Alexandra Samuel

Remote work + digital productivity

Alexandra Samuel is an authority on remote work and the digital workplace. A speaker and data journalist, she is the co-author of Remote, Inc: How To Thrive at Work….Wherever You Are (Harper Business, 2021) and the author of Work Smarter with Social Media (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015).

Alex’s keynotes and trainings help organizations navigate the transition to the hybrid workplace, and make the most of the combination of remote plus office.  Her writing on the digital workplace, business and productivity appears frequently in The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Business Review and other outlets.  Her presentations on remote work and digital wellbeing have been presented by companies like Zoom, Google and HubSpot.

She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and works remotely from Vancouver, Canada.

I am dedicated to enabling a successful transition to hybrid work because I have personally experienced the power of remote work to transform our productivity, our work-life balance and the sustainability of our economy. Much of my 25-year career has been spent working remotely; that’s what’s made it possible for me to build a thriving career in digital workplace research while homeschooling a child with special needs. I am excited to be part of a historical transition in the workplace that will make that flexibility available to more people, while reducing the carbon footprint of the modern workplace.

Tara Robertson

Diversity, equity + inclusion

Tara Robertson uses data and research to advocate for equality and inclusion. The former lead of Global Diversity and Inclusion for Mozilla, she now advises on DEI strategy for clients including MIT Press.

Tara has won widespread recognition for her DEI leadership. Her work on trans inclusion has been featured in Forbes, her research on digitization ethics was included in Dr. Safiya Noble’s book Algorithms of Oppression, and an accessibility toolkit she co-authored won an international creative innovation award.

As someone who is mixed race and queer I know we live intersectional lives. I have firsthand experience knowing what it’s like to navigate systems that were not designed for people like me. Along with my work experience and education, I tap into these experiences to help co-design employee experiences where people feel like they belong and are welcome. This work is deeply personal to me and I feel privileged and a sense of responsibility to do it well. 

Sabino Marquez

Workplace + information security

Information security isn’t a cost: It’s how you build value for your customers and your employees. When you build good data security practices into the foundation of your work, you create the basis for trust.  And when you have trust, you don’t need to weaponize your information systems or use them to surveil your employees. As someone who grew up on the wrong side of the surveillance state as an undocumented immigrant kid in America, I am passionate about building systems that put trust, and not surveillance, at the centre of how we work.

Alka Tandan

Employee + customer experience

Alka Tandan, CAIP is a seasoned employee and customer experience researcher with deep expertise on customer care. Alka works with organizations to develop process and tools to drive sustainable growth with their customer facing teams.

With more than 20 years of experience in private sector and public affairs research and consulting, she has advised startups as a mentor with the BC Tech Hypergrowth accelerator, supported F100 brands to implement customer and employee engagement strategies at Vision Critical and Maritz, and investigated impacts of digital transformation on the labour market with IDC.

Alka is an affiliate of the Policy Innovation Lab of Tomorrow (PILoT) at Penn State University, advising academics on industry practices in order to (re)build the technology economy in a sustainable manner, guided by legal and ethical principles.

My analysis is informed by a critical cultural perspective, bridging my background in social anthropology, critical race perspectives, and diversity studies with data-driven research and strategic thinking. That’s how I recognized that organizations only meet their objectives when they remember the human being that is their customer and their employee. Digital transformation gives us the tools to help employees effectively advocate for their work—and their customers.

Rob Cottingham

Labour + leadership communication

Rob Cottingham has more than 30 years of experience helping leaders in government, business and advocacy engage with audiences in both the digital and offline worlds. As one of Canada’s leading speechwriters, he has written for party leaders in national election campaigns, cabinet ministers, CEOs, university presidents, and labour leaders.

My work is about helping people find their voice—whether that means your voice as the president of a university, the head of a company or an advocate for your union. As a cartoonist and stand-up comedian, I know the power of using humour to connect with an audience. The real magic happens when you tell a joke that doesn’t just make your audience laughs; it gets them to let down their guard, so you can deliver a message that is authentic, meaningful and maybe even vulnerable.

Cheryl Loh

Graphic design

Cheryl Loh is a graphic designer and illustrator with a passion for data visualization. She has over 8 years of professional design experience, including a past role as Senior Designer at Lemonly.

Cheryl specializes in designing infographics and has worked with clients including Marriott, the Vancouver Foundation, Disney and Pfizer. She is also the founder and artist behind Quirky Paper Co., a line of cheeky, cute and colourful greeting cards. She is a graduate of the Communication Design program at Emily Carr University.

Good design should inspire, inform, and delight. My goal is to design infographics that are clear, engaging, and provide a deeper understanding of the content. I aim to simplify complex concepts, and help viewers to understand patterns, connections, and the story behind the data.

Emma Chambers

Community engagement

Emma Chambers is a community advocate who provides frontline community expertise to the Social Signal team.

Before joining Social Signal, Emma was a shelter support worker at the WISH Centre, Canada’s first and only shelter for street-based sex workers. They have worked in harm reduction and addiction management, and spent two years facilitating youth sexual education workshops in Montreal, including workshops for incarcerated Inuit youth.

Emma holds an honours degree in Gender, Sexuality, Feminism and Social Justice from McGill University. They are currently enrolled in certificate programs in Addiction Care and Treatment, and Sexual Health & Disability.

Through the work I have done in street-entrenched communities as a trans person, I have seen what it means when people can’t get work or have the kind of skills you can’t put on a résumé. Working with Social Signal has given me a chance to build my own skills, and I look forward to bringing that perspective into my frontline work.