Karen Collins is the Chief Talent Officer and leads the Talent and Culture team at BMO Financial Group. BMO is the 8th largest bank, by assets, in North America with 12 million customers in the areas of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment services and over 43,000 employees.

In her role, Karen has enterprise accountability for Talent Management; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Leadership and Organization Design & Effectiveness.

Karen joined BMO in 2005 as a Senior Human Resource Business Partner and has held progressively more senior leadership roles across the organization. Karen was the Chief Human Resources Officer for BMO’s Wealth & Asset Management and Canadian Personal & Commercial Banking businesses leading the team providing HR strategies and programs. Prior to her transition into the Chief Talent Officer role in 2019, she served as Regional Vice-President for BMO’s Toronto East Personal Banking market leading a team providing banking, lending and investment solutions and advice.

Early in her career, Karen worked at Coca-Cola Bottling and Ernst & Young as an HR generalist and management consultant. Her career experiences have consistently highlighted achievements in the development and implementation of enterprise strategies and individualized plans to assist leaders in achieving their potential, passion and purpose and to create engaged, inclusive and productive teams.

Paula Allen is the Global Leader, Research and Total Wellbeing and a Senior Vice-President at LifeWorks. In this role she manages the research agenda for LifeWorks, which includes primary research, exploratory data science, research collaborations and meta-analyses. Given her focus on industry leading research, Paula also leads LifeWorks’s thought leadership and is co-chair of the organization’s product and innovation strategy.

Paula is focused on the current and emerging issues that impact health and productivity and related costs. Her scope includes all areas of wellbeing – social, physical, financial and mental. She is also a well-recognized expert in all areas of workplace mental health, learning strategies, disability management and drug plan management. She designed and led the most comprehensive employer response to the H1N1 pandemic and is currently LifeWorks’s business response and resource lead for the COVID-19 pandemic. She also works directly with many of Canada’s leading organizations.

Paula is a member of the Women’s College Hospital’s Board of Directors, a member of the Virtual Learning Advisory Board consulting to the public sector’s post-secondary online learning strategy, a member of the International Women’s Forum, a Civic Action Diversity Fellow mentor, on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Club of Toronto, on the Guiding Council and ESG task force of One Mind@Work, was Co-chair of Civic Action’s Champions Council on workplace mental health, was a member of the Income Security Working Group providing advice to the Ontario Government on issues relating to disability and income support, and sits on several research and strategy advisory boards that address issues ranging from e-mental health solutions to substance abuse in the workplace.

Paula completed undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Toronto in psychological research and neuropsychological testing and clinical intervention.

Mohammed is a global business executive with over 20 years’ experience leading human capital strategies to unlock people potential and deliver business value. Mohammed is currently leading Dell Technologies’ Americas HR operations organization, a role focused on delivering end-to-end experiences to the company’s people leaders and team members in the region. Mohammed also spearheads Dell’s journey to shift its workforce to work from anywhere enabling the company’s workforce transformation.

Mohammed is passionate about diversity and social justice, particularly the roles technology and responsible investment can play advancing both issues in today’s global society. He completed his Executive MBA in McMaster University with a concentration on Innovation and Digital Transformation. Mohammed is also fluent in French and Arabic.

Jim Stanford is Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work. He divides his time between Vancouver, B.C., and Sydney, Australia.

Jim is one of Canada’s best-known economists. He served for over 20 years as Economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers). He is quoted frequently in the print and broadcast media, and contributes regular commentaries to the Toronto Star, Global National news, and CKNW Radio. He is also the Harold Innis Industry Professor in Economics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and an Honorary Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney.

Jim received his Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York. He also holds an M.Phil. in Economics from Cambridge University, and a B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from the University of Calgary.

Jim is the author of Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism (second edition published by Pluto Books in 2015), which has been published in six languages. Stanford has written, edited or co-edited six other books, and dozens of articles and reports in both peer-reviewed and popular outlets.

He has provided research and advice through numerous federal and provincial government panels and inquiries on economic policy, innovation, jobs, and social policy. Jim is recognized for his ability to communicate economic concepts in an accessible and humorous manner.

Rita Trichur is an award-winning journalist. She is a Senior Business Writer and Columnist in the Report on Business. Her previous roles at The Globe and Mail include Senior Editor, Financial Services Editor, and Canadian business columnist for the Report on Business Magazine. Rita returned to Globe in July 2016 after spending about 2 ½ years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s Canada bureau. She primarily covered domestic banks and insurance companies from Toronto, but also wrote a variety of other stories about Canada for the U.S. newspaper. Prior to WSJ, Rita spent more than three years at the Globe, initially working as a general assignment reporter in the Report on Business before covering the telecom beat. Rita has also covered financial services and economics for the Toronto Star, and has held various roles at the Canadian Press and the Ottawa Sun. She got her first byline at age 6 when the Toronto Star published her short story about a fish-stealing cat and paid her $10. Rita, who also speaks French, was born in Toronto. She has a Bachelor of Journalism and Political Science and a M.A. in Canadian Studies – both from Carleton University in Ottawa.

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