Patience Perseverance Rewards. This is Francesca’s philosophy to build financial wealth, and a rich life. As a financial advisor with Assante Capital Management Ltd. and a mother of two, she understands just how busy life can be. Thinking about – and dealing with- finances can be overwhelming and easy to ignore but Francesca can point you in the right direction. She believes in setting goals in life. One of her goals was to complete a mini triathlon before 40, however she did not know proper swimming techniques. While pregnant with her 2nd, she took swimming lessons so she could properly swim in a mini tri the following year.

         

Assante Capital Management Ltd.  Assante Capital Management Ltd. is a Member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

As a first generation refugee to Canada, Amina’s professional experience has been driven by her passion to ensure equitable opportunities for diverse and immigrant communities; particularly youth. Her commitment to social justice has led her through an exciting career as a Youth Worker, Executive Director of a youth-lead agency, to her current role as Manager, Community Services at CultureLink. She has 15 years of community development experience both in the non-profit and private sector.  

Patricia is a veteran businesswoman and owner of Maestro Quality Executive Coaching. She works with women to develop and implement best practices that serve them in work and life. Patricia champions diverse business owners of all ages.

As an accredited Professional Certified Coach specializing in Emotional Intelligence, Patricia mentors and coaches women entrepreneurs in self-regard, self-actualization, and well-being.

She is the creator of an emotional intelligence coaching program for women returning to work after cancer and produces the YouTube series “The Joyful Entrepreneur” and “The Joy of Working After Sixty – Plus”.

Respected for her disciplined vision and professional composure, Patricia does not hold back on challenging myths that affect business excellence and women’s economic development. Challenging the status quo is a key element of her overall success!

         

Since childhood, Julie Starr has been on the front lines of social issue advocacy whether working on human rights, animal rights or getting environmental bylaws passed. She has spent her life bringing positive change to the world and truly believes the world can be a better place through analyzing, strategizing and then taking inspired action. She completed her advanced coach training at Coach U. Julie is a Life Coach, specializing in working with women who experience their husband leaving. She is the founder of Possibility Life Coaching for Women. Her professional training is in Dance Therapy from York University in Toronto. Julie’s focus now is on supporting women and their families through divorce. She recently completed her first book.

If you sat me down, as a young girl, and described my life as it has been, I’d say you must be kidding. The challenges and rollercoaster moments of my life would just not seem possible…maybe for a Netflix special, but not for my life. Well, the joke is on me…it has been my life and I’d really like to tell that little girl that she doesn’t have to worry, she will make it through. We got this!  

Downsizing Diva is so much more than a moving company! It is Canada’s premier Senior AND Specialized Move Management Company!

Downsizing Diva helps people sort, pack, organize, coordinate move days, set up new homes and get their former homes ready to list, rent or sell. They also help overwhelmed families clear estates.

Since 2001, Karen Shinn and Gail Shields have been helping older adults downsize, organize and move. Karen and Gail each had their own move management company before joining forces in 2009 to create Downsizing Diva – the first Canadian Senior Move Management franchise company.

They’ve learned a lot of lessons over the past 20 years; an important one is… downsize BEFORE you move so you only take items that fit your new lifestyle to your new home.

Today, with 12 Downsizing Diva franchisees in Ontario, they continue their legacy of helping people downsize, organize and move with care, compassion and comedy!

ADD a Diva to your moving team and you can relax, knowing a smooth transition is in the works.

      

The ‘universe conspired ‘ and led me to sell my Leslieville house of 20 years and move to a condo in a different area of the city. Because my house was being sold my small business, located in said house, had to be closed as well. There was a lot of reluctance to do this but ‘ya do what ya gotta do’. After going through many steps to make this move a reality, things worked out just fine in the end.  

Nadene Joy is CEO of Nadene Joy Consulting Inc. and is an accomplished Global Mindset Strategist, International Best Selling Author, and Life/Business and Leadership Coach who focuses on helping business professionals that are stuck. She is a Certified CMHA Psychological Health and Safety Trainer, NLP Practitioner, Leadership Consultant, and author of “Uncover Your Purpose: Heal and Share Your Gifts With the World” and author of “Love is: A Guide to The Power of Love,” which is due to be released Feb 14th, 2021. She worked as a professional Exploration Geologist for several years in corporate before beginning her journey as CEO of her own global consulting practice.

Nadene is passionate about giving back and sits on many impressive boards. She is also a passionate leader, advocate and sounding voice for empowering women, children and other vulnerable members of society.

She is also a proud mother of 4 children and is extremely passionate about being an impactful leader who transforms lives and makes a positive difference in the world through sharing her wisdom and serving others with kindness in all she encounters.

         

Eva is a lover of life, of freedom, of learning and of travel. After teaching law at Seneca for 30 years, a career she thoroughly enjoyed, she retired in 2010. Eva has had many adventures in her life, including living on a farm in New Brunswick, travelling with her husband to all the continents and over 50 countries, hiking the Himalayas, walking across England, and visiting the Antarctic and Galapagos Islands. She has also attended approximately 100 silent meditation retreats. At present, she plays bridge tournaments, takes Iyengar yoga classes, studies Spanish, teaches mindfulness, takes daily walks with her husband, and reads a lot about health and politics related to COVID.

James is a Physiotherapist based in Toronto providing Physical Therapy services to individuals in homes in the GTA and in his clinic at Avenue and Bloor. James is an engaging, fun, empathetic and, most importantly, effective physiotherapist who believes that improving how you look and feel, while working toward peak physical function is an excellent avenue for general personal development that can spill over into other areas of living.

James works with a wide variety of populations to improve physical performance for use on the field and in day-to-day life. He develops rehabilitation protocols firmly rooted in exercise science but applied with the art required of a health professional.

     

Cecilia Amoakohene is a lupus survivor and health advocate who is interested in how the social determinants of health affect the ways that people access healthcare. As a lupus survivor she has navigated the health care system over the last 17 years and used her experiences to encourage others and help inform those who provide care. Having worked in the field of health promotion, specifically in the realm of post-secondary student mental health, Cecilia has helped to build, maintain, and expand mental health programming and services for students across the province of Ontario. When she’s not working, Cecilia loves to listen to music, going on long walks to explore the city of Toronto and snuggling up with a good book when there’s a storm out.

I’ll share the story of how I’ve been able to manage the good and not so good days that come with living with chronic pain and how my choice to keep living my life instead of letting pain stop me has pushed me to keep pursuing my dreams.  

Carlyle Jansen discovered orgasms in her late 20s after the ending of a relationship due to her sexual challenges. Since discovering her sexuality and learning about sex in general, she started Good For Her, Toronto’s première online and bricks-and-mortar sexuality store and workshop centre. She is also a sex therapist, working with individuals, couples, and groups since 1997 on enhancing their sexual lives. Carlyle is the author of two books including Sex Yourself. You can find quality, body-safe sex toys, luxurious lubes, kegel exercisers, online workshops, and educational books and videos at her retail site www.goodforher.com. You can read her blog articles and see informative videos as well as her TEDx talk at carlylejansen.com.

         

Maria Diaz is a mother and an entrepreneur who has been a successful mortgage broker for the past 17 years. She is driven to positively impact others with a commitment to excellence, producing the best results for her clients and cultivating strong relationships. She discovered her interest in self development as a way to grow in her business and when she faced death through her journey with breast cancer in 2014, she discovered that she was living her life as an impostor, a fraud. In 2015 she chose to exit her 20 year relationship and embarked on a journey of self discovery & learned how to live her authentic life. She was hungry for change; determined to reclaim her personal power & become a leader in her own life. She took programs, hired coaches & did the work to transform herself.

Rani Glick is a Health and Wellness Advisor, Certified Nutrition Practitioner (CNP), Coach and a former Arts Management Executive. She offers a range of experience in nutrition, stress management and holistic health practices. Her diverse skills in strategic planning, conference and professional development workshops have included numerous national and provincial conferences and association events. She has coordinated 50 professional development workshops and liaised with over 500 members in professional associations and organizations. Rani loves working with individuals and teams.

         

In 2016 I was a full-blown diabetic, could not tie my shoes nor walk more than 20 mins and had 20% chance of dying. Fast forward to June 2018, I managed to lose 141 lbs, kicked diabetes to the curb, became a certified group fitness instructor, created a fitness program called abotti and reduced my chances of dying to less than 5%. I will share with you how I did that!

Antonietta is a self-made woman entrepreneur who took her own life experiences and health struggles and turned it into a success business helping others reach their own wellness goals through a low impact, FUN group fitness aerobics class called abotti   

Christine is a lawyer and was formerly in-house counsel with Cineplex Entertainment and PepsiCo Canada. Christine founded LawyersInHouse.com in 2019 to create a more flexible working environment in the legal industry. LawyersInHouse.com is focused on increasing diversity and inclusion within law. It is 100% female owned, 90% of its lawyers are women, 25% are BIPOC, and 25% were born outside of Canada. All of their lawyers are former in-house counsel, so they are focused on business practical legal advice. 

      

This talk will focus on brain aging in women. I will discuss how ovarian hormones contribute to maintaining brain function, changes that occur as we age, and what we can do to maintain healthy brain aging. The focus will be on the importance of sleep, but other lifestyle factors will also be discussed.

Dr. Nicole Gervais is a postdoctoral fellow in the Psychology department at the University of Toronto. She has published 20 articles and book chapters on issues ranging from anxiety to sleep, memory, and dementia. She is the recipient of the Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship and the inaugural Lyn Clemens New Investigator award from the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology. She was recently named as an Emerging Scholar from the Brain Canada Foundation for her work on sleep, memory, and women’s brain health. When Dr. Gervais is not working, which her husband says never happens, she enjoys gardening, baking, and running. Pre-Covid, she also enjoyed travelling.

      

Dr. Lisa Weeks is a Naturopathic Doctor practicing in Toronto Canada. Over her 13+ years of practice, she has worked with many women who struggle with burnout and fatigue, anxiety, IBS, hives, insomnia, overwhelm, fertility challenges and hormonal imbalances. She also treats infants and kids with digestive concerns, frequent illnesses and skin rashes.

Dr. Lisa has a background in science and research. In university, she studied cystic fibrosis at Sick Kids Hospital, cancer at the BC Cancer Agency, and atherosclerosis at Notre Dame University. These experiences gave her the foundation to unite scientific research with naturopathic therapies and philosophies.

Dr. Lisa has also completed additional training and certification in the prescribing of Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy and the use of Dessicated Thyroid.

She is the co-host of the Perimenopausal Mamas podcast and is a facilitator for The Wild Collective Toronto, a revolutionary and transformative community health initiative that empowers women to take back control of their life, their health and reclaim their wild.

         

Elizabeth Verwey will emcee the Silver Linings Summit this year. She is the founder of Spoken Lives: Stories Women Share and took us online on March 30, 2020. With her small team, she has hosted monthly events all year and is thrilled to wrap up this wild year with our lineup of knowledgeable experts and wonderful speakers!

Elizabeth has mentored over 1,200 business owners to start or grow their businesses over 20 years. She owns and operates Office Mentors in Toronto. Elizabeth also supports women business owners through her work with Indigenous women at the PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise.

         