Lara Cousins is a gender specialist with over 12 years of experience in feminist and rights-based advocacy, capacity strengthening, learning, and knowledge development. She has worked on a range of gender equality and social justice issues, including sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender-based violence (GBV), LGBTQI+ rights, HIV/AIDS, and women’s economic empowerment, among others. Providing thematic expertise and advisory support, she has worked with activists and organizations in various settings, via participatory learning workshops, trainings, and ongoing remote support. Lara is skilled in coordinating peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing opportunities, facilitating communities of applied learning and practice. She has a diverse set of intercultural work and living experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, including 9 years residing in Mexico, culminating in her recent naturalization and dual Canadian – Mexican citizenship. Overall, Lara prioritizes working from a collaborative, feminist approach, while facilitating joint reflection and learning.

Ali brings operations leadership experience, team building, executive coaching, and strategy facilitation support to the Dignii team. Currently, Ali is a Senior Consultant at Ignite Management Services and an Officer in the Canadian Armed forces. Ali has helped numerous organizations develop strategic plans, enhance individual and team leadership capabilities, launch organizational change initiatives, and implement HR systems.

Fiona brings 10+ years of legal experience on issues as diverse as human rights, Indigenous rights and title, estates, contract law and workplace investigations to her role at Dignii. She is a problem solver who likes to dive in to complex legal issues to understand the context and find the best research, resources, or solutions. Her mission is to help find solutions to the challenges faced by girls and women. Fiona is a long-time volunteer with the Girl Guides of Canada because empowering teen girls is important to her. She wears many hats as a Girl Guide of Canada volunteer and is most proud of her weekly commitment to teens aged 12-14, and the role of BC Risk and Compliance Coordinator which she held from 2017-2020.

Usman is an experienced engineer who has built full stack software for several early stage teams in Vancouver. Currently at Eventbrite, Usman previously worked at Cully.io where he built an AI powered chatbot recommendations and ticketing solution for the entertainment industry. Additionally, Usman was an integral part of the Motto Technologies engineering team that built a cryptocurrency ETF exchange for the UK market as well as a trading app. A systems thinker, Usman was an IOT Engineer at the award winning AVA Technologies.

Kathleen has a degree in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology from Carleton University, a certificate in DEI from Cornell University, DISM (Diversity Inclusion Service Management) certification, and is a certified coach with Certified Coaches Federation and Values Inspired Coaching.
She has lived experience as a Black woman of mixed heritage born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with parents from Grenada, West Indies, and has 5 adult children with special needs such as autism. Her work is grounded in history, human rights, and human behaviour enhanced by her lived experience.
Kathleen has facilitated conversation spaces with companies such as Bank of America and has advised federal governmental agencies on DEI strategy.
She is author of Thinking Outside the Boardroom: Creative Solutions in DEI and Anti-racism coming out in 2024 and has chapters in anthologies with other subject matter experts.

Kristin brings her two decades of Human Resources experience creating equitable and inclusive workplaces to a wide variety of clients as an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) consultant. She has led work in the areas of EDI strategy development, disability and inclusive employment programs, mental health awareness and psychologically safe and healthy workplaces, intercultural competency and unconscious bias training, and Reconciliation and Indigenous history.

Previously recognized with Open Door Group’s UnTapped Award for her mental health advocacy work, she is a frequent speaker at conferences and in workplaces.Kristin holds an Award of Achievement in Diversity & Inclusion from the University of British Columbia studied Human Resources Management at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

Annika’s HR expertise and business background enable her to understand and meet the needs of small and large organizations across sectors. Annika is a coach and advisor to senior leaders and teams on leadership effectiveness, EDI awareness and inclusive leadership. She looks to build skill and capacity wherever possible and to ensure the strategy, framework, program, or service is aligned to the vision and organizational goals.
Annika has a BA in Political Science and Indigenous Anthropology from the University of British Columbia (UBC), a Diploma of Technology in Human Resource Management from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), a Certificate in Cooperative Studies from the University of Bologna (Italy) and is a Certified Practitioner in Human Resources (CPHR) through CPHR BC.

A "people and culture action nerd, a change agent, a transformation connoisseur, intrapreneur, professor, attorney," Bob has been called many things and essentially they are all true. Over 25 years ago, Bob decided to focus on the mission of making companies work better for all stakeholders: employees, organizations, communities, and the World. Since then, he has built and scaled teams and businesses from dozens of employees to thousands including at leading organizations such as twofour54 and Depa Limited. Currently, he is the Director of Customer Success at 7 Geese. Bob is a competitive rugby player and has a passion for mentoring and educating.