Blueridge Consultants

Denise is a proven human resources executive professional with over 32 years experience supporting business at a local, national and global level in Fortune 500 companies.   She has had multiple leadership roles supporting senior management,  C-Suite executives as well as Board of Directors and multiple projects.

Denise has led large HR department with compassion and energy, managed multiple projects, outsourced activities to third parties and global business centers, implemented HR systems projects, supported acquisitions and divestments, company downsizings, office openings and closures, pension plan redesigns, business process redesign, led cultural engagement surveys and actions for change, to name a few of her experiences.

Her extensive Canadian and global leadership roles have provided Denise keen insights on how to lead and develop cross functional teams to common objectives by engaging and motivating employees across different geographic business units.  Experience includes change efforts for policy renewal and development, performance management systems, talent management models, HRIT implementations, coaching and consulting, designing compensation programs, including incentive compensation and migration/outsourcing of work activities.

Denise has an undergraduate in Psychology and Mass Communications (organizational dynamics) from York University and a Master's in Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto, participated in several executive leadership training programs during her career and achieved her PMP, PROSCI Change  Practitioner and CHRP designations.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-hughes-cphr-8a4786a9/

Dave’s career has spanned 35 years working in multiple areas of the business at one of Canada’s largest energy companies, including manufacturing, supply and logistics, project management, strategic planning, and financial and business analysis, with most of the roles being in a leadership capacity.   

 Prior to January 2024 Dave was the Vice President of Investor Relations at a large market capital Canadian energy company for seven years. During his tenure as Vice President, he led a team of IR professionals in transforming the company’s investor relations program to become one of the most respected as viewed by various stakeholders, including the key capital market partners such as investors and analysts. In this role he played a key consultive role to senior management, providing market feedback and offering feedback on market perspective as part of the decision-making process.     Dave’s experiences have also included expatriate assignments, providing him the opportunity to lead cross functional teams spanning multiple jurisdictions and countries. 

 In addition to his work experience, Dave is also active in the not-for-profit sector, spending several years as a board member and board chair of a local not-for-profit, and is currently on the board of the Canadian Investor Relations Institute (Alberta).  

Dave has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary and a Master of Business Administration from Queens University.  Over his career he has participated in several executive leadership training programs including the Enterprise Leadership Program (University of North Carolina, Kenan Flagler Business School), the Advanced Leadership Program (Arizona State University, Thunderbird), and the Strategic Leadership Program (University of Michigan, Ross School of Business). 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-hughes-25033538/

Diane has built her broad career over 30 years in both consultant and manager roles, with increasing responsibility in Fortune 500 companies.  While her career has included a human resources portfolio most recently, including process leadership expertise in recruitment processes, practice improvement and recruitment outsourcing at a national level, she has also held successively responsible roles where she has helped businesses improve processes leading to improved profitability as well as roles in safety, security, health and environment.  

Her passion for recruiting and acquiring top talent for employers, helping them execute their strategies around human capital objectives and corporate competency, even in hard to fill roles/destinations is Diane’s hallmark. Her in-depth knowledge of recruiting has allowed her to lead teams to effectively acquire different talent for company hiring needs be it experienced career, or campus hire employees and students. Diane also has great experience in recruitment process improvement and migration to global business centre locations.   

Diane’s experience and strong acumen in process improvement and key interface identification has helped efficiently and effectively create process standardization, reduce inefficiencies and provide suggested strategies, processes, enhanced interfaces and proforma to improve long term company competitiveness in these areas.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-podwysocki-25407b28/

Barb has had a career which spans 37 years culminating in healthcare leadership. Barb's experience has developed her forte in steering diverse multidisciplinary teams toward effective, patient-centered care with a laser focus on goal-directed outcomes.

As a quality improvement consultant, Barb has spearheaded large-scale system changes, implementing central referral models that significantly enhanced access to care. In the dynamic realm of healthcare technology, Barb has played a pivotal role in guiding a major hospital through the successful implementation of a provincial electronic healthcare system. At the forefront of this change, she led the inpatient committee, ensuring seamless frontline engagement and process adaptation.

Beyond the boardroom, Barb's leadership extends to program planning, workforce optimization, pandemic workforce planning, and the establishment of new clinics. With a Master's in Nursing from the University of Calgary, she is not only a seasoned practitioner but also holds a Green Belt designation in change management and is a certified PROSCI Change Practitioner.

Barb is a collaborative, compassionate, and intuitive nurse leader whose values permeate every professional relationship, driven by an unwavering commitment to excellence in her consulting.  An advocate for teaching, mentoring, and quality improvement, Barb excels in connecting teams to achieve collective goals. Her commitment to lifelong learning is evident, as is her passion for healing and motivating others to reach their potential.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barb-waldorf-jones-3662b546/

Catherine is a community-minded leader and consultant whose 30-year career has focused on building capacity in the non-profit sector through program leadership, fund development, donor relations, stakeholder research and strategic communications planning. 

She has helped organizations in Canada and the U.S. generate support to achieve a variety of charitable mandates that strengthen communities. Catherine is highly consultative and grounds her strategic work in stakeholder research to guide sound decision making.

Catherine holds a Master’s of Social Work in International & Community Development from the University of Calgary, a certificate in Comprehensive Fund Development from the Glasscock School of Philanthropy at Rice University, and an undergraduate degree in Public Relations from Mount Saint Vincent University. 

Catherine is passionate about forging value-added relationships with clients as a trusted advisor and skilled leader. Her approach is strengths-based, client-centered and grounded in social justice principles.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineyates

Laura is a strategic Human Resources advisor and consulting actuary. She has 35 years of experience working closely with senior HR and Finance executives of large multinational clients in a broad cross-section of industries, including energy, transportation, agriculture, petrochemicals, and engineering. 

Laura works with clients to maximize value and mitigate risk through effective human capital management. This is achieved by optimizing a variety of aspects of the talent and HR team experience. Laura helps to develop a clear total rewards strategy, based on the client’s business strategy, that maximizes the return on the total rewards spend. She has assisted clients to refine their total rewards strategy by assessing and modernizing pension and benefits plans, and health and well-being approaches. 

Laura’s experience includes diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and long-term workforce planning. Over her career, she has been involved with many mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. These are transformative periods for a company, and Laura’s experience confirms effective integration of employees can a have significant impact on the value of the transaction.

In addition to her client-facing work, Laura also held local and national leadership roles. She understands the importance of developing business-focused strategies and communicating them effectively to engage a national workforce.

Laura has a B.A. (Honours) in Mathematics from the University of Texas. She is a Fellow of both the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurallynch/

 Dave has led a large Supply Chain organization for one of Canada's largest energy companies with a focus on delivering value in Fortune 500 companies.  His 38 years gained him hands on experience in many of the various supply chain functions advancing to the executive level.   

Dave's experience includes optimizing the entire source to pay value chain, deliverables in the strategic sourcing function, efficient tactical buying, warehouse operations, several re-organizations, outsourcing roles to global high value locations, implementing a Indigenous Procurement Program, delivered superior business controls results and developed talent to sustain an on-going value added organization. 

His Canadian and global assignments have provided Dave with how to lead cross functional groups to implement supply chain best practices into a large organization across many geographic business units. His expert experience has also developed the importance of strong relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. 

Dave has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University as well as several executive leadership training programs throughout his career. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-kuindersma-301b71b/

Rick is a civil engineer with over 30 years of heavy industrial operations, maintenance, project and construction management experience. 

Rick’s expertise in procurement has built exceptional skills in contract development and facility engineering, allowing him to support operations, facility modifications, turnarounds and sustaining capital projects.  

Rick’s entrepreneurial nature saw him run his own consulting firm that specialized in the development of ‘strategic alliance’, performance-based relationships for major owner companies, and later led to experience in managing a technical services team. Rick’s roles in Canada and for U.S. companies have allowed him to build further capacity in estimating, planning, project controls, quality management, materials management, & performance measurement functions.

Rick’s leadership skills have shone during his career through successively senior roles in maintenance, and small capital projects. His leadership included being the project manager for a Construction Integrated Systems (CIS) initiative, which included the integration of four cornerstone systems for a large Canadian industrial company. 

Rick has overseen the development of a Project Management Office (PMO), where he was responsible for the integration of processes, procedures and tools, within a project execution management program, tailored to fit various project types and complexity.  

Most recently Rick developed and led a major projects group, introducing an Enterprise Project Platform (EPP), & working with Indigenous business owners to develop project management and operational excellence programs & further build internal capacity.

Rick holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Calgary. He is also a member of the Construction Industry Institute (CII), the Construction Owners Association of Alberta (COAA), Canadian Heavy Oil Association (CHOA) and American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE). 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-campbell-0446ba231/