Matt Summers represents a number of organizations: Vancouver Coastal Health as a leader of education programs, the Dynamic Achievement Group as a senior business consultant, the NeuroLeadership Institute Group as a neurosciences facilitator and Simon Fraser University, as an adjunct leadership professor. Matt also runs his own company called The Cognitive Learner.

Matt has an infectious passion for growing organizations through neurosciences and leadership development, coaching, and organizational development (OD). His core belief is that an organization’s greatest and most appreciating asset is the development of its human capital. He is driven to developing strong leadership and management platforms within organizations, creating effective communication within the business, and driving individual and team performance. Matt is an ambassador for combining pedagogical adult learning practices with new neurosciences research, with the mission of transferring classroom theory into day-to-day practical applications and behavioral change. Matt is also fast becoming known as “the guy who carries a brain around with him in his classroom”.

Matt has a Masters degree in Organizational Leadership, specializing in Neurosciences learning applications .He is a certified and active practitioner, facilitator, and coach in the following leadership and organizational tools: Prosci Change Management, The SDI assessment tools, Power and Systems theory, Birkman’s International assessments, Coaching out of the box and is a certified Neuroleadership Institute practitioner and facilitator. To round out his passion for teaching and leadership development, Matt is an adjunct Professor at the Beedie Business School at Simon Fraser University teaching Neurosciences leadership skills and application.

David Haskin leads a team of North American Workplace Consultants who help clients explore how their workplaces might need to change to accommodate the changing nature of work and workers.

At Steelcase, he has worked with a broad variety of clients – from fast-track, high-growth companies in Silicon Valley, where he resides, to many of their largest global accounts. In his 30 years in the industry, he has worked with hundreds of clients across 40 states and 5 countries. David is also an instructor at Steelcase University. He facilitates workshops on Design Thinking and the Culture Journey Workshop as part of Global Leadership Development.

Lorie Corcuera is the Co-Founder and CEO at SPARK Creations & Company Inc., a training and development organization that inspires people and companies to create meaningful cultures and workplaces. Over the past 20 years, Lorie has cultivated her people and culture development, community relations, and leadership coaching experience as both a strategic and progressive senior human resources leader. Lorie has had the honour of partnering with amazing business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders, learning and development specialists and coaches, and people potential professionals from small to large businesses in the mobile and web technologies, interactive entertainment, professional services, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and non-profit industries. Lorie is currently the Co-Chair for the CPHR BC & Yukon Learning and Development Roundtable, a business mentor for Futurepreneur Canada, a mentor for the Professional Women’s Group at Dress for Success Vancouver, and Co-Founder of the social enterprise Enspire Foundation. Connect with Lorie at sparkcreationsinc.com.

Louis Vong is VP Digital Strategy for TMP Worldwide. He’s responsible for helping organizations develop their digital brand strategy and creating disruptive marketing campaigns. A frequent speaker at Digital and Branding conferences worldwide, Louis is known for his creative storytelling and ability to connect his audience to new innovations and experiences.

Ken Lawson is passionate about helping individuals and organizations free their authentic voice through the collaborative power of improv. He is the Lead Facilitator for the corporate training division of VTSL (Vancouver Theatre Sports League), a dynamic company that has been a global leader in improvisational theatre for over 30 years. Over the past 15 years he has led 100’s of groups in the area of leadership and personal development, communication, creativity, and team building using a combination of improv and his extensive experience and education as a counsellor and group facilitator. Ken is also an award winning actor (Leo award for best performance in a music, comedy or variety program or series) with extensive film and TV credits, a musician and improv comedian who has been performing with Vancouver TheatreSports since 2004. He likes to laugh a lot.

Marino Sveinson is a partner at Bull Housser in the Labour + Employment Group. Marino strives to provide strategic result-oriented advice and representation to employers with respect to all aspects of workplace law in unionized and non-union environments in both the provincial and federal sectors. Marino has represented clients at all levels of the courts in B.C., federal court, collective agreement arbitrations, human rights tribunals, provincial and federal labour relations boards, and workers compensation tribunals. Marino is called to the Bar in B.C. and the Yukon. He is past Co-Chair of the Human Rights CLE course and the CBA Human Rights subsection in B.C., current Chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Canadian Association of Counsel to Employers and has been recognized by the Canadian Legal Expert Directory in the area of Workplace Human Rights – Employer.

Diane A. Ross, author of The Elephant of the Office: Super-Simple Strategies for Difficult Conversations at Work, and a semi-finalist for North America’s Next Greatest Speaker Competition hosted by the eWomen Network, teaches professionals how to tackle conflict fearlessly.

With 14 years of litigation experience and many courtroom “wins”, Diane was surprised to learn that her guns-blazing communication style did not bring about much success in “real-life” conversations. This realization set her on a 10+ year path to uncover the secrets of effective communication in times of conflict.

Like all good lawyers she devoured research, trained in Advanced Negotiation and Mediation at Harvard Law School and became a Certified Executive Coach. In 2012, Diane founded Elephant Conversations in order to share her EASY SYSTEM for tackling difficult conversations.

Today, Diane is proud to be sharing her signature system with hundreds of people and organizations through webinars, speaking events, and free training at www.ElephantConversations.com.

David Usher is a creative tour de force. As the front man of the internationally acclaimed rock band Moist, and as a solo artist, David has sold more than 1.4 million albums, won countless awards—including five Junos—and performed at sold-out venues around the world. Believing that creativity and creative success is a learnable skill that anyone can master, his unique and dynamic presentations employ music and video to show audiences the steps they can take to stimulate the creative process at home and at work.

When David is not making music, he is equally passionate about using technology to build new and interesting businesses. His company, Cloudid Creativity Labs, works on a vast range of innovative projects, from building web platforms to creative consulting for clients like Cirque du Soleil, Deloitte, and the Toronto International Film Festival. His book on creativity and the creative process, Let the Elephants Run: Unlock Your Creativity and Change Everything, was published in March, 2015.

David sits on the advisory board of McGill University’s Institute for the Public Life of Art and Ideas and is the founding director of Amnesty International’s Artists for Amnesty.

David has a degree in political science from Simon Fraser University and has lived and traveled all over the world. When he’s not on the road, he can be found in front of a computer dreaming up something new.