Opening Keynote: Kelley Keehn, Founder, Money Wise Workplaces, Best-Selling Author

Topic: Breaking Financial Barriers: Empowering Women CPAs Through Neuroscience and Behavioral Insights

Drawing from her experience as a financial educator, bestselling author, and advocate for women’s empowerment, Kelley Keehn will explore the unique challenges women face in achieving financial resilience and confidence. Despite controlling an ever-increasing share of global wealth, women continue to grapple with barriers like caregiving responsibilities, wage gaps, and societal biases. Kelley connects these challenges to fascinating insights from neuroscience, behavioral economics, and the hidden influence of our money stories. She offers tools to reframe financial mindsets, leverage careers as the greatest investments, and break free from outdated paradigms.

Key Takeaways:

• How biases and decision-making shortcuts shape financial outcomes.
• The neuroscience behind why your future self feels like a stranger—and how to change it.
• How money stories influence financial decisions—and how to rewrite them.
• Practical strategies to negotiate your worth, combat burnout, and build a financial legacy.

Speaker: Lisa Laronde, CPA, CMA, President RSG International |Top 100 Winner| Advocating for Women in Construction Leadership in North America 

Topic: Leading with Heart: The Power of Authentic Women’s Leadership

Leadership isn’t for everyone—it’s a calling that demands authenticity, empathy, and the courage to lead without ego. In this transformative keynote, Lisa Laronde delves into the qualities that define exceptional leadership, blending practicality with intuition. From building balanced teams to fostering collaboration and empowering decision-making, Lisa shares actionable insights that leaders at any level can apply. She highlights the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in creating high-performing teams. She emphasizes the importance of empowering women to negotiate, speak up, and embrace their unique leadership styles.

Key Takeaways: 

• Diverse and Balanced Teams Foster Success: Effective teams thrive when diverse perspectives and strengths come together, creating balance and innovation while reducing conflicts. DEI is not a checkbox—it’s the foundation of sustainable success. 
• Empathy, Presence, and Empowerment Drive Engagement: Active listening, regular check-ins, and creating an inclusive environment empower all team members—especially women and underrepresented voices—to contribute authentically and lead confidently. 
• Intuition and Bold Decisions Create Impact: By combining logical strategies with intuition, leaders can make impactful decisions that prioritize business success and cultivate a culture of equity, collaboration, and innovation. 

Fireside Chat with Host: Ruby Singh, CPA, CA, Co-Founder of Indellia AI and Takara Small, National Technology Columnist at CBC and Tech Contributor

Topic: AI Technologies Opportunities & Risks

Speaker: Professor Maja Jovanović, Sociologist, Author, Confidence Builder

Topic: Forget the Apologies & Learn How to Lead with Confidence

Do you find yourself apologizing for no good reason? Do you deflect praise or minimize your accomplishments? Are you frustrated that women’s confidence is often perceived as arrogance? If so, then this is keynote for you! Join Professor Maja in this energizing and information-jammed session to explore apologies. You’ll learn why women over-apologize and how we’re perceived. You’ll see how deflection of praise and bias influence our use of apologies.  You’ll learn the latest research coming out of Prof Maja’s 7-year global study on women’s confidence, and you’ll leave with tips to get off the apology train.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn why women over-apologize & how it hurts our confidence.
• How deflection of praise, gender expectations and bias influence our use of apologies. 
• Strategies to stop needlessly apologizing.

Speaker: Suzanne Colmer, Owner and Creator of Your Shop Girl Image and Style Consulting

Topic: Dress How You Want To be Addressed: What Story is Your Style Telling?

In both life and business, first impressions leave a lasting impact. Whenever you put on an outfit, your clothing is telling the world a story. The great thing about that is, you get to write it. This talk will show you how to find your ideal style and translate it into clothes you love and that love you back. You will never look at your closet the same again.

Key Takeaways:

• How others view your style story versus how you view it.
• How to find your clothing version of your superhero cape so you can show up confidently in any situation.
• Where to start when building your ideal wardrobe.

Closing Keynote: Karen Schulman Dupuis, Interdisciplinary senior leader with decades of experience in strategy, communications and operations. 

Topic: Adaptive Leadership: Navigating Disruption

In a world where disruption is the only constant, how can we not just survive but thrive? Drawing from personal stories, leadership research, and complexity and systems theory, this talk explores how adaptive leadership and reinterpreting models from resiliency and adaptability theories of change provide a powerful framework for navigating life’s inevitable changes. Whether you’re facing personal upheaval, organizational challenges, or societal shifts, you’ll leave equipped with tools to turn disruption into opportunity.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the Cycle of Disruption: Learn how systems—whether ecological, organizational, or personal—experience breakdowns and transitions and how recognizing these patterns can foster resilience.
• Embrace Adaptive Leadership Principles: Discover how diagnosing challenges, mobilizing people, and "embracing the crunchy" can transform disruption into a catalyst for growth.
• Turn Fear into Opportunity: Gain practical tools and strategies to map your current phase, identify actionable steps, and intentionally prepare for what comes next.