Steve Foran (CSP) manages a consulting business focused on behaviour and culture change. Since 2006, it’s grown into work with leaders across Canada to shift culture and helping teams bring more gratitude to work each day. Steve Foran has been on the leading edge of gratitude-based research, writing, and teaching for more than fifteen years. His science-based program, Gratitude At Work, is a simple, yet innovative approach to business growth. In 2017, together with 42 other top rated speakers from around the world, Steve was awarded the highest earned designation in professional speaking – Certified Speaking Professional.
Steve Foran began exploring the relationship between gratitude and philanthropic giving while completing his Masters at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Steve has been on the leading edge of gratitude-based research, writing, and teaching for almost fifteen years. His science-based presentation programs are simple, yet innovative approach to business growth, personal growth and professional growth. With programs like Counting Blessings, Asking Before Assuming, Thanking and Not Expecting, gratitude transforms business cultures into proud, positive, satisfying environments, where people are grateful, productive and ultimately at their best.
An electrical engineer, Foran brings a detail oriented and thoughtful approach to his working relationships and client engagements. Thriving off of people in search of growth, Steve Foran works with leaders who want to instill an engaging, cooperative culture with their employees. Steve Foran believes that culture starts with gratitude, because all of the research points to one simple fact that when it comes to gratitude, YOUR PEOPLE NEED MORE. For more than a decade Steve has been speaking to companies, organizations and large groups about the power of gratitude in their work and day-to-day lives.
Steve Foran is a son, brother, husband, father and now, grandfather. He teaches Business Ethics and has written extensively on the subject of gratitude. He is the founder of STATUS GRO and creator of the viral video 100 Halifax Doors. Steve is actively engaged in making his community a better place and is proud to be a lifelong resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Sunjay Nath (MBA, BScE, CSP), travels globally sharing insights on leadership and performance. His trademark, “The 10-80-10 Principle” is a framework that helps individuals and teams improve performance. This methodology combines best practices with small wins to help people empower themselves. Sunjay Nath was a founding Vice President of an e-learning company based in Toronto. This company went on to become a multimillion-dollar organization. Prior to that position he worked as an engineer for a distribution company in New York. Sunjay served as a camp director for several years with a camp that focuses on developing leadership skills in students. He has also held positions with H&R Block and Bank of Montreal.
Nath started an international speaking business when he was 19; he wasn’t even old enough to rent a car. This was particularly problematic when he would travel. As a speaker, Nath has travelled extensively and addressed in person well over 1,000,000 people around the world since 1995. In 2005, Sunjay became the youngest Canadian (and third youngest in the world) ever to earn his CSP (Certified Speaking Professional). The CSP is the highest internationally recognized designation that a speaker can aspire to achieve.
With his background, Sunjay Nath offers a rare combination of both left and right brain activities to engage all audience members. Sunjay Nath holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematical Engineering, a degree that after the first year of the program, 80% of the students failed out. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration. During his MBA, he took first prize in an international business case competition.
Always striving to achieve Sunjay Nath has earned is Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, has run a full 26 mile (42km) marathon and has jumped out of a perfectly good plane (some call it skydiving). He has served as President of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Toronto Chapter and President of his Engineering Discipline. He is a magician, a comedian, a professional actor and entertainer. In university he was rated as one of the country’s top debaters. Sunjay Nath is the author of The 10-80-10 Principle, The ABCs of Student Leadership, and a contributing author for the book, Professionally Speaking. When not on the road, Sunjay enjoys spending time with his wife and three high energy, extremely busy sons.
Susan is the first Inuk artist to win a Juno (3) and a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement, she is an officer of the Order of Canada, holds several Honorary Doctorate degrees and has held command performances; but Susan also acknowledges the path has not been easy.
“Here I was, living a life I never imagined, but I was struggling to understand who I was. There was no opportunity growing up to learn about who we were, the Inuit, from our own perspective. In essence, we were institutionalized by being told who we were, how we would live and when you are told a story for so long, you learn to believe it,” explains Susan.
During the past 25 years of reflection and songwriting, Susan kept coming back to one area of profound knowing, the Inuit are an extraordinary people deeply grounded in a culture forged by their Ancestors, their journey is what shaped them.
“Their life experience is the foundation on which our precepts of determination, adaptability and love for life are built, they began the journey to our present-day Nunavut.” (Susan’s Walrus Talks comments)
“The conversations around reconciliation have provided an opportunity to begin to re-write our narrative. The Indigenous people in Canada come from highly organized societies built on knowledge, process and organization – without which none of us would have survived.”
For Susan, art has played a significant role in her healing journey and in the re-writing of her narrative, she believes it plays an important role for indigenous youth who are dealing with contemporary identity issues today. “Our children and youth are strong and resilient, they still believe very strongly in their culture, in Inuit or Indigenous culture, and they are still fighting every day to find their place.”
“They need to be anchored to an identity and so much of those connections are in our ancestors and their stories and we have a duty and a responsibility to engage our children and youth in the process of connecting with and helping them write those stories.”
Susan has always been very open about how her own fears and personal trauma that left her disillusioned and disconnected. Born in Arviat, Nunavut, her parents formative years were in traditional Inuit culture, her formative years were not traditional and were somewhat disconnected from her culture.
Despite the success she experienced in the 1990s, by 1998 she was suffering from post-partum depression and found herself in a dark place in need of time to reflect and heal, what followed was the several years of reflection, healing and making deeper commitments to her singing/songwriting career.
And so, began what Susan calls her “awakening”. As she learned more about her culture and the strength and resilience of the Inuit who have been on this land for over 5,000 years, Susan was also engaging her own “inner artist” and falling in love with performing, sharing stories and singing.
“We have an extraordinary culture and an extraordinary past, we must embrace the opportunity to learn about our very own heroes, write those culture bridges and reframe who we are in today’s world.”
Through her music, Susan continues to share her experiences as an Inuk growing up in Nunavut, as well as the challenges faced by northern communities and Indigenous youth.
Susan is actively involved in various projects to bring food and support to northern communities and in 2016 the Arctic Rose Foundation gained charitable status with a focus on helping youth in the north through art and other engaging creative projects.
A geoscientist, journalist and explorer, Susan R. Eaton studies the interplay of plate tectonics, oceans, glaciers, climate and life in polar regions.
A Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Susan explores the world’s oceans—from Antarctica to the Arctic—in the snorkel zone, a unique land-sea-ice-air interface where charismatic animals and snorkelers comingle.
In 2018, Ocean Geographic named Susan one of the “Ocean’s Best” 18 most influential women leaders in ocean conservation.
Twelve years ago, Susan suffered a scuba diving trauma that landed her in a hyperbaric chamber for three days, ending her 30-year diving career. Undaunted, her up-close-and-personal relationship with the ocean—which had included studying marine biology and teaching scuba diving—didn’t end in the hyperbaric chamber…
Redefining her relationship with the ocean, Susan has snorkeled with thousands of chatty belugas Hudson Bay and with docile manatees at Crystal River, Florida. She’s snorkeled in the Galapagos Archipelago where sea turtles, sea lions and nurse sharks outnumber snorkelers. In Haida Gwaii, she’s assisted the Haida Nation, snorkeling northern rivers to count salmon migrating to their ancestral spawning grounds. Susan has come face-to-mask with charging 1,400-pound leopard seals in the Southern Ocean—so close, in fact, that she could count the freckles on their upper palates and inspect their tri-serrated teeth which dispatch 30-pound penguins in mere minutes.
On Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, Susan was honoured to be included in the book by Paulina Cameron, entitled “Canada 150 Women: Conversations with Leaders, Champions and Luminaries.”
In 2015, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society named Susan one of Canada’s top 100 modern-day explorers and trailblazers. A year later, the same organization named her one of Canada’s 25 greatest female explorers.
In the past decade, Susan has participated in five science-based dive and snorkel expeditions focused on climate change in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the Western Antarctic Peninsula, Labrador, Nunavut, Greenland, Svalbard, Spitzbergen and Iceland.
Susan is the founder and leader of the multi-year Sedna Epic Expedition, which is comprised of an international team of women ocean explorers, scientists, historians, artists, image-makers, educators and scuba divers. Founded in 2013, the Sedna Epic Expedition’s mission is to scout, document and record disappearing sea ice in the Arctic.
In consultation with Inuit team members and advisors, Sedna’s sea women deliver hands-on, ocean knowledge sharing and mobilization programs to Inuit youth, girls and Elders. Since 2014, Susan has led three all-women dive and snorkel expeditions to the Arctic (Labrador, Nunavut, Greenland and Iceland).
An active volunteer in the conversation sector since 1990, Susan is passionate about protecting Canada’s endangered ecosystems and the animals who call them home. She currently sits on the board of directors of Nature Canada—the oldest nature conservation charity in Canada—whose mandate is protecting parks and wildlife areas and creating citizen science and urban nature initiatives. Susan is a founding member of Nature Canada’s Women for Nature, a collaborative partnership of 150 women of influence who champion nature and inspire young leaders for nature.
A senior advisor in the Canadian and international energy sector, Susan provides technical, financial and strategic due diligence to oil and gas, legal and equity finance companies. Susan’s strong financial background was honed while working, as Vice-President of Exploration, with several publicly-traded and privately-held junior oil and gas companies. She is an expert witness in oil and gas litigation and regulatory hearings.
Susan holds a B. Sc. Hon. degree in geology and biology from Dalhousie University and a M.Sc. in petroleum geology (geophysics specialization) from Imperial College’s Royal School of Mines, University of London.
Equipped with a B. J. Hon. degree from Carleton University’s School of Journalism, Susan began her media career in as an on-camera news reporter with CBC-TV. Today, as a corporate communications specialist, she creates external communications materials which include annual and quarterly reports, press releases, speeches, advertorials, and website and social media content.
As a freelance writer, Susan reports on science and technology, business, energy, the environment, space, geotourism and adventure travel. Her articles and photographs have been published in Canadian, American and international magazines and newspapers, including The Geographer, Water Canada, Canadian Geographic, Ocean Geographic, Outpost, Popular Mechanics, Explorer, DIVER Magazine, ALERT Diver, DivePhotoGuide, New Technology, Alberta Oil Magazine, Business Edge, the Financial Post, the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald.
Occupational therapist Sylvia Marusyk is an entertaining speaker who gives her audiences the tools to build healthy lives and work places. She’s fun, she’s sassy and she’s passionate about safety, health and wellness! Her lively presentations focus on a proactive approach to creating vitality, personally and corporately. As an Occupational Therapist with years of practice in the field of work place safety and personal health, Sylvia Marusyk knows prevention is the key to creating happy, healthy individuals, employees and businesses.
Sylvia Maursyk’s entertaining presentations focus on a proactive approach to building healthy lives and work places. Her years of assessing and treating injuries as an Occupational Therapist offer Sylvia a unique insight through which she has developed a proactive approach to preventing stress and workplace injuries. Because she is an active Occupational Therapist her practical insights and strategies are relevant, current and incorporate solutions to overcome today’s challenges.
Stressed employees make more mistakes, take more time off work and are less safe on the job due to preoccupation, poor judgment and fatigue. Recognizing we are a mind-body, not a mind and a body, has helped her educate people on truly effective ways to change their health. Sylvia Marusyk’s presentations invite audiences to laugh while learning practical, powerful tools to handle stress, reduce repetitive strain injuries and prevent burn out. She always brings relative and up to date information from her consultation practice to every presentation. Furthermore, Sylvia Marusyk will take you and your organization to become healthier, happier and less stressed, She will inspire your audience and ignite productivity and performance for individuals. She can also work with safety coordinators and tams to create a workplace culture that puts health at the forefront for their employees.
Sylvia Marusyk is a high energy speaker who gets top marks from audiences, meeting planners. As a result, she often returns to organizations for repeat engagements. Her message is both practical and inspiring. This occupational health therapist is passionate about maintaining health and safety in the workplace and it shows. Sylvia Marusyk rated in the top 1% of public speakers by Dr. James Reese. Above all, Sylvia Marusyk is passionate on helping individuals discover the power of the mind and body so that they can make health a priority and live their best lives.
Sylvia Marusyk’s certifications include:
- Certified Master Clinician in Functional Capacity Evaluation, Job Demands Analysis, Office Ergonomics and Industrial Ergonomics
- Sahrmann Certificate for Upper and Lower Extremity Assessment and Treatment
- Progressive Goal Attainment Scale Certificate
Tanveer Naseer is an award-winning and internationally-acclaimed leadership writer and keynote speaker. He is also the Principal and Founder of a leadership coaching firm that works with executives and managers to help them develop practical leadership and team-building competencies to guide organizational growth and development. Naseer’s writings and insights on leadership and workplace interactions have been featured in a number of prominent organizations and media publications such as Forbes, Fast Company, Inc Magazine, The Globe and Mail, The Economist Executive Education Navigator, CBC Radio Daybreak, Global News, and the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.
Tanveer Naseer is the recipient of several awards and recognitions as one of the world’s top thinkers/writers in the leadership sphere, including being recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the Top 100 Leadership and Management Experts. Naseer has been very active on speaking circuit, giving keynote speeches and talks in Canada and the US, including his TED talk “Forget Passion – Purpose is the Real Spice of Life”.
His engaging and thought-provoking style and content has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of today’s “100 Great Leadership Speakers,” a list that includes such highly sought-after thought leaders as Sir Richard Branson, Tony Hsieh, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ken Blanchard, Brené Brown, and Marshall Goldsmith. In addition to his work speaking, writing, and consulting on leadership, Tanveer Naseer is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BnextR Technologies, a start-up technology company behind the professional development program, MasteryPractice, a science-based online program designed to help people develop new habits and behaviours that are critical to career success and growth.
Tanveer Naseer also serves as the Chairman of the Governing Board for one of the largest regional high schools in the province of Quebec, Canada. Naseer holds a Master of Science degree in Pathology from McGill University and currently lives in Montreal, Canada with his wife and their three daughters. Tanveer Naseer’s first leadership book, “Leadership Vertigo” has received rave reviews and endorsements by many of today’s top leadership thinkers and practitioners.
Theo Heineman is passionate keeping workers safe. An expert and spokesperson in the field of Health and Safety she is a master at using powerful stories to inspire owners, managers and workers into consistent action and collaboration in order to create a safe and healthy workplace. As a four-time winner of the BBB Marketplace Ethics and Integrity Award, Heineman is recognized as a leader in safety in Canada.
Heineman is an inspiration to audiences and gives them a solid action plan to integrate into their workplace. She is the Founder, President and CEO of a Safety Solutions Consulting Firm, and since starting her company in 2009, she has experienced significant growth and established a recognized brand in Manitoba. Theo Heineman has over 20 years’ experience as a business owner and entrepreneur. She is also an award winning sales and marketing professional with more than 15 years of experience. She also has over 15 years of safety management related experience, working both locally and internationally as a consultant and trainer.
Her consultation practice specializes in providing integrated, full-service workplace safety and health solutions to support Manitoba businesses in creating safer work environments, increasing profitability and meeting the requirements of workplace safety and health legislation. The advantages for organizations to go beyond attaining legal compliance under regulation and legislative initiatives reduce overall losses and improve productivity and quality, resulting in healthier employees and more profitable and sustainable businesses.
Widely recognized as a leader and expert in both business and Safety Management Systems, Heineman is passionate about having an impact on sending workers home to their families safe and healthy at the end of every work day and protecting organizations from avoidable loss and liability. She is a Board Certified Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP), and Certified Safety and Health Consultant (Canadian Society of Safety Engineers). Theo Heineman is also a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization. In 2011 she was awarded the Manitoba Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for both Building Business and Overall Excellence. In 2012 she sat on the WCB Advisory Committee for the Future State of Workplace Illness and Injury Prevention in Manitoba and she is a board member for Manitoba’s Better Business Bureau.
Heineman can deliver keynotes, workshops, training sessions focused on safety that will leave a lasting impact.
Tim Tamashiro is the author of the Amazon #1 bestselling book How To Ikigai. He’s a speaker, singer and explorer. For a decade Tim was host of Tonic on CBC Radio 2. He departed from CBC to study positive psychology, wellbeing and Ikigai (life’s worth).
Ikigai is an ancient philosophy from Okinawa, Japan. It encourages all people to live your “life’s worth”. Studies show that the pillars of Ikigai support overall wellbeing. Each person has an ikigai that, once understood, will enhance daily life and personal fulfillment. Best of all, Ikigai is a map with four directions to follow:
1. Do what you love
2. Do what you’re good at
3. Do what the world needs
4. Do what you can be rewarded for
Tim has learned that his own Ikigai is “to delight”. He shares his Ikigai every chance he gets whether he’s giving a speech, singing a song on stage or sharing a smile with a stranger.
Simon O’Byrne is an award winning urban designer/planner and is Senior Vice President of Stantec’s 2,000 person Community Development Business Line. As a planning expert, he is frequently quoted in the media and is a sought after global public speaker. Simon has led multi-disciplinary design teams in the planning and successful delivery of large, complex and politically charged projects.
O’Byrne’s experience ranges from intensive urban revitalization redevelopments, to master planned communities, to transit-oriented developments and more. Projects include the Edmonton Downtown Arena and Entertainment District, creating resiliency in Hull, UK, redevelopment of the Alberta Legislature Grounds, the Saskatoon City Centre Plan, Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, Alberta Capital Region Land Use Plans, the Hunts Point Plan, Bronx, New York and more.
As a recognized urban design and planning expert, Simon O’Byrne is frequently quoted in the media in both Canada and the US and is a sought after speaker on both sides of the border to professional, community and leadership groups. He is an experienced speaker who delivers keynotes at major provincial, national and international conferences. Simon is also has a TEDx talk on how to create vibrant communities.
In 2015, Simon O’Byrne was selected to become the Allard Chair in Business for MacEwan University. The Edmonton Journal named Simon as one of the city’s Power 30. Alberta Venture magazine named Simon as one of the 50 Most Influential People in Alberta. In 2009, Avenue magazine named Simon as one of the Top 40 Under 40. Simon O’Byrne is a community leader who currently volunteers with the following: Downtown Vibrancy Task Force (Past Chair), Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (Honorary Chair), City of Edmonton’s Winter City Advisory Committee (Co-Chair) and Winter City Urban Design (Chair), Canadian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility and the University of Alberta Planning Program Advisory Committee.
Simon O’Byrne volunteers and leads many different civic, economic, social justice, charity, and professional boards and committees such as; the Habitat for Humanity National Leadership Council, Edmonton Chamber of Commerce (2014 Chair), Edmonton Renewable Energy Task Force, Greater Edmonton Regional Chambers of Commerce (2012 Chair), Community Sustainability Task Force, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, Hope Mission, Urban Development Institute & the Alberta Professional Planning Association.
Simon has a Master of City Planning Degree from the University of Manitoba. He has also completed a Master of Science in Environmental Planning scholarly exchange at the Pratt Institute in New York City. Simon’s first degree was a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alberta.
Dr. Sinclair MacRae, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Professional and Business Ethics at Mount Royal University in Calgary. He is a passionate and award-winning speaker, teacher, researcher, author, and consultant. Dr. MacRae delivers two terrific and dynamic presentations: Ethics for Professionals and Building Trust Relationships to Succeed. These presentations either can be keynote and seminar addresses or in highly interactive workshop formats, lasting between one and a half hours to one half day.
Dr. MacRae can help you improve business profitability and organizational performance through enhancing employee engagement, workplace culture, and ethics. His focus is on the practical and actionable. His delivery style is casual, accessible, and humorous. Dr. Sinclair’s presentations are content-driven, drawing on his extensive experience and expertise. He is currently researching and writing a book on competition, trust, and ethics. His first book was An Introduction to Ethics: Theories, Perspectives, and Issues.
Sinclair MacRae is the author of the Mount Royal Faculty Association’s Code of Ethics and a past Chair of its Ethics Committee and the Mount Royal University Research Ethics Board. He has been a member of several professional and community-based associations including the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network, the Integrity Network of Calgary and the Alberta Press Council.
Sinc’s presentations are an excellent fit for a wide range of professional associations and groups. Dr. Sinclair MacRae shapes his presentations to meet specific needs and requirements to deliver a compelling professional development seminar or workshop.
Sinclair MacRae has spoken at numerous conferences and society meetings across North America and he has twenty-five years’ experience teaching at universities and colleges in Canada. He mainly educates students in courses and programs in ethics, applied ethics, the good life, professional ethics and business ethics.
Dr. Sinclair MacRae has previously taught at Dalhousie University, the University of Toronto, George Brown College, the University of Manitoba, Saint Mary’s College, the University of Calgary, and Mount Royal University. He is an acclaimed expert on matters relating to business and professional ethics. Many media outlets including CBC news, the Canmore Leader, Global TV, The Calgary Herald, CHQR 770 AM and CTV News have interviewed Sinc on a broad range of issues and topics within his areas of expertise.