Carmel Watson, MMFT, RMFT

Workplace Wellbeing Strategist

Manitoba Blue Cross

8:30am - Preventing Burnout    

What is burnout, what is stress, and how to deal with it, and strategies to help us complete the stress cycle will be discussed.

Carmel has acquired over 20 years of clinical experience as a therapist, while working in the non-profit, health and government sectors. She is experienced in providing individual, group and family therapy as well as crisis intervention.

Carmel is also a well-established presenter of mental health and well-being topics and is skilled at consulting with senior leaders in the development of solutions to support the wellness goals of many organizations. She currently works at Manitoba Blue Cross as a Workplace Wellbeing Strategist.

She completed her Master of Marriage and Family Therapy degree at the University of Winnipeg and is a member of both the American and the Canadian Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

Parama Ray

AVP AI & Data Analytics

Canada Life 

9:45am - AI-powered Financial Solutions

Though there are many factors impacting us… Generative AI has the potential to be the most disruptive. While AI can mimic human intelligence, it can also be creative. This phenomenal combination has a broad range of potential applications across the Life, Health, Investment and Retirement value chain. We are just at the beginning of a very long trajectory

Parama is an experienced leader who has held key leadership roles in both business and tech in leading innovation initiatives for product development, digital experiences, and modernizing operations. She is currently focused on using data and advanced analytics capabilities with the key goals of unlocking insights so that employees do the highest value work and customers have the best experience. 

Parama has advanced degrees in computer science, data science and management.

For the foreseeable future, AI solutions will work alongside humans with highly augmented capabilities. To create sustained value, we need an ecosystem and partnership from all stakeholders – internal and external. This is what excites Parama working in this field, to create together positive outcomes in our personal lives, businesses, and society.