Speaking

My mission is to help companies think, act and operate in a people-first culture.

Sofia Arisheh doesn’t like human resources, she loves it! She is a firm believer that the secret to 
a winning business is the investment in your people. She is a Human Resources (HR) strategist, leader, advocate and educator. She draws from her extensive experience in the corporate and HR sectors to inform and inspire audiences to adopt a people-centric approach to business.

A lifelong learner at heart, Sofia’s passion lies in learning and development. Her interactive training workshops, delivered to various stakeholders from front-line staff to top executives, are motivating, practical, entertaining and results-driven.

As a keynote speaker and master trainer, Sofia delivers dynamic, engaging and impactful presentations to help audiences understand how to build and strengthen their people practices to drive business results. Her highly customized content and captivating delivery style fosters an environment of collaboration, knowledge sharing and participation creating an immersive, engaging and highly effective learning experience for audiences.

Her mission is to help companies think, act and operate in a people-first culture.

Recent Keynote Presentations

Sofia Arisheh Speaker Kit

Mindful Communication: Tailor, Adapt and Engage

There is no one-size-fits-all with communication! We all communicate differently and often the first step in strengthening our interpersonal skills is exploring our own strengths and areas for development. In our day-to-day interactions, both in our workplaces and in our personal lives, we communicate with others, sometimes successfully and other times not so successfully. So how do we better understand others and respond more effectively?

Sofia Arisheh will walk you through four communication styles and will share some of the key characteristics of each style to learn how we can better adapt our communication to meet the needs of others.

Learning Objectives:
  • Understand how perception plays a role in how we choose to communicate with others
  • Appreciate the importance of exploring communication styles and its value to the team
  • Recognize the different communication preferences and key characteristics of each
  • Identify techniques and strategies to cater to varying communication preferences

Workplace Mentoring: Unlocking the Potential in People

To facilitate and foster growth within a business we need to shift our focus on our employees. There is no denying that our industry landscapes are constantly changing, and this warrants a sharpened focus on attracting and retaining our people through mentoring. Workplace mentoring can help your people improve on-the-job performance and develop into leaders of tomorrow.

Sofia Arisheh will walk you through the importance of mentoring in the workplace, with particular emphasis on our shifting industry and demographic landscape and will help you identify key actionable steps to strengthen your workplace mentoring, both personally and on an organizational level.

Learning Objectives:
  • Understand the value of mentoring in the workplace
  • Recognize personal strengths in leading and mentoring others
  • Identify how to leverage strengths to exhibit effective mentoring in our day-to-day

Succession Planning: Building Your Bench Strength. Who’s Next in Line?

We have all been there! Someone leaves our organization, and we then scramble to find a replacement. It’s time we begin to build our internal talent pipeline to better plan for future development and ultimately meet long-term needs. Succession planning allows us to prepare for our future of leaders and build pools of highly skilled individuals methodically and strategically.

Sofia Arisheh will walk you through the importance of succession planning and a six-step framework to build a robust succession plan across various positions within your firms.

Learning Objectives:
  • Define succession planning
  • Recognize the importance of succession planning and our changing landscape
  • Understand the six-step framework in building a talent pipeline and robust succession plan

Employee Engagement: Building an Actionable Framework

Rolling out an employee engagement survey is not easy. It requires an incredible amount of preparation and project planning.  While employers mean well when opting to solicit feedback from their employees via an engagement survey, they often miss the mark. We have to remember that addressing employee engagement is not an overnight fix but rather a journey. It’s imperative that engagement assessments and solutioning is done right. If not, the ramifications can be detrimental, most notably eroding trust and further negatively impacting engagement.

Sofia Arisheh will walk you through the importance of employee engagement and the key components in building a framework resulting in actionable steps to successfully roll out engagement initiatives.

Learning Objectives:
  • Define employee engagement
  • Recognize the importance of employee engagement in the workplace
  • Understand the key steps in end-to-end employee engagement initiatives
  • Identify best practices to action engagement initiatives and build long-term traction

BC Legal Management Association (BCLMA)

“I have known Sofia as a professional acquaintance for a number of years. I recently engaged Sofia to speak to a group of HR and professionals for a lunch-time professional development session. Throughout our interactions, it was clear that Sofia is a speaker with a number of relevant areas of expertise within the HR and leadership world to draw upon. During our planning process, Sofia asked relevant and insightful questions about the audience, considered the learning options and limitations available, and made suggestions as to topics that would be most impactful given the specifics of the session. Her intuition and insights along the way were spot on.  She was professional, well-prepared and easy to deal with throughout. I, unfortunately, was out of town to see the session she facilitated but as the Chair of the group, I receive a lot of feedback – everything indicated that Sofia did a wonderful job and was received as an impactful speaker by the audience. I highly recommend you consider Sofia for speaking engagements on HR and leadership!”

Megan McAllister, BCLMA Chair

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Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce (GLCC)

“Sofia of Upskill Consulting presented to our members at a Lunch & Learn in our office on the techniques to strengthen your workplace training. Sofia was a tremendous facilitator due to her enthusiasm, her knowledge on the different levels of training and her ability to asses the group’s awareness on workplace training. Her workshop was hands-on, engaging and her teaching approaches were unique, which made it easier to remember the details of her presentation. Sofia has trained small groups of 10 people to large groups of 50 or more and she excels every time. We highly recommend Sofia if you’re looking for an individual to train your employees or if you’re looking for help in the training department. You won’t be disappointed.”

Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce, Event Organizer & Event Attendee

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Chartered Professionals in Human Resources of British Columbia and Yukon (CPHR BC & Yukon)

“Sofia was presented at the CPHR HR Consultants roundtable. She is an organized, resourceful and knowledgeable speaker. Given Sofia’s HR background, she could relate to our audience quickly and was able to help our audience apply the knowledge they’ve just learned to their jobs. She made the session interactive and there were hands-on activities too in which the audience enjoyed doing. At the end of the session, she also gave us a list of resources and tools as our take-away and reference guide. I’ve received positive feedback from our audience on how engaging and practical her session was. I won’t hesitate to invite Sofia again as our guest speaker and would highly recommend her to speak not only us the HR professionals but also others as well.”

Jenny Lau, Event Chair and Event Attendee
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BC Legal Management Association (BCLMA)

“I have known Sofia as a professional acquaintance for a number of years. I recently engaged Sofia to speak to a group of HR and professionals for a lunch-time professional development session. Throughout our interactions, it was clear that Sofia is a speaker with a number of relevant areas of expertise within the HR and leadership world to draw upon. During our planning process, Sofia asked relevant and insightful questions about the audience, considered the learning options and limitations available, and made suggestions as to topics that would be most impactful given the specifics of the session. Her intuition and insights along the way were spot on.  She was professional, well-prepared and easy to deal with throughout. I highly recommend you consider Sofia for speaking engagements on HR and leadership!”

Megan McAllister, BCLMA Chair

client logo

Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce (GLCC)

“Sofia of Upskill Consulting presented to our members at a Lunch & Learn in our office on the techniques to strengthen your workplace training. Sofia was a tremendous facilitator due to her enthusiasm, her knowledge on the different levels of training and her ability to asses the group’s awareness on workplace training. Her workshop was hands-on, engaging and her teaching approaches were unique, which made it easier to remember the details of her presentation. Sofia has trained small groups of 10 people to large groups of 50 or more and she excels every time. We highly recommend Sofia if you’re looking for an individual to train your employees or if you’re looking for help in the training department. You won’t be disappointed.”

Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce, Event Organizer & Event Attendee

client logo

Chartered Professionals in Human Resources of British Columbia and Yukon

“Sofia was presented at the CPHR HR Consultants roundtable. She is an organized, resourceful and knowledgeable speaker. Given Sofia’s HR background, she could relate to our audience quickly and was able to help our audience apply the knowledge they’ve just learned to their jobs. She made the session interactive with hands-on activities which the audience enjoyed. At the end of the session, she also gave us a list of resources and tools as our take-away and reference guide. I’ve received positive feedback from our audience on how engaging and practical her session was. I won’t hesitate to invite Sofia again as our guest speaker and would highly recommend her to speak not only us the HR professionals but also others as well.”

Jenny Lau, Event Chair and Event Attendee
client logo

You grow your company. We’ll help prepare your people.

Schedule a consultation to find out more.