- Main Stage
Growing Your Career and Business with AI: Surviving and Thriving in an AI Era
About This Session
Abstract
AI is creating winners and losers in careers and businesses. The shift is already underway.
This panel is about staying on the right side of it.
Rob Cooper, Victoria entrepreneur and AI enthusiast, moderates a conversation with leaders who are putting AI to work right now and empowering others to grow with AI. They share what is helping them get ahead instead of getting left behind.
We’ll cover the trends worth paying attention to and, more usefully, what to do about them. Which skills are gaining value and which are losing it. Where AI genuinely creates leverage in a business. What employers are looking for now that they weren’t two years ago. And how to tell a real shift from noise.
You will leave with things you can act on this week, not a list of tools to go read about. Bring your questions.
Speakers
Robert Cooper
PlusROI Online Marketing
Robert Cooper is president and founder of PlusROI Online Marketing Inc and What Works Marketing Inc. He started in tech and software marketing in 2001 and has recently been guiding his companies as they transform into whatever the heck marketing companies are going to look like in the AI era. PlusROI is a Google Premier...
Peter Scott
Centre for AI in Canadian Learning
Peter Scott is an educator and founder of the Centre for AI in Canadian Learning. He works on the skills question: what people actually need to learn, and how fast.
Christine Tatham
Chief People Officer, Redbrick
Christine Tatham is Chief People Officer at Redbrick. She sees this from the hiring side, where the definition of a strong candidate is quietly being rewritten.
Eric McLachlan
Revela
Eric McLachlan is a software engineer focused on dealing with the scale of information we have at our disposal. He’s gone through significant career change since starting to write code in 1995 and has profound insights on what it might mean to be a developer in the coming years.
Jennifer Hufnagel
AI Educator and Trainer
Jennifer Hufnagel is one of Canada’s leading AI Educators, blending over 25 years of experience in learning and development, instructional design, operations, and corporate training. At Hufnagel Consulting, she helps organizations build AI fluency, readiness, and adoption through practical education, strategy, facilitation, and consulting. Her work focuses on helping people and organizations confidently integrate AI...
Track
- Main Stage
Date
November 5, 2026
Time
3:20 pm
–
4:00 pm
Room
Main Theatre