01About
Thirty years inside organisations, and still curious about people.
I am Deb Best. I work in Vancouver, British Columbia, as an executive coach, an author and a semi-retired senior HR leader. My career has been spent in financial services, where pay, culture and risk sit close together, and where fear shows up in decisions long before anyone says the word.
02Career
BlueShore Financial. I joined in 1995 as HR Advisor, Compensation and Benefits, and I returned in April 2022 as Chief Human Resources Officer. Coming back to an organisation you helped build teaches you how long culture takes, and how quickly it can be spent.
Raymond James. Ten years in a firm where advisor relationships and reward design carry real consequence for people's livelihoods.
HSBC. More than ten years in a global bank, including award-winning flexible work practices at a time when flexibility was still argued over rather than assumed.
Toronto Stock Exchange. Five years through the merger of the Vancouver, Montreal, Winnipeg and Alberta exchanges under TSX. Mergers are where insecurity becomes visible, and where you learn what people do when the ground moves.
03Credentials
The letters after my name describe technical ground in compensation, rewards and HR practice. They matter because pay design is where good intentions meet arithmetic.
MSM
Master of Science in Management
CPHR
Chartered Professional in Human Resources
CCP
Certified Compensation Professional
GRP
Global Remuneration Professional
IPC
International Practitioner Certificate
04Teaching and speaking
I lecture at Acsenda School of Management in Vancouver, where students ask the questions that senior leaders have learned to stop asking out loud.
I am affiliated with Women's Equity Lab, and I speak at the WorldatWork Total Rewards 2026 conference on culture, leadership and governance, and wellbeing.
05The book and the work
I am writing Fear at Work: Insecurity, Culture and the Roadmap toward Wellbeing, launching in 2026. It comes out of three decades of watching capable people make smaller decisions than they were capable of, because the room did not feel safe.
I practise Indigenous spirituality privately. It shapes how I listen, and how I think about responsibility to the people who come after us. I mention it here because it belongs to the work, quietly.