Brendon Bernard, Senior Economist at Indeed, has been the Canadian lead of the Indeed Hiring Lab since 2018 and is currently based in Toronto. He combines 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, and holds a Master’s in Economics from the Vancouver School of Economics at University of British Columbia.

Jordan Chittley is a content editor for The Globe and Mail. He joined The Globe in 2014 as the online editor for Globe Drive.

Bringing over 15 years of global experience in marketing, sales, and media strategy, Amina Mattern, Head of Marketing for Indeed Canada, has driven growth for both SMBs and larger organizations such as LinkedIn, KPMG, and TD. She credits her success to having the good fortune of working with wonderful teams who have earned multiple awards — including gold, silver, and bronze at the Festival of Media MENA Awards, the Digital Media Forum Awards, and the Effie Awards.

Amina believes that advertising is one of the most fascinating industries in the world; she contributes to its future by also teaching at BrainStation, where she instills practical skills, rigorous thinking, and a strong sense of commitment into the next generation of marketers. At the core of her approach, Amina believes that relationships matter, and that connecting with and investing in people always pays off.

Natalya’s mandate is to strengthen BMO’s leading talent acquisition capability, ensuring the bank finds, hires and retains top performers, and empowers them to drive progress for our customers.

With a track record of success in leadership positions across BMO’s marketing, customer experience, and strategy teams, Natalya brings a unique skillset to TA&E, including deep expertise in strategic planning, enterprise transformation, and change management. She most recently served as BMO’s Head of Marketing Strategy & Enablement.

Raised in BMO’s home market of Montreal, Natalya now resides in the Greater Toronto Area. She is an avid yoga practitioner and the proud mother of two boys.

Nikkita Gandhi, is an HR leader with over a decade of experience driving people strategy in tech and media. As Human Resources Manager at The Globe and Mail and former Head of People Operations at Sophi, she specializes in partnering with business leaders at all levels of the organization, to build high-performing teams through data-driven, inclusive practices. Nikkita holds a Master of Industrial Relations degree from Queen’s University and is a Certified Human Resources Leader.

Tamara is an entrepreneurial-minded and solutions-driven Talent leader with over 20 years of multi-industry experience designing and building talent functions that align with business strategy in high-growth environments. Her work spans sectors including healthcare, insurance, construction, technology, not-for-profit, and more, where she has developed HR and Talent infrastructures from startup to scale-up.

Tamara now leads her own consulting practice, partnering with organizations as an extension of their teams to provide strategic talent expertise and coaching. She has a strong track record of collaborating with business leaders to embed scalable people strategies that drive performance and culture.

Deeply curious about the intersection of technology, data, and human behavior, Tamara is focused on how emerging technologies—like AI—are reshaping talent acquisition, engagement, and development. Her approach blends practical experience with a forward-thinking mindset, helping organizations stay ahead of innovation while keeping people at the center.

Tamara holds a Master's degree in Human Resource Management and a postgraduate certification from the Co-Active Training Institute. She is a certified CHRP, SPHR, and HRMP, and fluent in English and French.

Linda Nazareth is an economist, a futurist and a respected authority on the future of work. As a newspaper columnist and an author, she knows how to frame things in ways that both educate and entertain, and as the Senior Fellow for Economics and Population Change at think-tank the Macdonald Laurier Institute, she knows what she is talking about. She is also the host of Work and the Future, a podcast that explores trends around the labor force and the workplace.

Linda’s career has taken some non-traditional turns for someone in her field and her career has spanned government, finance and media including a decade spent on-air at Bloomberg/BNN. During her time on BNN, Linda started writing books and giving keynote presentations, and eventually left daily broadcasting to give those passions her full-time attention. Her clients have included everyone from American Express through to The Economist Magazine, and all have benefitted from her ability to take big ideals and distil them into information that they can use for their own strategic plans.

Linda’s new book, Working it Out: Getting Ready for the Redesigned World of Work draws on the research she has been building for years as well as the insights gained from interacting with audiences across a range of sectors. With it, she is eager to engage people in thinking about what the world might look like in the wake of the pandemic as we make conscious decisions about what we want the next phase of work to look like.

April Fong is a senior editor with The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. She was previously Executive Editor of The Logic, where she helped oversee the publication's editorial strategy, led its daily newsletter to multiple SABEW Best in Business awards and was a frequent moderator in live events.

A former senior digital producer at BNN Bloomberg, April has also worked at the Financial Post and China Economic Review in Shanghai. She taught Business Reporting at her alma mater, Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication from 2021 to 2024.

Candice Maxis joined the COC in July 2023 after spending four years with Deloitte Canada, most recently as the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion co-developing and driving the firm’s DEI strategy and vision. Candice is responsible for continuing the evolution of the people and culture strategy for the COC, which ranks among the Best Workplaces™ in Canada. She is a respected HR executive whose personal mission is to inspire others to reach their full potential, while helping under-represented voices to feel seen, heard and supported. Candice has close to 20 years of experience in Human Resources with sector leaders such as Deloitte, Coca-Cola and Intact. Candice is a mentor at work and in her community and acts as a keynote speaker for events focused on leadership development, workforce transformation, and the advancement of underserved communities. She sits on several boards including the Afrodescendant Leadership Alliance and Aéroports de Montréal. She received a WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award in 2022 and was nominated as one of the 100 Black Women to Watch in Canada in 2019. She was also selected by Concertation Montréal (CMTL) as one of the 2019 ambassadors of the Group of Thirty, which aims to promote diversity on boards of directors and inspire other talented people to follow in their footsteps. Candice holds a bachelor’s degree in human resources management from ESG-UQÀM and is a member of the Human Resources Professional Association of Quebec.

Scott Schieman is a Professor of Sociology and Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto. He served as the Chair of the Department of Sociology from 2015 to 2021 and recently completed a three-year term as the co-editor of Society and Mental Health, the flagship journal for the Sociology of Mental Health Section of the American Sociology Association. Professor Schieman’s research investigates what people think and feel about work—and how they talk about it. He is especially interested in the ways that perceptions of job quality shape the sense of self and identity, status, and well-being. Since 2005, he has collected data from more than 50,000 workers in nationally representative surveys of Canada and the United States. Drawing upon decades of quantitative and qualitative evidence, his research tells the story about the quality of working life and its patterns and effects over time.

Linda Krebs is a strategic talent acquisition leader with over 19 years of experience in recruiting, employer branding, and workforce development. As the Global Head of Talent Acquisition for Corporate Functions at Nokia, she drives hiring strategies that align with business priorities, with a strong focus on workforce planning, DE&I, and global talent attraction. Previously, Linda served as Acting Head of Early Careers, Americas, and Campus Relations & Program Manager for Nokia Canada, where she specialized in early talent recruitment, program development, and employer branding. She has extensive experience in community partnerships, enhancing candidate experience, and building strong talent pipelines. An active participant in Ottawa’s HR leadership network, Linda collaborates with industry peers to shape strategies for attracting and retaining top talent. Passionate about developing future leaders, she remains dedicated to fostering innovation in talent acquisition and driving long-term business success.