ACCUEIL

PROGRAMME

CONFÉRENCIERS

RÉSEAUTAGE

INSCRIPTION

COMMANDITES

HÔTEL et TRANSPORT

DÉCOUVREZ

Chief Clarence Louie 

Chief Clarence Louie is an internationally acclaimed leader, dedicated to the economic and social prosperity of his people. For over three decades, Chief Louie has been a champion for the Osoyoos Indian Band’s economic development and working culture, inspiring generations across Canada and the world with his message about self empowerment through employment, hard work and community building.

As the current CEO of the Osoyoos Indian Band, Chief Louie provides a candid approach to modern First Nation business practices that appeals to both Western and Indigenous communities. Sought for his insights, he espouses the inseparable connection between economic development and First Nations self-reliance.

Since his election as Chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band, Clarence Louie has elevated the community by becoming the CEO of its Development Corporation, overseeing eleven diversified businesses that employ a thousand people across 1,000 acres. His focus on sustainable and socio-economic development has led to substantial community investments, including the creation of industry leading businesses and self governed educational and healthcare facilities.

Chief Louie is committed to fostering an "Indigenous economy," integrating First Nations entrepreneurs and leaders into the mainstream market. His objective is to shift societal outcomes through Indigenous business models that are both profitable and accountable to community and environmental needs. Chief Louie is a recipient of the Order of Canada, recognized as a top 50 Canadian in The Power List by Macleans Magazine, and inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. He has been named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is a member of the Aboriginal Business Hall of Fame.

Kate Madden

In this candid keynote, Kate Madden will share her personal journey of coming out as a transgender woman at the age of 40 after a successful career as an Account Executive at one of the big three insurance companies. Through the course of the hour, Kate will share how this life changing decision impacted her relationships, parenting, friendships, work and – ultimately – identity. Kate recognized a lack of resources and stories of gender transition for people in their 30s, 40s and 50s and started a YouTube channel to share her experiences of gender transition, parenting while Trans, navigating divorce, dating, work, religion and so on and so on; five years later her videos have been watched more than 200K times and has expanded her social media platform to build an inclusive and supportive community. Kate’s story will demonstrate how embracing authenticity and vulnerability can make you a better person, parent, friend, and co-worker and how others can learn from this to help build a more compassionate and inclusive workplace and society.

David Bartucci
Head, CAPSA CAP Guideline committee member
Head, Pension Operations and Regulatory Effectiveness, FSRA

David Bartucci is the Head of Head, Pension Operations and Regulatory Effectiveness at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). He was formerly the Head of Stakeholder Relations and Special Projects . David first joined FSRA as the director of policy for pensions in 2019. He also spent nearly one year with the additional responsibility as the Director in FSRA’s Consumer Office. Prior to joining the Regulator, he spent more than a decade in progressively senior positions in the Ontario government. His past assignments included Treasury Board, Cabinet Office, and the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. During this time, he led the development of new funding programs and policy frameworks to support training, experiential learning for post-secondary students, and the negotiations of new Labour Market Transfer Agreements with the Government of Canada.

Mélinda Bastien, ASA
Principal, Investment consulting
Normandin Beaudry

Andréane Chénier, PhD, CRSP
National Representative specializing in Health and Safety 
CUPE 

Andréane Chénier, PhD, CRSP (Andie) is a CUPE National Representative specializing in Health and Safety. She assists CUPE members in Ontario with a wide range of occupational health and safety issues ranging from workplace violence and harassment to working alone, shiftwork to joint health and safety committees and psychosocial hazards. She is a certified instructor for Mental Health First Aid and for the Workers Health and Safety Centre and a trained neutral third party for conflict resolution.

Andréane/Andie has presented the public sector worker perspective as a representative on many committees, including the Ministry of Labour’s Prevention Council, as the Labour co-chair on the Section 21 committee for health care and as a member or director on various boards and committees of health and safety organizations. Andréane/Andie has participated in the research, writing and publication of health and safety tools to help workers find answers to their workplace problems.

Prior to her work as health and safety specialist, Andréane/Andie was a scientific researcher working in a biological safety level 3 laboratory in the health sciences fields of HIV, immunology and cancer metabolism, a published author and presented her research at provincial, national and international conferences. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and a master’s degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of Ottawa and a doctorate in Biomolecular Sciences from Laurentian University.

Joe De Dominicis
Senior Vice President, Health and Wealth Solutions
People Corporation

Joe establishes and leads People Corporation’s member-centric strategy and the development and design of our digital and integrated suite of solutions. Joe establishes and oversees the development, design, and implementation of our digital and integrated suite of solutions that serve our clients.

Joe has a successful track record of leading and growing consulting business. He has over 20 years’ experience as a strategic HR consultant with large multi-national consulting firms in various geographies and industries. He has expertise in digital health and retirement and savings arrangements including plan design, governance, risk, and financial.

He’s actively involved in the industry, having served on the regional and national councils of the Association of Canadian Pension Management. He also worked with the Society of Actuaries building their Canadian office and was instrumental in elevating their brand in Canada

John-Paul Dowson
Director, Strategic Consulting
PDCI Market Access, A Division of McKesson Canada Inc.

John-Paul is Director, Strategic Consulting at PDCI. He brings more than 25 years of experience working in the health and pharmaceutical sectors. Prior to joining PDCI, John-Paul was the Founder and Managing Director of Roubaix Strategies Inc.(RSI), a market access and negotiations consultancy. Prior to launching RSI, he spent the better part of a decade in market access leadership roles, negotiating drug reimbursement agreements for innovative pharmaceuticals in Canada. John-Paul’s experience and knowledge in market access and negotiation strategy covers an extensive scope of therapeutic and business areas, including strategic insights on how to obtain and maintain reimbursement in both public and private markets. At PDCI, John-Paul leads Pricing, Access and Data advisory services. A sought-after speaker, strategist, and thought leader, John-Paul brings a keen understanding of the inter-relationships between Canada’s public and private drug markets, and the emerging reimbursement pathways for negotiated agreements.

Carl Elia, CFA
Vice President & Director, TD Asset Management Inc.

Carl is a senior member of the Infrastructure Investments team, responsible for investment strategy and execution, operations and client servicing for the TD Greystone Infrastructure Fund. He has experience across infrastructure investing, private equity and investment banking. He was previously Vice President at a private equity firm and Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions at a major Global alternative asset manager. Post-MBA, Carl developed his career as an Associate in investment banking at various securities firms. Pre-MBA, he gained experience in business development at a multi-unit franchise operator. Carl holds a B. Comm. from the Toronto Metropolitan University and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Joe Farago
Executive Director, Private Payers and Investment
Innovative Medicines Canada

Joe Farago is Executive Director, Private Payers and Investment at Innovative Medicines Canada (IMC). Joe leads IMC’s efforts to take a more proactive, research-based approach to ensuring tomorrow’s workforce has access to strong private market coverage that meets their needs. Joe recently discussed some of the most prominent findings from the association’s 2016-2019 analysis of Private Drug Claim Cost Drivers Report. The report examines the drivers of claims cost growth for private drug plan claims between 2016 and 2019, including the impact of OHIP+ changes in 2018 and 2019, based on IQVIA data.

Geoff Finnie
VP, Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence
Manulife

Geoff leads the Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence practice for Manulife Canada, focused on bringing solutions for Individual Insurance, Group Benefits and Manulife Bank. He has extensive experience in Financial Services from a diverse set of roles including Data & Analytics, Business (Wealth and Retail), Strategy, and Risk. He loves talking about innovative ideas and bringing them to life.

Bonnie Foley-Wong
Sustainable Investment Leader, Canada
Mercer (Canada) Limited

Bonnie Foley-Wong leads Mercer’s Sustainable Investment team in Canada, supporting institutional investors to achieve their sustainability and impact goals.

Bonnie is an investment professional with 25 years of experience, gained in North America and Europe, spanning professional services, banking, asset management, and impact investing. She is the former Head of Investment Strategy at the Equality Fund, and previously founded Pique Ventures and Pique Fund, a fund focused on leadership diversity and women-led ventures. She has also held roles as a real estate investment banker with ABN AMRO, and as a corporate finance advisor with Deloitte.

Bonnie served on not-for-profit Boards focused on serving women business owners and on building sustainable, local economies. She is the recipient of a YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and is the author of Integrated Investing.

Addie Greco-Sanchez
President
AGS Rehab Solutions Inc

Addie Greco-Sanchez is the founder and president of AGS Rehab Solutions Inc., a leader in disability management and assessment services since 1999 that has grown into a successful company with a head office in Mississauga and a large network of professionals across Canada. Selected as one of PROFIT/Chatelaine’s Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs, Addie is a passionate and expert advocate for mental health in the workplace and frequent national speaker on the topic of how companies can safeguard employees’ psychological health. She is co-author of the book, The 5-Minute Recharge, 31 Proven Strategies to Refresh, Reset and Become the Boss of Your Day.

Toni Harrington MSW., MSc.,D.Sc.(c)
Senior Leader, Workplace Intervention and Clinical Services
Homewood Health 

Toni is a senior leader at Homewood Health within Workplace Intervention and Clinical Services. As an Assistant Vice President, Toni is responsible for providing the vision and leadership required to align and implement strategic planning, and deliver and evaluate quality, accessible, sustainable and integrated mental health and addictions programs across the country. For over two decades, Toni has dedicated her work to change the trajectory of health for working Canadians by ensuring optimal and accountable care through evidence based occupational and organizational health practices. Toni holds a Bachelor and Masters of Social Work from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Toni also hold a Masters of Occupational Health Science from McGill University and currently a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University with an anticipated graduation in 2024.

Liz Horvath
Manager, Psychological Health and Safety Opening Minds
Mental Health  Commission of Canada

Chris Lee
Vice President, Employee Experience and Internal Communication
Gallagher Communication

Chris Lee is Vice President, Employee Experience and Internal Communication Practice at Gallagher Communication. In this role he helps employers build immersive and experiential internal brands for their employees.

Chris is the Executive Vice President on the Board of Directors for the International Association of Business Communicators Toronto Chapter, and has also served on numerous other boards.

Chris hosts a podcast called Why Does It Feel So Wrong to be Human at Work? He has also published articles in numerous publications, and is often featured as a speaker on communications, brand, and employee experience.

Brad Millson
General Manager
IQVIA

Brad Millson is General Manager of the Real World Solutions consulting group at IQVIA. He leads  the strategic operations and development of our market access strategy and real-world evidence-based analytical solutions for the pharmaceutical industry and its stakeholders. He joined the company in 2013, bringing his global expertise in pharmaceutical brand management, strong medical science training, and strategic problem solving across government and private sectors to the organization. Brad is recognized as a thought leader for his expertise in RWE, health outcomes research and market access.

Amar Munipalle
Executive Director - Risk Advisory Hub

Amar Munipalle was appointed Executive Director, Risk Advisory Hub (RAH), effective 2022. In this role, Amar leads a team of risk specialists whose mandate is to support Supervision by making capital and liquidity a centrepiece through financial risk assessments of federally regulated financial institutions (FRFIs) and federally regulated pension plans (FRPPs). The RAH is also responsible for developing and implementing OSFI’s Supervisory Framework, as well as providing support to supervisors in the financial resiliency assessment of FRFIs and FRPPs with methods, processes, and tools. RAH also houses the Supervision Institute which provides supervisors and supporting experts with supervision-specific knowledge, competencies, and tools that allow for effective and efficient risk assessment and intervention.

Amar joined OSFI’s Regulation Sector in December 2020 as Senior Director, Capital with a focus on banking capital policy development. In this role, he led the domestic implementation of Basel 3 reforms and changes to the insurance capital guidelines (i.e., LICAT, MCT, MICAT) to address the new IFRS 17 accounting standard for insurers which was implemented in 2023.

Before joining OSFI, Amar was Director, Capital Markets and Treasury Risk at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), and was responsible for second line oversight of securitization, treasury, and investment risks. Prior to the CMHC, Amar worked for a large Canadian life insurer in various roles including asset liability management and asset management risks.

Amar is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder and has been a Chartered Alternate Investment Analyst since 2007. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the School of Management at HEC, Paris, and a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the University of Mysore in India.

Siobhan O’Brien
Partner
Hicks Morley

Siobhan O’Brien is partner in Hicks Morley’s Ottawa office and the firm’s Eastern Regional Lead. Siobhan is an employment, labour and human rights lawyer. She provides strategic, practical and cost-effective advice to employers from coast to coast on a variety of workplace issues. In addition to appearing before courts, human rights tribunals, arbitrators, and labour boards, Siobhan routinely provides advice on wrongful dismissal litigation, human rights law, grievance arbitration, labour relations, collective bargaining and strike management.

This work has included advice and assistance to employers regarding notice terminations and dismissals for cause, policy development, restructuring, employment standards, accommodation, attendance management, collective agreement interpretation, discipline and dismissal, management rights, pregnancy/parental leave and restrictive covenants.

In addition to being exceptionally responsive and accessible, she is dedicated to understanding her clients’ particular business needs and is committed to recommending the best possible course of action.

Dr. Sandra Primiano, Ph.D., Psy.D.
Vice President, Research, Quality and Clinical Practice
Homewood Health

Dr. Primiano, VP of Research, Quality and Clinical Practice oversees the development and maintenance of high standards for clinical care while also driving research initiatives to improve treatment outcomes and patient experiences.

Sandra has worked in different mental health roles for over 15 years and in the EFAP industry more than 8 years in different leadership positions as well as offering direct client services, developing clinical programs, facilitating workshops.

Dr. Primiano graduated from the Université du Quebec à Montréal (UQAM) with a Ph.D. and Psy.D. in Clinical and Experimental Psychology. She previously worked as a Psychology Consultant for Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), where she supported the delivery and coordination of evidence- informed mental health services in the (11) Operational Stress Injury Clinics across Canada.

Kim Siddall
National Vice President, Account Management, Mid-Large Business
People Corporation

Kim is responsible for team leadership, consulting operations and client service delivery for medium and large sized groups in across Canada, and consults to a number of group benefits clients. She has worked in the insurance and benefits consulting field for more than 20 years with roles in both a carrier and advisory capacity. Her expertise includes drug plan management, absence and disability management and strategic plan design. She is a contributing writer to Benefits Canada since 2013, and is a frequent contributor to thought leadership in the employee health benefits space.

Sherry Sheffman
Director, Strategic Communications
BC Pension Corporation

Sherry Sheffman is the director of strategic communications at BC Pension Corporation. She leads a team that provides both strategic communications and reputation management to BC’s five public sector pension plan boards of trustees with the goal of inspiring plan members’ trust in the Plans and the boards that steward them.

Sherry is a seasoned communicator. Before joining the corporation 12 years ago, she served as a senior public consultation specialist for Enbridge, the director of public affairs for BC Ferries, and had responsibility for communications and community relations for Terasen Gas (now FortisBC). Her career began in Toronto as a publicist and as she moved west, she gained experience as an editor and business reporter.

Committed to her profession and her community, Sherry has been on the steering committee for the University of Victoria Certificate Program in Public Relations, and the professional development chair for the Canadian Public Relations Society–Vancouver Island Board of Directors. She was a longstanding volunteer for the Victoria Foundation.

Sherry holds a master’s degree in corporate communications from Fairfield University in Connecticut.

Scott Sweatman 
Partner
Dentons LLP

Scott helps clients establish and sustain pension, benefit and deferred compensation plans, providing counsel on regulatory compliance, pension, governance and funding issues, as well as the impact of mergers and acquisitions on these plans. From a tax perspective, he works with clients to develop executive and deferred compensation plans, and advise them on issues around stock options, retiring allowances, profit sharing and corporate reorganizations. Scott also assists professional athletes in establishing retirement compensation arrangements. He also acts as an arbitrator in public sector pension plan disputes.

Scott also assists national and multi-national clients, as well as multi-employer plan sponsors, with provincial, federal and Income Tax Act compliance. For over fifteen years, he worked as a senior consultant with two major multi national actuarial and accounting firms. With this experience, he is uniquely positioned to provide strategic legal consulting advice in tandem with professionals from the actuarial and accounting professions.

Scott is the past Co-Chair of the Alberta-British Columbia Joint Expert Panel on Pension Standards, working with five of Alberta and British Columbia’s leading experts in pensions to review pension legislation in the two provinces and make recommendations to both governments for fundamental reforms to pension legislation. He is past national and regional chair of the Canadian Pension & Benefits Institute, past chair of the Pension, Benefits and Compensation Section of the Canadian Bar Association (British Columbia), past chair of the Corporate Counsel Section of the Canadian Bar Association (British Columbia), former member of the Pension Advisory Council to the British Columbia Government, and former member of the Trustee Act Modernization Committee of British Columbia.

Scott also served on the Board of Directors of NAV Canada from 2010 to January, 2022, Canada’s national private sector civil navigation services provider which has pension plan assets in excess of $7 billion. He is a past member and also past chair of NAV’s Pension Committee and past member of their Corporate Governance Committee.

Scott is recognized in the 2011- 2023 editions of The Best Lawyers in Canada in the area of Employee Benefits Law & Real Estate Law. He is also recognized by Chambers Global (2013- 2021) and Chambers Canada (2016-2020) as a leading lawyer in the area of Pensions & Benefits. Scott is consistently recommended by the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, Pensions and Employee Benefits. He has been practising law since 1987.

Barbara Walancik-Hatch
Counsel
Dentons LLP 

Barbara Walancik-Hatch) is counsel in the Employment and Labour group in Dentons’ Toronto office, practicing in pension and employee benefits law. She has advised private and public sector sponsors, boards of trustees, administrators, and employee organizations on a wide range of matters, including cyber and information security, risk management, regulatory compliance, restructuring, plan administration and wind-ups. Barbara has also assisted on pensions and benefit matters in corporate transactions, including asset and share transactions.

Barbara has experience in pension and benefits litigation, having appeared before the Superior Court of Justice, various appellate levels and the Financial Services Tribunal.