Theme: Purpose

Join us for a day of inspiration and innovation as we explore ideas worth spreading. Come experience this in-person event and connect with like-minded individuals, and leave with thoughts and ideas that will shape your outlook on the world.
Our ten speakers consist of pioneers, change-makers, and disruptors from various backgrounds and fields. While each of them may have a different story to share, they are united through one purpose: to drive change and create a positive impact.

Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre
4584 Blackcomb Way
Whistler, British Columbia
Canada

Ashley Freeborn

CEO and Co-Founder

Born and raised in Vancouver, B.C., Ashley taught school for a decade before co-founding Smash + Tess with her mother in 2016. Ashley recognized an unfilled niche in the loungewear fashion market, so she decided to fill that void with affordable, stylish, comfortable loungewear and attended the summer fashion program at Conde Nast in London, UK. Bootstrapping her idea to life, S+T has grown from two employees to a team of 40+. As CEO, Ashley oversees everything from designing to financial planning to dreaming up fun and creative marketing campaigns. S+T has grown famous for its celebrity collaborations with the likes of Hilary Duff, Paula Abdul, Jillian Harris, and Sarah Nicole Landry a.k.a. The Birds Papaya, and is best known for leading the Romper Revolution – a movement that was born out of clothing that celebrates femininity, strength, style, and comfort in women of all shapes and sizes.

Carey Newman

Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish Artist

Carey Newman, whose traditional name is Hayalthkin’geme, is a multi-disciplinary Indigenous artist, master carver, filmmaker, author, and mentor. Through his father, he is Kwakwaka'wakw from the Kukwekum, Giiksam, and WaWalaby’ie clans of northern Vancouver Island, and Coast Salish from Cheam of the Sto:lo Nation along the upper Fraser Valley. Through his mother, he is a Settler of English, Irish, and Scottish heritage. Being of British, Kwagiulth & Salish descent allows him to draw inspiration from each culture, mastering as many techniques and mediums as possible as one of the keys to his continued success. In his artistic practice, he strives to highlight Indigenous, social, and environmental issues as he examines the impacts of colonialism and capitalism. Carey Newman is best known as the creator behind the art installation ‘The Witness Blanket’ made with over 800 items collected from Indian residential school survivors and from the former residential school buildings.

Flo Devellennes

CEO and Co-Founder

Flo Devellennes is the CEO and Co-Founder of Poparide, Canada’s largest carpooling community with over 800,000 registered members. With a team of 25 people across Canada, Europe and Mexico, Flo is paving the way for a new type of tech business that puts purpose before profit to drive innovation, engagement and value for society. Flo fell in love with Whistler after he moved to Vancouver from Europe in 2010. While driving through the Sea-to-Sky corridor, he picked up many hitchhikers enroute which would inspire him to create the website HitchWhistler, the predecessor of Poparide. Today, Poparide has collectively saved over 15,000 metric tonnes of carbon emissions by filling empty seats in cars that are already traveling from A to B with passengers headed in the same direction. As CEO of Poparide, Flo is in charge of bringing the company’s mission to life: to make travel more social, affordable and sustainable for everyone in Canada.

Heather Paul

Community-minded Leader

Heather Paul currently serves as Executive Director of the Skwxwu7mesh Lilwat7ul Cultural Centre (SLCC), showcasing the two original First Nations communities of the Whistler area. Her community involvement has led her to craft a thriving theatre company, serve as the chair of the Arts Whistler board of directors, and be named Whistler’s 2017 Citizen of the Year at the Whistler Chamber of Commerce’s Excellence Awards. In her ongoing work at the SLCC, Heather continues amplifying Indigenous voices and the Ambassadors at the SLCC who inspire her every day as original stewards of the land, living out their calling to share the stories of the territory, the language of their people, and the voices of their ancestors.

Jackie Dickinson

Community Service Director

Jackie is the Executive Director of the Whistler Community Services Society (WCSS), a non-profit organization that addresses the Whistler community’s social and emotional wellness needs. Jackie initially joined the WCSS as an Outreach Worker in 2009 and worked in a variety of roles until she assumed her current role as Executive Director. In 2022, Jackie and her team at the WCSS, in partnership with local health care and community service providers, received the Rural Coordination Centre of BC's Community Health Award for their outstanding response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jackie has previous experience as a high school teacher and Drug and Alcohol Educator, and has been trained in Mental Health First Aid and Critical Incident Debriefing as a frontline outreach worker. She has been a resident of Whistler since 2007, settling down in this beautiful resort community with her husband to raise two adventurous boys.

Kim Campbell

Canada’s 19th Prime Minister

As Canada’s first and only female Prime Minister, Ms. Kim Campbell has spent much of her life breaking barriers for women. She has served at all three levels of government in Canada, and after leaving politics she served as the Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles. She later moved on to teach at the Harvard Kennedy School, after which she became an international leader of leaders with organizations such as the International Women's Forum and the Club de Madrid. Drawing on her extraordinary experience as an academic and a leader, she served as the Founding Principal of the Peter Lougheed Leadership College at the University of Alberta from 2014–2018. Ms. Campbell speaks widely on issues related to leadership, international politics, democratization, climate change, gender, and Canadian/American relations.

Maxine Bruce

Environmental Steward

Maxine Bruce is an elected leader and the Territorial Stewardship Manager for the Lil’wat Nation, where she oversees a large-scale salmon stock assessment program, the environmental monitoring program, and archaeological field studies. She is known by the Lil’wat people as Lhpatq, which is her ancestral name. As an elected official she chairs several boards and committees, and holds the role of President of the Lil’wat Nation’s corporate arm. Her portfolio also includes Economic Development & Restorative Justice, and she’s a member of the Nation’s Governance Transition Team. Maxine lives and works in Mount Currie, BC, and she feels honoured and proud to work for her community so she can give back and help incorporate her Nation’s culture into her work. She’s grateful for the opportunity to take the approach of being an Ucwalmicw Tmicw (one with the land) because she knows that whatever impacts the land also impacts her, and all of us.

T’ec Georgina Dan

Cultural Ambassador

T’ec Georgina Dan is from the Lil’wat Nation, and serves as the Cultural Leader of the Spo7ez Performance team and voice of her generation. After graduating from the Indigenous Youth Ambassador Program in 2016, Georgina became a manager of that same program, which delivers a paid 12-week business training program to youth ages 16 to 30 that also includes learning about art and culture from community knowledge keepers. Aside from being one of the star tour guides at the Squamish and Lil’wat Cultural Centre (SLCC), you may also recognize Georgina at different events throughout Whistler, taking part in performances that represent the Shared Territories of the Lil’wat Nation and Squamish Nation. Currently, Georgina is learning the Lil’wat Language at Ts’zil Learning Centre as she continues to share her culture at the SLCC by performing and leading cultural programming, crafts, and workshops, both in-person and virtually.