At HRFest Canada 2026, a closed-track format for senior people leaders is redefining what a high-value event looks like for HR leaders
The HR Leaders forum at HRFest Canada 2026 is built on a premise that sounds straightforward: put senior people leaders in a room together, keep the format intimate, and let real conversations happen.
Running Nov. 10 and 11 at Rebel in Toronto, HRFest Canada 2026 brings together more than 750 HR professionals and upwards of 120 speakers across five stages. The HR Leaders forum is the stream designed exclusively for the most senior practitioners – chief human resources officers (CHROs), chief people officers (CPOs), HR directors, and those operating at the strategic apex of the people function. The format addresses something the broader conference circuit has long failed to deliver, according to two of its key participants.
Laura Williams, founder and principal at Williams HR Law in the Greater Toronto Area, will serve as emcee and moderator for the HR Leaders forum. A Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) with more than 30 years of experience advising HR executives, Williams emceed the inaugural HR FutureFest in 2025 and says the forum reflects a maturation of the event's ambition.
"The issues of today's workplace are commonly being experienced across the board," says Williams. "The rapid and quite significant changes of the legislative landscape, the capacity of leaders, the mental wellness issues from burnout – these are going to be very candidly discussed in the room, and it's a safe space to share challenges and also to contribute insights."
A curated format built for people leaders
The HR Leaders forum is capped at 300 for intimacy and structured to allow attendees to step in and out without losing the thread of discussion – a practical acknowledgment that executives at the CHRO and CPO level are rarely uninterrupted for an entire day. Sessions are built around themes Williams describes as both current and urgent.
"There has to be an integration of themes," she says. "They have to be well thought out, compelling and current, representing the challenges that HR is facing today. You have to get people engaged by bringing forward the topics and themes that they're grappling with most right now."
Williams says her role as a trained moderator goes beyond keeping sessions on time. She works to connect threads across sessions and create conditions in which participants feel comfortable enough to speak plainly, something she argues is structurally impossible in rooms that mix seniority levels or include vendors.
"My role is to really connect all of the different themes so that things don't feel disjointed and also create an environment where the people in attendance feel that they can share and they’re in the presence of people who have been under lots of different hoods," she says. “They're not only relying on peer contribution but they’re being guided by someone who has experience in facilitating discussions of that nature.”
The HR Leaders forum is one of five dedicated stages at HRFest Canada 2026.
'HR is lonely': the case for peer connection
Helen Ashton, Vice-President of People, Culture and Customer Experience at Grand & Toy in Toronto, will appear as a panellist at the forum on a session titled “The Rewards Audit: What’s Working, What’s Wasting Money, What’s About to Stop Working.” For Ashton, the draw of this particular format has less to do with formal content and more to do with what becomes possible when the room is genuinely composed of peers.
"HR can get really, really lonely, because yes, you do have peers, but you can't always have conversations with those peers because sometimes the conversations are about peers or other people, and then you sometimes can't even talk to your team,” she says. “So you feel very lonely. It feels very heavy. It feels very draining, so it’s nice to be in the room where they’re at the same level and they’re struggling with the same things.”
Senior people leaders routinely carry knowledge they can’t share broadly inside their own organizations – about capability gaps at the leadership level, initiatives that quietly failed, or strategic bets that didn’t land. A peer-only forum, Ashton says, creates the rare conditions where that weight can be put on the table openly.
"It gives you an opportunity to be a little bit more vulnerable and say, ‘Hey, we rolled out this program,’ or ‘We've tried this new thing,’ or ‘This is the stance on AI we took’ – and it backfired," she says. "And then you can have a conversation with the people around you: ‘How would you have done it differently?’"
Questioning the status quo
Ashton is also candid about a tension she sees running through the senior HR profession: the tendency to preserve practices because they have always existed, rather than asking whether they continue to move the business forward.
"Sometimes we go with the momentum and we forget to question does that still make sense? Does that still drive the business forward? Or is it because we've always done it?" she says. "Can we connect the frequency of check-ins to the business outcomes? Could we have those conversations or are we doing it because we’ve always done it that way?"
The Leaders forum sessions tackle these questions head-on. As HRD Canada has also reported, practitioners including London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group CHRO Shawn Gibson, who is bringing a real HR technology transformation story to the HR Leaders forum, are framing discussions at board level – addressing real operating decisions, governance, and the economic pressures shaping people strategy.
What Ashton says she’s most looking forward to at the forum is ultimately simpler than any session agenda. "I’m really looking forward to becoming part of the community and forming some of those relationships," she says. "We all need a sounding board. We all need to talk through things. We’re all in the same boat and dealing with the same things."
Her message to any senior HR leader still on the fence about attending the forum is uncomplicated: "You have so much to gain and absolutely nothing to lose."
The HR Leaders forum is part of HRFest Canada 2026, taking place November 10 and 11, 2026, at Rebel in Toronto. Full program details and registration are available now. The Super Early Rate ends August 16, so register now to save more.
