unlocking your potential, infusing new energy into your daily tasks, and reminding you why your work truly matters.

Transform your mindset and reignite your passion with Live Life from the Heart™, a pivotal program designed to elevate resilience and rekindle joy in the face of professional challenges. Live Life from the Heart™ offers more than inspiration—it provides practical tools for reshaping perspectives on challenges and reinvigorating professional zeal.

Attendees will learn to:

• Master the art of acceptance, focusing on what's within your control. 
• Heighten your presence in an ever-distracting world. Rediscover the deep pride and passion in your work. 
• Emerge as the best version of yourself, motivated and inspired!

Bio

Mark Black is a Heart and Double-Lung Transplant Recipient turned 4x Time Marathon Runner. A resilience expert, coach, and author, Mark helps people break through limitations and develop resilience so they can thrive through challenge and change. Mark doesn’t just teach resilience, he embodies it. Born with a life-threatening heart defect, Mark underwent two open-heart surgeries before the age of one. He battled his condition and its limitations for twenty-two years until he was forced to deal with the biggest obstacle of his young life. His doctor informed him that his heart was failing, and without a rare and dangerous heart and double-lung transplant, he would not see his 25th birthday. In 2002, Mark was fortunate that a suitable donor was found. He not only survived the surgery, but less than 3 years later, Mark became the only man in history to run a marathon with someone else’s heart and lungs. Then he did it three more times.

Mark is a Certified Speaking Professional, a designation held by less than 1500 speakers in the world. He has inspired more than 175,000 people in more than 750 presentations and has worked with global brands including ExxonMobil and Mercedes Benz, as well as many national and regional associations. Mark lives in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada where he spends as much time as possible with the most important people in his life; his wife Marise and their three children; Emma, Matteo, and Caleb. For more information about how go to: www.markblack.ca

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

Dr. Katharine Smart

Misinformation & Social Media: Emerging Threats to Health and Democracy

As misinformation continues to pose an increasing threat to health and civil society, trust in experts has decreased, and with it, our ability to build trust in health measures. The result? Unnecessary suffering and loss of life that could have been prevented. During the pandemic, the rise of misinformation coupled with increasing political polarization, decreasing civil discourse, fear, cynicism, apathy, and extremism, are all of which threaten our social cohesion and arguably democracy itself. Nowadays, social media is infiltrating every aspect of our lives as more and more people get their news about their families, communities, and now their health, online. This has created a fertile ground for the spread of misinformation; research shows 87% of social media posts about health contain misinformation.

Key Outcomes:

• Why misinformation is a powerful currency 
• What drives misinformation 
• How to combat misinformation 
• How to develop critical thinking skills in our children and youth 

Bio

A pediatrician in Canada’s north, Dr. Smart focuses her work on innovative and collaborative partnerships between community and government to serve marginalized youth in rural and remote areas. She is an outspoken advocate against misinformation, using her voice to bring evidence and facts to the forefront of health communication.

Dr. Smart is an experienced medical leader and speaker advocate who constantly challenges the status quo in medicine. She’s the past president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), where in 2021, she became the 10th woman to serve in the organization’s 155-year history.  A fierce and authentic leader, she has become a recognized and respected medical voice in Canada. Dr. Smart has been recognized as one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women, with the Medical Post’s Changemaker Media Award and the Waterfalls Global Award.

In recognition of her advocacy for primary care and family medicine she received an honourary membership from the Canadian Family Physicians of Canada. She has held many leadership positions including president of the Yukon Medical Association and sits on the board of Ronald McDonald House charities and Actua, Canada’s largest STEM outreach organization. Dr. Smart is a passionate communicator and sought-after media expert, keynote speaker, panelist and podcast guest. She is the host of SPARK: Conversations, Children’s Healthcare Canada’s monthly podcast series.

Dr. Smart’s clinical work has spanned the breadth of Pediatrics. She started her career as a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. She has worked in Australia, Vancouver and across Canada’s north. Her current clinical focus is providing care to children who have experienced adverse childhood events using a model of social pediatrics in the Yukon.

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

Wayne Lee

Set Your GPS For Success

If there's one thing peak performance experts like Wayne Lee agree on, it's that the mind is capable of leading us anywhere.

In this highly interactive presentation, Wayne helps you tap into your subconscious mind (GPS) to remove the self-limiting beliefs that keep you stuck or disengaged at work and in your personal life.  Through hypnosis and visualization, you will be guided to unleash your unlimited potential and elevate your emotional state and performance to reach your goals.  Whether you are in the audience or on stage, by the end of this session you will have learned: the 3 words to take out of your vocabulary that stop you; how to create an abundance of energy to propel you forward; and a simple but powerful exercise to help you accelerate getting to where you want to go next.

Bio

Wayne Lee is a Peak Performance Expert, Hall of Fame Speaker, and Award-Winning Entertainer who values the magic and unlimited potential that we all have within us. As a five-time Canadian amateur wrestling champion and a former classroom school teacher, Wayne brings his unique perspective to your organization on the mindset that is needed for your team to deal with change, take more risks, and bring their full creative selves to work and their personal lives.

For over 20 years, Wayne has helped audiences realize that self-limiting beliefs in their subconscious mind keep them from bringing their fullest potential to work. His Peak Performance keynote and Live the Laughter hypnosis show combine insights from decades of research with humor and live interaction to help your people discover the power of “The Peak Performance Mindset”.

Wayne’s own journey to excellence has been fueled by an unrelenting passion for empowering people. From a childhood fascination with magic and overcoming a serious neck injury through visualization, Wayne’s gift and passion for seeing potential and acting upon it have allowed him to grow his career and speak to audiences worldwide.

Wayne has helped over 6,000 audiences experience a real-time transformation from self-limiting beliefs and fear towards positivity, alignment, and peak performance. His ability to combine the roles of teacher, guide, and entertainer has earned him the appreciation of meeting professionals, several of whom book him repeatedly.

Today he works with leading brands to guide their leaders and teams through stressful, constantly changing and fast-paced environment that is now commonplace. Wayne shows each audience how to reconnect with what matters most so they can achieve any result, all while enjoying the ride of their life.

When Wayne is not on the road speaking, he spends his time at home in Edmonton, Canada with his wife, 2 young children, and their Goldendoodle, Shazam.