MEET OUR AMAZING SPEAKERS
Amy Shelling
Amy Shelling is an author whose work currently explores one of the few environments we have the power to intentionally shape: our homes. Through psychology, observation, and everyday life, she examines why our homes matter, not simply as places we live, but as environments that influence how we think, feel, connect, and function.
While much of life is shaped by environments we inherit and expectations we don't choose, our homes remain one of the few places where we have meaningful agency. Rather than striving for a perfect home, Amy explores the lifelong practice of intentionally shaping our environments to reduce unnecessary friction, strengthen connection, and continue supporting the lives we are actually living.
A writer for more than two decades, Amy’s writing has earned national recognition, including a fellowship from Varuna, Australia's National Writers' House, and funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Alongside her writing, Amy's most influential classroom has been motherhood. Raising a family sparked a deep curiosity about the connection between our emotional lives, our daily functioning, and the homes we create. Today, she is writing her first nonfiction book and developing a collection of essays, while completing her professional counselling training. Through her writing, speaking, and future counselling practice, she hopes to inspire greater
awareness of how the environments we build become
the environments that build us.
Jeunesse Pearson
Jeunesse Pearson is a speaker, storyteller, and creator of Curious Human, an exploration of how we come to know what we know—and what becomes possible when we begin to see more clearly.
Drawing on more than 35 years in mental health and human services, including as a Master Therapeutic Counsellor, Jeunesse has become fascinated by the beliefs, assumptions, and stories that quietly shape the way we experience ourselves and the world. Rather than telling people what to think, her work invites them to become more curious about how they think.
She is also the creator and host of Happy on Purpose CA, where she shares conversations with everyday people whose stories remind us that meaning, resilience, and connection are often found in ordinary lives.
After contracting COVID-19, Jeunesse developed Long COVID and was later diagnosed with ME/CFS. The experience challenged many of her assumptions about identity, achievement, and self-worth, becoming the catalyst for the ideas she now explores through her speaking and writing.
She lives in Vernon, British Columbia, where she continues asking thoughtful questions, collecting meaningful stories, and encouraging others to become curious humans.
Lillian Marchand
Lillian Marchand is a 20 year-old professional Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athlete from Vernon, British Columbia, and a proud member of the Okanagan Indian Band and Syilx Nation.
Lillian began training at just five years old. As a juvenile, she became a multiple-time IBJJF World and Pan Champion before leaving home as a teenager to move to San Diego and train full-time with the world-renowned Atos Jiu-Jitsu team.
Her rise continued through the adult ranks, where she captured major titles at the European, Pan American, Brazilian National and World levels. After earning her black belt in 2025, Lillian became the 2025 IBJJF Black Belt No-Gi World Champion and the 2026 IBJJF Black Belt Gi World Champion, establishing herself among the sport’s elite while still only 19.
Her journey has taken her from a small gym in Vernon to the United States, across the world as an international competitor, and now to Europe, where she continues to live and train. Behind every championship is a story of sacrifice, discipline, setbacks, family and the courage to leave what is comfortable in pursuit of something bigger.
Lindsay James
Lindsay James, known online as Shameless Elle, is a content creator with over 2.5 million followers who started making videos out of boredom during the pandemic. As her audience grew, she joked that there had to be a glitch in the algorithm, that people would eventually realize they had accidentally followed her and quietly leave.
Being introduced on stage as the keynote speaker and “social media expert” at the Pomeroy 2026 Summit made it difficult to keep calling her success accidental or continue believing she needed to become something more before she had something worth sharing.
That realization became the foundation of her work: helping individuals and businesses examine what they may have traded in pursuit of ‘something more.
Her TEDx talk, “The Exhausting Full-Time Job of Becoming Acceptable,” explores the hidden work many of us do in pursuit of acceptance, and the stories we carry from the experiences that shaped us.
Rachael Reilly
Twelve-year-old Rachael has never accepted "because that's the way it's always been done" as an answer. Her curiosity has led her to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and look for better ways of doing things.
Diagnosed with celiac disease at just three years old, Rachael has spent nearly a decade navigating everyday situations—from birthday parties to school lunches—where sharing a meal isn't always simple. Along the way, she's learned to speak up—not just for herself, but for others.
Rachael gave her first presentation about celiac disease to her Grade 1 classmates and has continued to educate those around her ever since. After noticing school food and treats often excluded students with celiac disease and other dietary needs, she shared her experience with her school districts’ Accessibility Committee, encouraging more inclusive food choices for everyone.
As a competitive gymnast and volleyball player, Rachael has developed resilience, determination and the confidence to keep asking questions that others might not think to ask. Rachael hopes to be a surgeon one day and maybe even help find a cure for celiac disease. She believes that asking "Why?" is often the first step toward making the world a little more inclusive.
Zeena Zaiyouna
Zeena Zaiyouna is a conductor, oboist, educator, and transdisciplinary artist whose work explores how sound and movement can create embodied experiences to expand our understanding of wellbeing and the human condition. Through performance and educational research, Zeena explores how communication, integration and release happen. Her musical performances span professional, youth, and intergenerational chamber ensembles, while her broader artistic and transdisciplinary educational practice is grounded in learning and play environments that can transmute our consciousness and biology.
Zeena holds a double Master of Lifelong Learning from Aarhus University and the University of Deusto, where she studied transnational educational policy and pedagogy. Her breadth of experience has taken her from designing play-based workshops across four continents with Right To Play International, to exploring mental health through music at Toronto Metropolitan University, during the pandemic. Most recently, she served three seasons as Music Director and Conductor of the Okanagan Symphony Youth Orchestra. Through the intersection of health, music and the arts, Zeena has curated novel learning experiences that embody insights from emerging fields of practice such as Education in Emergencies and social prescribing.
At the heart of her practice is a question that has shaped both her research and her work: How might we move beyond fragmented ways of understanding ourselves and communicating in the world? How does sound shape who we become?
The learning spaces we design have the potential to illuminate us. In November 2026, she will bring this exploration to the TEDx stage, inviting audiences to experience embodied participation and creative practice.
Anna Gorman
Anna Gorman is a graphic recorder, illustrator, and visual storyteller who helps people make sense of complex conversations through live drawing. She transforms discussions into engaging visual stories, allowing people to quite literally see their thinking come to life.
A lifelong visual thinker, Anna was the student doodling in the margins of her notebook—something once viewed as a distraction that ultimately became the foundation of her career. After earning a Bachelor of Applied Design in Interior Design from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, she spent more than a decade discovering that her greatest strength wasn't designing spaces—it was using quick sketches to communicate ideas and create shared understanding.
Today, Anna partners with communities, organizations, governments, and Indigenous groups across British Columbia, capturing conversations in real time. She believes everyone can draw and that drawing is a powerful tool for listening, thinking, connecting, and uncovering ideas together. Sometimes, all it takes is drawing it out.
Born and raised in Grindrod in British Columbia's North Okanagan, Anna is grateful to live and work on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Secwepemc Nation and Syilx (Okanagan) people.
Yolanda Liman
Yolanda Liman is the founder of Drawing it Out, a creative facilitation company on a mission to transform meetings into meaningful experiences where people leave with clarity, inspiration, and a shared sense of purpose. She believes the best ideas don't emerge from more slides or longer discussions—they emerge when people can see their thinking together.
For more than 20 years, Yolanda has partnered with First Nations communities and organizations, governments, educational institutions, and corporations across Canada, helping groups navigate complexity, bridge diverse perspectives, and turn conversation into action. Her signature approach uses visual facilitation to make ideas visible, increasing engagement, strengthening collective understanding, and helping people see the bigger picture.
With a background spanning science, research, and creativity—including degrees in Environmental Studies and Microbiology and Immunology, and experience as a researcher at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine—Yolanda brings a unique perspective to communication and collaboration.
Yolanda lives with gratitude on the unceded and traditional territory of the syilx (Okanagan) and Secwepemc peoples. Learn more at www.drawingitout.com.
Speaker TBD
COMING SOON!