Jean Irvine
Director of Human Resources, Scarborough Hospital

Jean Irvine is the Director of Human Resources at The Scarborough Hospital  one of Canada’s largest urban community hospital.

Jean has a Bachelor of Commerce in Hotel and Food administration and is a Certified Human Resource Professional .She has broad based human resources experience working in several service related industries such as Carnation Foods, Wendy’s restaurants, Purolator Courier, Seven Eleven food stores, entering the Health care field in the late 1980’s.

She has been involved in recruitment, compensation and benefits, plus labour and employee relations for several years  and in 2005 she became the Director of Human Resources at TSH. Her responsibilities include leading a team of HR Generalists with a focus on organizational design, coaching, change management conflict resolution, Healthy workplace, policy development organizational development, performance development and talent management.

Jennifer Laidlaw
Director, Archives Operation Branch, Ontario Ministry of Government Services

Jennifer Laidlaw is a Director at the Archives of Ontario and has been with the OPS since 1999.

Jennifer played an early and important role in the development of an enterprise-wide Integrated Talent Management approach for the OPS. In 2005, as Project Lead, she was instrumental in the development of the framework and tools which comprised Phase One of a staged approach to Talent Management at the OPS – Assessing, Developing and Deploying Talent.

Previously, Jennifer had been in management positions with the Management Board Secretariat’s Human Resources Branch. Over the 6 years, this included acting Director, Manager, Consulting Services and Manager, Labour Relations and Health and Safety. She had a common mission of results-oriented and customer-focused HR services which were responsive, strategic and process-smart.

Before joining the OPS in 1999, Jennifer performed both operational and HR management roles in the private and broader public sectors.

Jennifer has and continues to volunteer her time and talent as a board member of various non-profit organizations.

She has an MA from the University of Toronto and a BA from Wilfrid Laurier University. She is a Professional Coach (Adler School of Professional Coaching) and Certified Human Resource Professional (Human Resource Professionals Association of Ontario). Other certificates include: Strategic Leadership Certificate (University of Toronto); Industrial Relations Certificate (Centennial College); and Management Certificate (Queen’s University). She is currently working towards certification as a Professional Coach (Adler School of Professional Coaching).

All this has contributed to her ability to be successful in her current role where she is applying her change management and leadership skills to the modernization of the Archives of Ontario.

Per Scott
Senior Manager, Talent Management, RBC Financial Group

Per Scott heads RBC’s Talent Management centre of expertise with responsibility for company-wide talent management practices, diversity, human capital analytics, RBC’s employment brand and employee surveys. Per’s background of over twenty years at RBC includes Human Resources roles in performance consulting and learning design and development, and roles in business process reengineering, operations management and retail banking branch management.   

Lynda Tarras
Assistant Deputy Minister, Talent Management, British Columbia Public Service Agency

Lynda Tarras is responsible for developing and implementing an integrated Talent Management Strategy for the BC Public Service designed to create a strong, flexible and nimble workforce that is recognized nationally and internationally for public service excellence.

As a member of the Agency’s Executive since 2003, Lynda also led the development of a Business Transformation Strategy that is in implementation today helping the BC Public Service Agency to continue to refine its services and maintain client satisfaction while continuing to shift the role of HR from administrator to business partner.

From October 2001 to April 2003, Lynda was the Project Manager for the HR Organization Project.  In this capacity, she led the development and design of the BC Public Service Agency – an agency created as a means of consolidating all HR services into one agency for the Province of British Columbia, a public service organization employing over 28,000 people.

Lynda has over 20 years of experience in the human resource field.  Prior to joining the BC Public Service Agency, she was the Director of Personnel Services for the BC Ministry of Attorney General, the Treaty Negotiations Office and the Ministry for Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Andrew Whittington (Session Moderator)
Manager, Organizational Development, Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

Andrew lives in Toronto and enjoys time with close friends when he is not pursuing his passion for long-distance cycling.  He has two daughters in university who keep him well grounded in reality.