Creative and Agile: Modern HR Leadership

Kevin Graff is the President of Graff Retail, based in Toronto, Ontario.  Since 1988, Graff Retail has specialized in working with retailers around the globe to increase their revenue through improved staff performance. 

Kevin is widely respected as one of North America’s best retail speakers and trainers and was recently chosen as one of the Top 50 Retail Influencers.  His principle belief is that retailers are losing too many sales each day in their stores that they should be capturing.   Kevin’s approach to store operations and his intense focus on real, bottom-line issues continually produce outstanding results. 

Kevin is also the creator of Graff Retail TV, the retail community’s leading source of online sales and management training.  Since being launched in 2008, Graff Retail TV has provided thousands of sales associates and store management teams with the skills they need to succeed.

Tanja Fratangeli is Head of People & Culture for IKEA Canada, leading all aspects of IKEA People and Culture practices, policies, processes, linked to all co-workers in the country. IKEA is known for hiring on values, which builds on being inclusive, open and honest culture; Tanja embodies this in her day-to-day role. Tanja brings a wealth of knowledge from her 25 years in the Human Resource industry, where she has led significant change management, organizational and compensation initiatives. She is well known for her curious, collaborative and pragmatic leadership approach, with a passion for home furnishing.

Alex Snelling joined McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada as Chief People Officer (CPO) in 2022. As CPO, Alex works with leaders from across the Canadian business, including our independent franchisees, to ensure we keep people at the heart of everything we do. He develops and implements holistic strategies that uphold a safe, flexible and inclusive workplace for everyone, accelerate growth and deliver on McDonald’s purpose to feed and foster communities from coast to coast to coast.

Alex brings more than 15 years of human resources and talent management experience to the role, including four years in his most recent positions with the McDonald’s Corporation.
From his previous People Lead role in the brand’s London, U.K. office Alex lead the HR agenda across 23 markets in Eastern and Central Europe. Previous to this he led talent development and acquisition initiatives across all McDonald’s international markets outside the U.S.

Alex’s efforts in McDonald’s Global Talent Centre of Excellence has broadened the organization’s vibrant, people-first culture and embodies the company’s belief in making a bigger impact by working together. By aligning processes and training in areas like succession planning, talent review, performance management and culture development across markets, he has helped set a new global standard for the McDonald’s business. A deep understanding of McDonald’s values continues to drive Alex’s objective to build on the brand’s universal culture of continuous learning, growth and innovation, which he brings to the Canadian business.

Before joining McDonald’s Corporation in 2018 Alex was Human Resources Director for major retailers and consumer brands like Cath Kidston, The Body Shop and L’Oréal across several talent management, learning & recruitment roles. Before his business career Alex studied History at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University.