Our Instructors

Chris Aesoph, MA, challenges workshop attendees to meet the levels of excellence he has seen in world-class performers. For the past 13 years, Chris has led a consulting group that builds management and sales teams for firms that lead their industry sectors, giving him unique access to best practices. Aesoph’s clients consistently set records in profit and productivity, a direct result of innovative technology combined with enhanced customer and staff retention rates.

His work experience has allowed Chris to gather a network of successful and dynamic business leaders from many sectors. This network of leaders commonly join in workshop sessions by phone to provide a valuable resource to workshop participants.

Chris takes a special interest in the business philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry, which shows organizations how to build upon their strengths. His educational background includes a Master of Arts in Psychology, which he used to improve client performance and communication as an individual and family therapist, specializing in solution-focused brief therapy techniques. His initial degree in Media allowed him to earn “Best Investigative Reporter” and “Best Columnist” from the Minnesota News Association.

Valarie Austen, a Director of Workplace Training, is a seasoned, highly-skilled professional with a diverse portfolio of specialized management and staff training programs. She specializes in supervisory skills development, leadership styles and group dynamics. With over 15 years experience in both private and public sector training, Valarie has a reputation as a grounded, knowledgeable and approachable facilitator with a passion for inspiring learning that results in progressive change. Valarie has worked with the 1994 Commonwealth Games staff, all Ministries of the BC Government , the BC Public Service Agency, the Legislative Assembly, several municipalities and select private corporations. Valarie is a graduate of the University of Victoria in Adult and Continuing Education and has completed the Justice Institute’s Certificate of Conflict Resolution Program. She is also qualified to administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and trained in the 4D-I and OneSmartWorld System.

Paul Brown has extensive experience in the areas of adult training, consulting services and project management. He has accumulated over 25 years of training related experience in both the private and public sector as an employee with 3e Training Inc., Xerox Learning Systems (Stamford, Connecticut) and MR Communication Consultants (Toronto, Ontario). Paul attended the University of Toronto, completing undergraduate and graduate studies in the health sciences.

Since 1988, Paul has focused his efforts on the development and facilitation of workshops specific to how government is changing the way it conducts business, allocates resources, makes decisions, delivers services and infrastructure and defines accountabilities. These include workshops on contract, financial and risk management, transfer payments through conditional grants and contribution agreements, outcome based business planning, performance measurement and reporting. His principal clients are the provincial governments and Crown agencies of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan; Washington State Government and Yukon Government.

Dennis is a highly rated trainer who has been delivering valuable training to government and private sector organizations for over 22 years.

His “foundational approach” to training ensures that participants return to work with clarity and focus, along with increased understanding and with the tools they need to improve professional and personal results.

Dennis’ deep understanding of people and their behaviours, which he developed in the personal development industry and honed over the decades, has helped him design and deliver leading edge personal and professional development programs that “based on results” work and last.

Change management, service excellence, communication and conflict, accountability, performance and results improvement, management and leadership skills are among the many training topics Dennis delivers with excellence.

Dennis is an outstanding keynote and conference speaker who can be counted on to deliver a tailored message in an entertaining, thought provoking and humourous manner. Topic areas include the ones listed above along with these examples: How to Attract, Engage and Retain the Best & Brightest, Becoming an Employer of Choice, Fostering Organizational Excellence, Higher Purpose – Better Results and When the Rubber Hits the Road to name a few.

Stephanie Holmes is an accomplished professional writer with 20 years in corporate communications and journalism. She has a BA in English Language and Literature and an MA in Journalism and Public Affairs. After working in newsrooms in the United States and Canada, she branched out into corporate communications, starting her own consulting business which provides communications strategies and training.

Sean is a modern educator with over eight years experience in education, with the last six being focused on adult education.

He has experience working in both the public and private sector. This experience has given him a keen sense of how businesses are doing business and the demands that these practices put on the workforce.

With a brain-based approach to his facilitation, he strives to provide a fun and engaging result-oriented learning experience for all whom participate in his workshops. Sean facilitates workshops in Time Management and Procurement and Contract Management.

Sean graduated from the University of Victoria with a B.Sc. He is currently taking courses in the Adult and Continuing Education Program at the University of Victoria.

Robert has extensive experience in the fields of Partnership Development, Community Economic Development, Business Planning and Project Management. In his Community Development work, Robert has represented communities in Ontario and British Columbia. He also has over 10 years experience with the Province of British Columbia in the development of transportation and related partnerships, and has developed and implemented key partnership arrangements across the province.

Robert pioneered many of the innovative approaches taken towards partnership development, including the use of design-build and design-build-development, has authored and implemented many highly technical and innovative partnership agreements, and is very experienced at creating and obtaining high level government approvals for arrangements with appropriate levels of risk transfer and creative financing models.

In the course of seeking Executive, Ministerial, Treasury Board and Cabinet approvals, Robert has authored numerous documents including Briefing Notes, Board of Directors, Treasury Board, and Cabinet submissions, Business Plans, Project Implementation Plans, Project Definition Reports and highly technical and detailed partnership and legal agreements.

Robert has received an Executive Award, an Employee Recognition Award, and a Silver Public Service Award for Innovation from the Province of British Columbia.

Karen O'Brien leads the Deloitte Enterprise Risk group in Saskatchewan.

Karen has worked with the Government of Saskatchewan and related entities in providing Enterprise Risk Management training and awareness programs, developing pragmatic ERM programs, evaluating the effectiveness of existing programs and providing road maps and recommendations for improvement.

Karen has over 10 years experience in public practice in addition to 11 years of progressively senior business experience. She is passionate about Saskatchewan and has had the privilege to work with the largest organizations in the province in many different capacities. Prior to joining Deloitte, Karen began her career in health care, moved into management, to life and health insurance in many different capacities.

Leslie has 30 years experience designing and delivering training programs for government, colleges, universities, corporations and the non-profit sector in Canada, the US, and Australia.

Leslie is an experienced facilitator, trainer, and mentor who has aided thousands of participants to realize, and exceed, their potential as trainers by deepening their knowledge and skills of both teaching and learning.

Leslie is a provincial Instructional Skills Workshop facilitator and trainer and has trained trainers across Canada and the US. Leslie holds a Masters degree in Adult Education.

David brings over 20 years of experience with the Province of British Columbia, with a considerable focus on procurement and contract management. He has led the development of new contract templates, overseen internal training programs and represented the province on inter-provincial trade agreements concerning procurement policy. David has experience working with both central agencies and individual ministries, along with collaborating with other stakeholder organizations such as employer associations, unions, and a variety of federations and associations.

David introduced an integrated logic model approach to contracting, including articulating standard outcomes for specific programs, providing an evidentiary basis for reporting output indicators and other metrics. He also has extensive experience in the preparation of government communication tools such as briefing notes, requests for proposals and business cases.

In addition, David volunteers with several local non-profit community agencies, is a freelance writer, and is a co-recipient of a local environmental award recognizing his work as Lead Steward of a local park. He has a BA from Simon Fraser University and an MAS from the University of British Columbia.

Arn van Iersel is a graduate of the University of Calgary with an honors degree in economics. He also undertook graduate studies at the same university and is a Certified General Accountant.

Arn was with both the Alberta and British Columbia governments in a public service career of over 31 years. He has held various senior positions both in finance and in program delivery. In the Province of British Columbia, Arn worked in Treasury Board, Financial Services and Administration, Provincial Treasury, Ministry of Human Resources, the Office of the Comptroller General, and as Associate Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

Arn has been a Senior Financial Officer, an Executive Financial Officer, Comptroller General, and Acting Auditor General for British Columbia.

As of June 2007 Arn left the BC government to pursue his personal interests as a contractor in the promotion of sound financial practices in government. He is currently working on a number of contracts, including a Canadian controllership survey, training of financial staff, and board governance.

Arn has been an active member and participant in FMI and was given an award of excellence by FMI national in 2006. Arn also further continues as a member of the Public Sector Accounting Board (PSAB), of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.