Keynote Speakers
Meet our inspiring 2026 keynote presenters.
Erin Thorp, P.Eng.
(she/her)
Team Communications and Corporate Culture Expert
Building Better Teams: Understanding Why Smart Teams Fall Apart
The most important skill on any project isn't in your academic or professional credentials. And chances are, no one ever taught it to you, and yet it's quietly deciding your outcomes. This keynote presentation makes a direct case, that the "human skills” we separately need in our industry are among the hardest to learn, the least taught in formal education, and the most decisive for our careers and our projects. The presentation will explore why you can't give to others what you can't give to yourself, what that looks like on a real team under real pressure, and the practical moves that turn strong technical experts into people others want to work for and with.
About Erin Thorp, P.Eng.
Meet Erin Thorp (she/her), an engineer, speaker, author, and leadership coach who helps leaders handle conflict and difficult conversations with confidence. Twenty years in engineering and construction showed her what happens when emotions get sidelined in high-stakes work, and taught her something more useful still: she didn't need thicker skin, she needed to listen in. Through her company, ELF Solutions Inc., Erin delivers keynotes and workshops on empathy, conflict, and the conversations leaders tend to avoid, and leads the Leadership Incubator, a twelve-month program for mid-career women in construction and engineering. She is the author of Inside Out Empathy, the creator of the Tactical Empathy™ podcast, and the writer behind The E in the Room newsletter. Certified in coaching and holding a Civil Engineering degree, Erin brings technical credibility and human insight to every room she works in.
Jock A. Finlayson
(he/him)
Chief Economist, ICBA
British Columbia’s Economic Prospects in an Unforgiving World
This talk and presentation will focus on recent developments in the B.C. economy, the shifting external backdrop that will help to shape B.C.’s economic performance going forward, and an economic forecast through the end of 2027. He will also pay attention to some of the structural challenges that B.C. faces that will impinge on economic growth in the coming years – a deteriorating government fiscal position, rising protectionism in the U.S. and elsewhere, the need to diversify Canada’s export markets, the sharp decline of the B.C. forest products industry (previously our leading export industry but not today), and the complex tangle of issues surrounding efforts to advance the goal of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
About Jock Finlayson
Until 2023, Jock Finlayson was the Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Business Council of British Columbia, an organization representing 250 large and mid-size companies and affiliated industry associations in the province. In that capacity, he led the Business Council’s work on economic, environmental, regulatory, and human capital issues of interest to the business community.
In 2023, Mr. Finlayson joined the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association – Canada’s largest construction industry association – as Chief Economist. He monitors and analyses economic trends and public policy developments affecting the construction industry in B.C. and Alberta. Concurrently, Mr. Finlayson maintains an affiliation with the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, as a Senior Fellow and co-holder of the Peter M. Brown Chair in Canadian Competitiveness.
Mr. Finlayson has a master’s degree in business from Yale University, undergraduate and M.A. degrees from UBC, and a post-graduate diploma in economics from the University of London. He received an honorary doctorate from Royal Roads University in 2014.
He previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Bank of Canada, Canada’s Digital Supercluster, the Institute for Research on Public Policy, and the Canada West Foundation. From 2007 through 2017, he was a member of the National Statistics Council.
Mr. Finlayson has written widely for academic publications, think tanks, policy journals, and the media. He is a co-author of two books and has published more than 750 op-eds and opinion pieces on a wide range of economic and public policy topics.
Born in Comox, B.C., he returned to the province in 1994 after completing graduate studies and acquiring more than a dozen years of professional experience in Ottawa, Toronto and the United States. He resides in West Vancouver with his wife, Marlene Finlayson.
Modupe Akinola
(she/her)
Professor, Columbia Business School
The Science of Happiness: Managing Happiness for You and Your Team
The most successful leaders don’t wait to stumble on happiness. They actively manage their own happiness and the happiness of those they lead. The ever-expanding science of happiness facilitates this process by identifying misconceptions about what happiness truly is, highlighting features of the mind that influence how we think, and offering research to help us change our bad habits. In this talk, Modupe Akinola draws on the latest research to help you be happier as a leader and help others do the same. Why are we so bad predicting what will make us happy? What factors do—and don’t—make people happy? How can we best manage well-being, life satisfaction while fighting the biases that prevent you from being happy? What skills can you use to lead others in a way that increases their happiness, and yours?
About Modupe Akinola
Modupe Akinola’s award-winning research examines how organizational environments can lead to stress, and how this stress can spill over to affect performance. She studies why some people thrive under stress while others buckle, looking at how we react psychologically and physiologically to stressful situations and how these responses can affect outcomes like negotiations, decision-making, and creativity. She also studies workforce inclusion and belonging, including the biases that affect the recruitment and retention of women and people of color in organizations. Modupe also speaks often on how to address leadership blindspots—the skewed logic or misleading emotions that can hamper a person’s ability to lead effectively.
Modupe’s work bridges the worlds of academia, pop culture, and business management. She’s one of the most highly rated professors at Columbia Business School, where she is the Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business, as well as the Faculty Director of the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics. At Columbia, she teaches the core required Leadership course to first-year MBAs in addition to several other courses, and is a recipient of the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
Modupe is also a prominently featured expert on National Geographic’s series Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, in which the actor takes on six epic challenges to test mind and body to the max, with the help of top scientists. Her work has been published in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Harvard Business Review and been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. Prior to academia, she worked at Bain & Company and Merrill Lynch and continues to advise global leaders on industry-defining challenges in retail, consumer products, high technology, and manufacturing. Modupe holds a B.A. and M.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Harvard University. She also holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Meet the 2026 Keynote Speakers
Erin Thorp, P.Eng.
(she/her)
Team Communications and Corporate Culture Expert
Building Better Teams: Understanding Why Smart Teams Fall Apart
The most important skill on any project isn't in your academic or professional credentials. And chances are, no one ever taught it to you, and yet it's quietly deciding your outcomes. This keynote presentation makes a direct case, that the "human skills” we separately need in our industry are among the hardest to learn, the least taught in formal education, and the most decisive for our careers and our projects. The presentation will explore why you can't give to others what you can't give to yourself, what that looks like on a real team under real pressure, and the practical moves that turn strong technical experts into people others want to work for and with.
About Erin Thorp, P.Eng.
Meet Erin Thorp (she/her), an engineer, speaker, author, and leadership coach who helps leaders handle conflict and difficult conversations with confidence. Twenty years in engineering and construction showed her what happens when emotions get sidelined in high-stakes work, and taught her something more useful still: she didn't need thicker skin, she needed to listen in. Through her company, ELF Solutions Inc., Erin delivers keynotes and workshops on empathy, conflict, and the conversations leaders tend to avoid, and leads the Leadership Incubator, a twelve-month program for mid-career women in construction and engineering. She is the author of Inside Out Empathy, the creator of the Tactical Empathy™ podcast, and the writer behind The E in the Room newsletter. Certified in coaching and holding a Civil Engineering degree, Erin brings technical credibility and human insight to every room she works in.
Jock Finlayson
(he/him)
Chief Economist, ICBA
British Columbia's Economic Prospects in an Unforgiving World
The talk and presentation will focus on recent developments in the B.C. economy, the shifting external backdrop that will help to shape B.C.’s economic performance going forward, and an economic forecast through the end of 2027. I will also pay attention to some of the structural challenges that B.C. faces that will impinge on economic growth in the coming years – a deteriorating government fiscal position, rising protectionism in the U.S. and elsewhere, the need to diversify Canada’s export markets, the sharp decline of the B.C. forest products industry (previously our leading export industry but not today), and the complex tangle of issues surrounding efforts to advance the goal of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
About Jock Finlayson
Until 2023, Jock Finlayson was the Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Business Council of British Columbia, an organization representing 250 large and mid-size companies and affiliated industry associations in the province. In that capacity, he led the Business Council’s work on economic, environmental, regulatory, and human capital issues of interest to the business community.
In 2023, Mr. Finlayson joined the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association – Canada’s largest construction industry association – as Chief Economist. He monitors and analyses economic trends and public policy developments affecting the construction industry in B.C. and Alberta. Concurrently, Mr. Finlayson maintains an affiliation with the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, as a Senior Fellow and co-holder of the Peter M. Brown Chair in Canadian Competitiveness.
Mr. Finlayson has a master’s degree in business from Yale University, undergraduate and M.A. degrees from UBC, and a post-graduate diploma in economics from the University of London. He received an honorary doctorate from Royal Roads University in 2014.
He previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Bank of Canada, Canada’s Digital Supercluster, the Institute for Research on Public Policy, and the Canada West Foundation. From 2007 through 2017, he was a member of the National Statistics Council.
Mr. Finlayson has written widely for academic publications, think tanks, policy journals, and the media. He is a co-author of two books and has published more than 750 op-eds and opinion pieces on a wide range of economic and public policy topics.
Born in Comox, B.C., he returned to the province in 1994 after completing graduate studies and acquiring more than a dozen years of professional experience in Ottawa, Toronto and the United States. He resides in West Vancouver with his wife Marlene Finlayson.
Modupe Akinola
(she/her)
Professor, Columbia Business School
The Science of Happiness: Managing Happiness for You and Your Team
The most successful leaders don’t wait to stumble on happiness. They actively manage their own happiness and the happiness of those they lead. The ever-expanding science of happiness facilitates this process by identifying misconceptions about what happiness truly is, highlighting features of the mind that influence how we think, and offering research to help us change our bad habits. In this talk, Modupe Akinola draws on the latest research to help you be happier as a leader and help others do the same. Why are we so bad predicting what will make us happy? What factors do—and don’t—make people happy? How can we best manage well-being, life satisfaction while fighting the biases that prevent you from being happy? What skills can you use to lead others in a way that increases their happiness, and yours?
About Modupe Akinola
Modupe Akinola’s award-winning research examines how organizational environments can lead to stress, and how this stress can spill over to affect performance. She studies why some people thrive under stress while others buckle, looking at how we react psychologically and physiologically to stressful situations and how these responses can affect outcomes like negotiations, decision-making, and creativity. She also studies workforce inclusion and belonging, including the biases that affect the recruitment and retention of women and people of color in organizations. Modupe also speaks often on how to address leadership blindspots—the skewed logic or misleading emotions that can hamper a person’s ability to lead effectively.
Modupe’s work bridges the worlds of academia, pop culture, and business management. She’s one of the most highly rated professors at Columbia Business School, where she is the Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business, as well as the Faculty Director of the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics. At Columbia, she teaches the core required Leadership course to first-year MBAs in addition to several other courses, and is a recipient of the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
Modupe is also a prominently featured expert on National Geographic’s series Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, in which the actor takes on six epic challenges to test mind and body to the max, with the help of top scientists. Her work has been published in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Harvard Business Review and been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. Prior to academia, she worked at Bain & Company and Merrill Lynch and continues to advise global leaders on industry-defining challenges in retail, consumer products, high technology, and manufacturing. Modupe holds a B.A. and M.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Harvard University. She also holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Engineers and Geoscientists BC respectfully acknowledges that our office is located on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As a provincial regulator, we are grateful to have the opportunity to operate and serve across a diverse province of over 200 Indigenous communities.