Join us for an expert discussion on navigating pay communication as transparency becomes the new norm.
Pay transparency is becoming a legal and cultural norm, with regions like British Columbia mandating salary disclosures in job postings. This shift is driven by demands for equity, generational openness, and digital platforms that expose compensation data. However, many organizations struggle with communicating pay effectively due to unclear policies, manager discomfort, cultural resistance and other factors.
The panel discussion will feature special guests and local compensation professionals: Carolyn Kildare, Rachel Vanek and Michelle Mckinnon.
WHEN: September 24th from 12:00pm to 1pm PST
WHERE: Virtual Teams Meeting
COST: Complimentary to members and non-members alike
Meet your Panelists
Michelle McKinnon
Michelle McKinnon is a partner in the Employment & Labour Group at Cassels and specializes in the area of workplace law, which includes employment law, labour law, human rights and accessibility, health and safety, privacy, pay equity and pay transparency, and litigation. Michelle has extensive experience in pay equity and pay transparency and advises both provincial and federal employers on their legal obligations. Michelle is regularly sought out to speak at conferences and to participate in interviews to comment on this evolving area of the law. Most recently, Michelle was interviewed by Canadian Lawyer and the Society of Human Resources Management regarding British Columbia’s new Pay Transparency Act and recognized by the Gender Pay Equity Office of the BC Ministry of Finance as a ‘Champion of Pay Transparency’ to recognize the important work that Michelle has done to develop and educate employers on their legal obligations.
Rachel Vanek
Rachel Vanek is the Manager, People Rewards and Wellness at BCLC, the Crown corporation that manages legal gambling in B.C., including lotteries, casinos, and online gaming. In her role at BCLC, Rachel supports the organization in leading the development and implementation of total rewards programs, and recently completed a project with Korn Ferry to define BCLC's Employee Value Proposition. Rachel has over 15 years as a HR and compensation practitioner, that includes working for TransLink and Transit Police.
Carolyn Kildare
Carolyn founded Cadence Compensation in mid-2023 to provide specialized compensation consulting services to public and private sector organizations.
Cadence Compensation develops and delivers large- and small-scale projects that often include:
- Developing a stakeholder-driven compensation philosophy aligning organizational goals with compensation programs
- Assessing compensation competitiveness against the relevant market sectors
- Refreshing job architecture, underpinning it with credible and robust evaluation frameworks
- Aligning market compensation values with existing internal compensation, and calculating the cost impact of change
- Providing guidelines on managing and maintaining compensation structures for ongoing effectiveness
In addition to leading independent compensation projects, Carolyn has provided fractional compensation support on an ongoing basis. She worked with for lululemon athletica as Senior Manager, Compensation Programs from September 2023 to October 2024, leading a team of compensation professionals managing portfolios in pay transparency, job architecture, and job levelling. Since November 2025, Carolyn has been a fractional consultant with Mercer, leading large-scale compensation reviews for public and private sector clients.
Prior to founding Cadence Compensation, Carolyn was a senior compensation consultant with Mercer, one of the world’s leading human resource consulting firms. As a senior compensation consultant, Carolyn designed, led and delivered compensation analyses across a broad range of industries, from senior executive benchmarking in the public sector through salary structure design across large and complex employee groups. Her tenure with Mercer included eight years leading Mercer’s compensation surveys for the energy, mining and high-tech sectors in Canada. She has deep expertise in understanding and working with compensation data and has developed and delivered bespoke custom surveys providing tailored data for specific peer groups and jobs.
Carolyn holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) achieved with academic merit from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She has recently completed a Certificate in Human Resources through the University of Calgary.
Carolyn has been an Officer of the Calgary Total Rewards Network (CTRN) for five years, and currently serves as Vice-Chair. The CTRN is one of the top total rewards professional associations in North America and received the Affiliate Diamond Award in 2024 from WorldatWork.
