12 Workplace Wellbeing Leaders in Canada to Know
- Jonno White
- Aug 4
- 6 min read
Updated August 2026.
Workplace wellbeing becomes visible in ordinary decisions. It is shaped by workload, psychological safety, support after injury, the quality of leadership conversations and whether systems make healthy work easier or harder.
These 12 people work across research, public institutions, health systems and specialist practice in Canada. Their roles are different, but each brings practical insight into how organisations can reduce harm and create healthier conditions for people to do good work.
This is a recognition list, not a ranking. It offers leaders a useful starting point for learning from people working on burnout, occupational health, psychological safety, recovery and workplace culture.
1. Jennifer Moss
Jennifer Moss translates burnout and workplace wellbeing research into practical guidance for organisational leaders. At Global Wellbeing Group, she leads research focused on turning wellbeing science into scalable solutions that organisations can use to understand culture and employee experience.
Her books include Why Are We Here? and The Burnout Epidemic. That combination of research, writing and applied work makes her a valuable voice for leaders who want to treat burnout as a feature of work design and culture, not simply an individual resilience problem.
2. Dr Bill Howatt
Dr Bill Howatt works at the intersection of behavioural science, psychological health and workplace practice. His firm is based in Halifax and supports organisations across Canada with psychological health and safety, employee experience and leadership development.
His current biography also records his service on the CSA Group's occupational health and safety steering committee and his chairing of the CSA standard on managing substance-related impairment in the workplace. That systems perspective matters because healthier work requires more than good intentions. It needs clear standards, practical tools and leaders who can apply them consistently.
3. Paula Allen
Paula Allen leads research and client insights at TELUS Health. Her remit includes primary research, exploratory data science, research collaborations and meta-analyses, all used to understand emerging needs and help organisations make better decisions.
Her work spans workplace mental health, disability management, learning and health-related risk. She brings an important bridge between large-scale evidence and the choices employers make about benefits, support and workplace design.
4. Henrietta Van Hulle
Henrietta Van Hulle became Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Public Services Health and Safety Association in July 2026. She has been with the organisation since 2005 and previously served as Vice President of Health, Safety and Wellbeing.
Her work has included violence and aggression prevention resources, pandemic response and the organisation's digital transformation. That breadth is useful for public-sector leaders because it connects worker wellbeing with operational systems, service delivery and the practical realities of change.
5. Patricia Clausen
Patricia Clausen provides strategic leadership for PSHSA's Health, Safety and Wellbeing division. Her work supports public-sector workplaces across Ontario with practical services and approaches designed to improve worker health, safety and wellbeing.
She brings more than 25 years of experience across public and private sectors and holds the Canadian Registered Safety Professional designation. Her focus on partnership and scalable practice is especially relevant for leaders who need wellbeing work to operate across many teams, roles and locations.
6. Anne Tennier
Anne Tennier leads the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, Canada's national occupational health and safety resource. The organisation's 2026 to 2027 plan sets out work on mental health, harassment and violence, chemical safety, climate-related risks and musculoskeletal disorder prevention.
Her leadership sits at the national systems level, where evidence must become accessible guidance for employers and workers. That matters for workplace wellbeing because the conditions people experience are shaped by standards, education and prevention resources as well as by individual leaders.
7. Sarah Downey
Sarah Downey has led the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health since 2022. Her healthcare career spans more than 25 years, including senior roles at CAMH, University Health Network, The Ottawa Hospital and Michael Garron Hospital.
Her biography highlights work in workplace safety and wellness alongside major health-system leadership responsibilities. That combination is important because staff wellbeing in complex institutions cannot be separated from strategy, operations, capital planning and the daily pressures of service delivery.
8. Dr Steve Granger
Dr Steve Granger studies occupational health psychology, workplace safety, job design and leadership at Concordia University. His research examines how individual, interpersonal and organisational processes can help or hinder people facing adversity at work.
That focus brings useful depth to workplace wellbeing. It connects personal resources such as resilience with social support, leadership behaviour, job design and human resource practices, showing why no single intervention can carry the whole load.
9. Dr Ashley Spetch
Dr Ashley Spetch is WorkSafeBC's Chief Mental Health Officer. She led the development of its enterprise mental health strategy, which brings prevention, worker and employer engagement, evidence-informed treatment and organisational leadership into one approach.
When she joined WorkSafeBC in 2019, the role was the first of its kind among Canadian workers' compensation boards. Her work is a reminder that psychological injury and recovery need the same organisational attention, evidence and coordination as physical injury.
10. Dr Jennifer Dimoff
Dr Jennifer Dimoff researches leadership, occupational health and safety, and employee training and development at the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management. Her work is deliberately applied, connecting research with problems organisations need to solve.
She co-developed Mental Health Awareness Training, an early scientifically evaluated mental health training program for workplace leaders to demonstrate return on investment. That focus on evaluation helps leaders move beyond activity counts and ask whether a program actually changes knowledge, behaviour or workplace conditions.
11. Dr Nicole Legg
Dr Nicole Legg is a licensed clinical psychologist and co-founder of WellIntel. She brings more than a decade of experience in mental health and resilience training, and leads clinical consulting work designed to make workplace mental health support evidence-based and usable.
Her perspective helps connect clinical knowledge with the organisational realities of psychological safety, training and day-to-day support. That bridge is valuable for employers trying to offer care without reducing workplace wellbeing to a generic program or one-off event.
12. Cindy McDowell
Cindy McDowell is a PhD candidate in experimental psychology and co-founder of WellIntel. Her work centres on research design, data science and knowledge translation, with a focus on measuring wellness outcomes and turning findings into practical recommendations.
That measurement lens complements clinical and leadership perspectives. It encourages organisations to define what they are trying to improve, collect meaningful evidence and adjust their approach when the data does not support the story they hoped to tell.
Conclusion
Across these 12 leaders, a consistent pattern appears. Workplace wellbeing is strongest when organisations treat it as part of work design, leadership, prevention and decision-making, rather than as a collection of optional perks.
The practical question for a leadership team is not whether wellbeing matters. It is where daily work is creating unnecessary strain, what support people can actually access, and which leadership behaviour needs to change first.
When I work with leadership teams, I start by making hidden tension discussable. A team cannot improve the conditions people experience while the real pressure is still being described in polite, vague language.
About the Author
Jonno White helps leaders build organisations people would move cities to work at. He is the author of Step Up or Step Out, a keynote speaker, leadership consultant and Certified Working Genius Facilitator based in Brisbane who works with schools, organisations and leadership teams around the world.
Next Read
For a practical look at creating a culture people want to join and stay in, read How to Build a Company Culture Employees Will Move Cities to Join. If your immediate challenge is helping people speak honestly before pressure becomes harm, continue with 17 Proven Strategies to Get Your Team to Open Up.
If your leadership team wants to turn wellbeing into clearer conversations, better decisions and workable habits, email jonno@consultclarity.org for a written proposal.