Peoplefirst knows
the answer is in your people
The best solution is a solution that puts your people
first.
Peoplefirst knows the answer is in your people
The best solution is a solution that puts your people first.
Who We Are
Peoplefirst is a talent development and organizational design company that solves problems related to performance and efficiency.
We help you optimize structures, processes, and employee engagement through unique methodologies.
Who We Are
Peoplefirst is a talent development and organizational design company that solves problems related to performance and efficiency.
We help you optimize structures, processes, and employee engagement through unique methodologies.
Why People First
Our versatile team of energetic, engaging, certified leaders know exactly how to tap the transformational power of Insights Discovery™, ranked one of the most innovative learning and development providers in the USA, trusted by many Fortune 500 companies.
We can facilitate your next workshop, plan an exciting out-of-office experience, provide team and whole-organization assessments, and customize programs to solve a vast range of business problems, including leading hybrid teams, managing change, creating a diverse and inclusive culture, and building successful leadership, sales, and innovation teams.
Why People First
Our versatile team of energetic, engaging, certified leaders know exactly how to tap the transformational power of Insights Discovery™, ranked one of the most innovative learning and development providers in the USA, trusted by many Fortune 500 companies.
We can facilitate your next workshop, plan an exciting out-of-office experience, provide team and whole-organization assessments, and customize programs to solve a vast range of business problems, including leading hybrid teams, managing change, creating a diverse and inclusive culture, and building successful leadership, sales, and innovation teams.
We Believe In The Power Of People
People are at the heart of everything we do. We’ve built a great team of knowledgeable, spirited, insightful industry leaders who are eager to help you build stronger relationships with your people.
Our ‘bench’ has advanced skills relating to professional growth, team building, workstyle and leaders style assessment, hybrid and remote workplace effectiveness, organizational design, cultural shifts within the workplace, and leadership development. We strive to be a powerful and innovative force for positive change, bringing our expertise to a wide range of companies across industries, to help our clients navigate complex challenges and successfully implement transformation.
What others are saying
"The facilitation of sessions for the Hughes&Co team lended to a strengthening of our company culture and resulted in strong adoption of our company’s values resulting in a strengthened team and a more collaborative environment. This directly impacted the quality of work leaving our agency."
- Allie Hughes, CEO Hughes&Co
"The session served as a unifying force for my team and created a new energy around how we communicate and how we show up. Most importantly it showed the strength of our team dynamics!"
- Paula Knight, CEO Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia
Earl Hoeg
Earl is a bilingual (English/French) workplace effectiveness coach who is committed to helping create inspiring, engaging, and safe workplaces. Through his extensive experience, network, and relationship-building skills, he knows how to connect people, places, and processes required to meet the challenges of work today.
After 25+ years of leading teams from five to 150+ people, Earl is on a mission to support other leaders in building effective teams. Throughout a 33-year career with the Canadian Federal Government, Earl gained significant experience in executive leadership, change management, workplace strategy, facilitation, and employee development.
Earl has an MBA from Queen’s University, is a trained executive coach, Insights Discovery Licensed Practitioner, Centre for Creative Leadership-certified Assessor, workshop leader, and public speaker.
Earl is located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Peter Bedard
An Insights Discovery Distributor, Peter founded People First as an Organizational Development and Design Consulting company in 1998.
Peter’s philosophy of facilitation is to make the attendees the stars of the show; his job is to make that easy for them. Peter has a gift in reading the room well and can adapt to different leaders and cultures. Humour and lightness are hallmarks of Peter’s sessions to enable vulnerability and openness.
His process begins with a pre-meeting with the client: a critical success component in your work with Peter and his team. Peter’s organizational development experience helps connect the learning to context to make it real. His meticulous preparation ensures that he can focus on the dynamics in the room and adjust to shifts in energy. His informal approach allows the team to self-manage.
Peter’s refined and effective style are the result of experience and exposure to a wide breadth of organizations. He has been an organizational development consultant to some of Canada’s most notable entrepreneurs and leaders. His intuition on culture is fine tuned, he can tell a lot about an organization’s culture just by looking at its org chart.
An organization would benefit from Peter’s ability to work as comfortably with senior executives as he does with junior managers. He is a keen student of organizational behaviour and has been leading workshops and seminars on related topics for more than 20 years.
Peter has a background in Psychology and Criminology, and a Master’s in Business Administration and Doctoral studies focusing in Organizational Culture.
Peter is located in Niagara, Ontario, Canada.
Email PeterConnect with Peter on LinkedIn
D. Surman
Dianne is the Managing Director of a learning consultancy, Development Toolbox Inc. D worked for over 34 years at Unilever within the Consumer-Packaged Good industry focusing the last 25+ years in learning and leadership development.
D is a highly experienced learning and development professional with extensive experience in needs assessment, learning design, content development and curation, creation of detailed learning journeys, learning evaluation and facilitation. She facilitates change to drive results to realize organizational and individual peak performance.
D is a passionate coach and facilitator conducting bespoke workshops around High Impact Teams, High Potential/Transition Programmes, Line Manager Capability, Finding Your Purpose, Equity/Diversity and Inclusion, Mindfulness and Wellbeing. She is accredited to facilitate Insights Discovery, Everything DiSC®, and The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team®.
Christopher Bozik
Chris uses humour, an open mind, and provocative questions to help leaders benefit from the lessons and experience of his three-decade career in the Canadian Public Service. A manager, executive, and facilitator for more than 20 years, Chris has led multi-disciplinary teams, directed national programs, and helped new leaders define their own paths to success.
Chris’ philosophy of leadership is based on twin pillars: values and ethics, and enabling success. In other words, a leader must do the right thing, especially when it is hard; and a leader must create the conditions where their followers can thrive.
He believes that good leaders support their teams. And that great leaders listen, coach, encourage, and challenge people so that the entire team is motivated and committed to success. His workshops focus on individual communications needs and styles, understanding our fellow human beings better, and how we can step into a leadership role by building relationships.
Chris has BA in English Literature from the University of Toronto and a Maitrise en administration publique from the École nationale d’administration publique. He is an Insights Discovery Licensed Practitioner and a certified DISC consultant.
Chris is fluent in English and French (y habla un poco de español) Chris is located in the Ottawa-Gatineau area in Quebec, Canada.
Monique Kavelaars
Monique has over 15 years of experience working closely with leaders and teams creating cultural shifts to achieve better performance. As a skilled facilitator, she focuses her talents on leadership and team cohesiveness for executive and corporate teams.
She brings her talents as a motivating team member to encourage and inspire teams to be more supportive and collaborative to achieve success together while staying focused on overall shared results.
Monique creates a solution-focused approach to quickly identify challenges, find solutions, and encourage clearer decision making and team synergy. Her clients describe her as engaging, real, direct, and able to provide invaluable insight into people, situations and to empower results.
Monique has worked alongside various organizations and industries such as Canadian Olympic Committee, Oxford Properties and Scotia Wealth Management.
Monique has also worked with the Canadian Olympic Team offering her expertise and skills as the ‘Athlete Mentor’ at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Monique is located in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada.
Lani is a highly regarded facilitator specializing in strategic planning, change management, and team and employee development. She has over 20 years of experience serving as a director and senior advisor to the CAO and City Council in Richmond, British Columbia. She has successfully led high-profile teams and strategic initiatives, large-scale organizational transformation programs, and a national award-winning leadership program that she developed and currently co-delivers with Royal Roads University.
Lani works with a wide range of clients, integrating Insights Discovery and a "Systems Thinking" approach to help drive their success. She seeks to inspire the best results possible by establishing clarity around purpose and a compelling vision, creating aligned and targeted plans to achieve that vision, and unleashing the potential of their human resources through leadership development and the development of inspired employees and teams.
In addition to her work with Peoplefirst, Lani is the founder and lead facilitator for Lead with Intention Consulting. She holds a master’s degree (MPE) in Motor Learning and Performance from the University of British Columbia, has a Mastery Level Certificate from the Centre for Strategic Management, and is a Licensed Practitioner for Insights Discovery.
Lani is located in the Vancouver, British Columbia region
Lani Schultz
Earl Hoeg
Earl is the founder of Gray Matters Connections Inc (doing business as People First Connections and Peoplefirst). He is a bilingual (English/French) workplace effectiveness coach who is committed to helping create inspiring, engaging, and safe workplaces. Through his extensive experience, network, and relationship-building skills, he knows how to connect people, places, and processes required to meet the challenges of work today.
After 25+ years of leading teams from five to 150+ people, Earl is on a mission to support other leaders in building effective teams. Throughout a 33-year career with the Canadian Federal Government, Earl gained significant experience in executive leadership, change management, workplace strategy, facilitation, and employee development.
Earl has an MBA from Queen’s University, is a trained executive coach, Insights Discovery Licensed Practitioner, Centre for Creative Leadership-certified Assessor, workshop leader, and professional speaker.
Earl is located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Peter Bedard
Peter Bedard founded People First Inc (Ontario) as an Organizational Development and Design Consulting company in 1998. Peter has been fortunate to work closely with some of Canada’s leading executives and entrepreneurs, helping them build their leadership capacity and teams.
Peter has been a trusted advisor to management teams in several industries, namely real estate, manufacturing, education, healthcare and recreation.
Peter has a background in Psychology and Criminology, a Master’s in Business Administration and Doctoral studies focusing on Organizational Culture. Peter is accredited to facilitate Insights Discovery and The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team.
Peter is located in Niagara, Ontario, Canada.
Dianne Surman
Dianne is the Managing Director of a learning consultancy, Development Toolbox Inc. D worked for over 34 years at Unilever within the Consumer-Packaged Good industry focusing the last 25+ years in learning and leadership development.
D is a highly experienced learning and development professional with extensive experience in needs assessment, learning design, content development and curation, creation of detailed learning journeys, learning evaluation and facilitation. She facilitates change to drive results to realize organizational and individual peak performance.
D is a passionate coach and facilitator conducting bespoke workshops around High Impact Teams, High Potential/Transition Programmes, Line Manager Capability, Finding Your Purpose, Equity/Diversity and Inclusion, Mindfulness and Wellbeing. She is accredited to facilitate Insights Discovery, Everything DiSC®, and The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team®.
D is located in the Greater Toronto Area.
Christopher Bozik
Chris uses humour, an open mind, and provocative questions to help leaders benefit from the lessons and experience of his three-decade career in the Canadian Public Service. A manager, executive, and facilitator for more than 20 years, Chris has led multi-disciplinary teams, directed national programs, and helped new leaders define their own paths to success.
Chris’ philosophy of leadership is based on twin pillars: values and ethics, and enabling success. In other words, a leader must do the right thing, especially when it is hard; and a leader must create the conditions where their followers can thrive.
He believes that good leaders support their teams. And that great leaders listen, coach, encourage, and challenge people so that the entire team is motivated and committed to success. His workshops focus on individual communications needs and styles, understanding our fellow human beings better, and how we can step into a leadership role by building relationships.
Chris has BA in English Literature from the University of Toronto and a Maitrise en administration publique from the École nationale d’administration publique. He is an Insights Discovery Licensed Practitioner and a certified DISC consultant.
Chris is fluent in English and French (y habla un poco de español) Chris is located in the Ottawa-Gatineau area in Quebec, Canada.
Monique Kavelaars
Monique has over 15 years of experience working closely with leaders and teams creating cultural shifts to achieve better performance. As a skilled facilitator, she focuses her talents on leadership and team cohesiveness for executive and corporate teams.
She brings her talents as a motivating team member to encourage and inspire teams to be more supportive and collaborative to achieve success together while staying focused on overall shared results.
Monique creates a solution-focused approach to quickly identify challenges, find solutions, and encourage clearer decision making and team synergy. Her clients describe her as engaging, real, direct, and able to provide invaluable insight into people, situations and to empower results.
Monique has worked alongside various organizations and industries such as Canadian Olympic Committee, Oxford Properties and Scotia Wealth Management.
Monique has also worked with the Canadian Olympic Team offering her expertise and skills as the ‘Athlete Mentor’ at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Monique is located in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada.
Lani Schultz
Lani Schultz
Lani is a highly regarded facilitator specializing in team and employee development, strategic planning, and change management. With over 20 years of experience at the
senior levels in municipal government, Lani has led high-profile initiatives and delivered large organizational transformation programs. She has developed and co-delivers a national award-winning high-potential leadership program with Royal Roads University.
Lani works with a wide range of clients including government, business, and not-for-profit organizations. She integrates Insights Discovery and a Systems Thinking; approach to enhance their business outcomes and transform how their people work together at the individual, team, and organizational levels. She focuses on helping clients find inspiration from a common purpose and compelling vision, creating aligned plans to achieve that vision, and developing effective, collaborative leaders and employees to successfully execute those plans. Her style has been described as “inspiring”, “engaging” and “highly effective”.
In addition to her work with Peoplefirst, Lani is the founder and lead facilitator for Lead with Intention Consulting. She holds a Master’s Degree from the University of British Columbia, a Mastery Level Certificate from the Centre for Strategic Management, and is a Licensed Practitioner for Insights Discovery.
Lani is located in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Kent Estabrooks, CPA, ICD.D
Integral Master CoachTM Professional Certified Coach (ICF)
Kent is a seasoned executive and coach with over 25 years of leadership experience in both the private and public sectors. He coaches individual contributors, managers and senior leaders, including C-Suite, to overcome challenges, increase their impact and design a plan to pursue their passions. Kent has coached hundreds of clients in over 3 continents, and has built a solid reputation specializing in: leading transformations, interpersonal challenges, neurodiversity, equity and inclusion, genuine leadership and executive presence, career development and high potential leadership.
He sees his role in supporting people's growth as an immense privilege, striving to create a trusting partnership, predicated on the notion that the client is the expert in themselves and what works best for them. His contribution is his leadership experience and in using proven techniques that may enable clients to:
- see things about themselves that they may not have fully appreciated previously;
- develop a plan to close gaps that are important to clients; and,
- create the structure and accountability necessary that builds on the client’s strengths in generating new and productive ways to achieve their goals.
Kent uses a method that looks at the whole person, meeting clients exactly where they are now and building a tailored and sustainable approach in collaboration with them to bring them to where they want to be in the future.
Peoplefirst improves workplace communication and collaboration by building awareness and respect among individuals, teams, leaders and organizations, powered by Insights Discovery®
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Peoplefirst improves workplace communication and collaboration by building awareness and respect among individuals, teams, leaders and organizations, powered by Insights Discovery®