Penelope Smiley

Penelope (Penny) Smiley is currently Principal Consultant at People and Strategy Consulting. She has worked as a human resources/labour relations executive in the public sector for over thirty years, most recently as a Senior Director at the Waterloo Regional Police Service and as Commissioner of Human Resources for the Region of Waterloo. Penny also has experience in the education and health fields.

In her management roles, Health and Safety has been part of Penny’s responsibility since the mid 1990s.. Penny has initiated and championed improvements to better protect the health and safety of workers, including systematic health and safety audits, safety management systems implementation and wellness programming.

In addition to her professional employment, Penny has held a variety of governance board appointments. At present, Penny is Chair of the Board for Empowered Kids Ontario (EKO), an organization which represents publicly funded organizations which provide rehabilitation and development services to children in Ontario. Penny has been a board member and Board Chair at KidsAbility Center for Child Development; Eastern Lake Ontario Branch of Victorian Order of Nurses and Kingston And District Immigrant Services. Penny has also been a Board Member on the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra Board and on the VON Ontario Board. Penny enjoys contributing to the vision, mission and strategy of organizations and bringing people together to effect positive change.

Penny holds a BA, an LLM, and a Master of Industrial Relations as well as a Certificate in Mediation and Dispute Resolution. In her leisure time Penny enjoys travel, golf and cooking.