Workshops & Panels for Conferences & Retreats
Andria Gillis
Workshops & Panels for Organisations Ready to Lead Differently
Andria Gillis is the founder of People Lab and one of a small number of practitioners in North America with an Advanced Certification in Team Coaching from the ICF and Senior Practitioner status with the Global Team Coaching Institute. She has spent 20 years leading teams inside organisations before becoming a coach. She brings both the methodology and the lived experience of what it actually feels like to be inside a team that is not working.
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Winter 2027
Systemic Leadership Retreat for Non-Profit Leaders
Join us in person for an immersive Systemic Leadership Retreat.
Supporting your leaders to learn the capacity and capabilities required to lead your organization into the future.
What the future asks of leaders is less about having the answer and more about staying clear, steady, and connected inside conditions that keep shifting underneath them.
This three-day retreat takes the skills leaders already know they need, decision-making, communication, handling conflict, setting direction, and reframes them through a systemic lens. You learn to read the whole system rather than the surface problem, to regulate yourself under pressure, to lead collective decisions, and to work with the patterns and dynamics that shape results. You leave with practices that will change how you lead.
LOCATION: To be Announced September 2026
WAITLIST: Sign up now for more details.
Join the waitlistNew for 2026
Conference and Workshop Sessions
From individual excellence to collective capacity
For leadership conferences, association events, and organisational offsites. The session makes the case that the ceiling most teams hit is not about individual capability, it is about how they work together as a system. Practical, research-backed, and immediately applicable.
How Systemic Team Coaching can Support your Organization
For coaching associations, HR conferences, and learning and development events. Demystifies systemic team coaching for practitioners and people leaders: what it is, how it differs from individual coaching and facilitation, and when it is the right intervention.
Building the Partnership that builds the Business
For entrepreneurship conferences, founder events, and startup ecosystems. The research is unambiguous, most partnerships fail relationally before they fail financially. This session gives co-founders and business partners practical frameworks before tension forces the conversation.
“Andria empowered our team with listening, insights, intelligence and tools - what we learned is now guiding our team vision - Bravo, Andria”Michelle de Clair, Borealis Creative
What conference organisers need to know
- Session Formats: Workshops · Panels · Firesides
- Session lengths: 60 to 90 min workshop · Half-day intensive · Multi-day offsite
- Audience size: Any, sessions designed for 20 to 500 participants
- In-person or virtual: Both available
- Location: Based in Toronto · Available nationally and internationally
- AV requirements: Slides · Lapel or handheld mic · Projector or screen
- Room setup: Rounds or clusters for workshop
- Pre-event call: 30 minutes with organiser to tailor content to audience
- Language: English
Tailoring and customization
Every session is adapted to the specific audience, sector, and conference theme. Andria has designed and delivered sessions for boards, associations, leadership teams, nonprofit sector conferences, and technology company offsites.
A 30-minute pre-event call is standard practice for all engagements.
Background and Training
Andria Gillis holds an Advanced Certification in Team Coaching and is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. She is a Certified Senior Practitioner in Team Coaching with the Global Team Coaching Institute, a Faculty Member and Systemic Team Coaching Supervisor at Renewal Associates, and has completed Supervision Training at Oxford Brookes Business School.
Her coaching approach integrates systemic thinking, applied neuroscience, and adult development theory. She has worked with startups, nonprofits, founder-led companies, and large organisations across healthcare, technology, media, and social impact, with particular focus on mission-driven organisations building the capacity to grow with integrity.
People Lab works locally and globally, with clients across Canada, the United States, and internationally.
- Advanced Certification in Team Coaching – International Coaching Federation (ICF)
- Professional Certified Coach (PCC) – International Coaching Federation
- Certified Senior Practitioner in Team Coaching – Global Team Coaching Institute (GTCI)
- Faculty Member – Systemic Team Coaching, Renewal Associates
- Associate @ Renewal International Global Coaching Network
- Organizational Mindfulness Facilitator, Institute for Organizational Science and Mind
- Systemic Team Coaching Supervisor, Renewal Associates
- Advanced Coach Supervision Training – Oxford Brookes Business School
What clients say.
“We wanted to find a way to look at how kindness and compassion fits into our organization. We turned to People Lab to look at our centre in ways we haven’t done before. Andria helped us define how we can ensure kindness, compassion and respect exists within our organization. She helped us define areas in which we could incorporate change and provided us with powerful tools. Andria continues to support our program; she is one of the best investments our organization has committed to.”Heather Humphries, HPCC
Assets for event organizers
Co-founders and business partners who are serious about building something together and want to do it well.
You might be in the early stages, still figuring out how to work alongside each other. You might be further along, navigating the tension that comes with growth. Or you might be at an inflection point where the decisions ahead are significant enough that getting genuinely aligned really matters.
You do not need to be in conflict to benefit from this work. The partners who get the most from it usually come in when things are going reasonably well and they want to keep it that way.
Past Events
Speaking, Panels & Workshop Experience
- 2026 Self Leadership For Health Care Professionals
- 2026 Inner Leadership: Mindfulness and Self-Leadership Training for Non-Profits, 8-week workshop, InterFaith Works of Central New York
- 2025 3D Systems Mapping with Melanie Goodchild, Canadian Association of Science Centres
- 2024 Amplifying Impact: Exploring the Emerging Opportunities of Generative AI for Your Organization. 6 sessions over 4 months.
- 2021 Annual Planning Day, Cuso International
- 2021 Panel Host & Moderator: Uncomplicating Complexity, CASC Conference
- 2019 Decision Making in Complexity, Loran Scholars
- 2019 Gairdner Awards: L'Oréal-UNESCO Diversity & Excellence in Science Forum Facilitator
- 2019 Team Building & Wellness, Ottawa Riverkeeper
- 2019-2026 Kindness & Compassion at Work. Delivered online and in person to multiple organizations.
- 2018 Powerful Communication, half-day working session, Borealis Creative
People Lab Panels, 2019-2020
Created and Hosted by Andria Gillis:
- Kindness & Compassion at Work, April 2019. Panelists: Michelle Krasny, Sean McSweeney, Anil Kanji, Rudy Ruttiman, Sadia Zaman
- Resiliency & Adaptability as Essential Skills, June 2019. Panelists: Renante Rondina, Hassel Aviles, Julie Jarvis, Andy Forest
- Being Human at Work: Tools for Authentic Leadership, December 2019. Panelists: J'net Ayay Qwa Yak Sheelth, Andreas Souvaliotis, Michelle de Clair
- Powerful Communication Panel, March 2020. Panelists: Xania Khan, Anthony Morgan, Alyssa Huggins
WeWork Wednesdays, 2018
- Work/Live Balance Myth
- Need a Better Plan? Effective Goal Planning, WeWork Wellness
- Future Planning with Scott Sampson, for Canadian Association of Science Centres
- Ongoing Strategic Planning Offsites for Non-Profits, Working Sessions embedded with in Team Coaching
Curious whether this is the right fit?
Book a Call NowSystemic team coaching for leadership teams, co-founders, and coaches. Based in Toronto, working globally.