RISE Leadership

Expert and trustworthy leadership support for progressive leaders

Joanna (Jo) is a leadership advisor and lawyer specializing in the areas of labour relations, human rights, administrative fairness and transformative justice.

Her legal expertise is in the areas of labour and employment, administrative justice and human rights law.  She has advocated for her clients in forums ranging from labour arbitration boards to the Supreme Court of Canada.  From 2008 to 2017 she was partner at Caroline + Gislason a boutique labour and employment law firm in Vancouver during which time she represented a broad range of clients seeking to realize their individual and collective rights to equality, safety and fairness.  

 In 2018 she founded Rise Leadership to fully devote her energy and expertise to transformative justice. Through Rise, Joanna provides progressive leaders with strategic legal advice, policy development and restorative stakeholder engagements that supports their work for a more equitable and healthy society. 

Jo is a skilled mediator, facilitator and convenor of important conversations and community engagements as well as a certified leadership coach.  She is also a zen chaplain and practitioner.

She is an experienced independent investigator, known for her incisiveness, fairness and skillful communication.  Joanna applies a systems theory approach to her analysis of workplace challenges, attending always to the myriad factors which contribute to counterproductive behaviours and dynamics within organizations and communities.  Her reports are decisive and solution-oriented.  

Jo has a BA with an emphasis in organizational psychology and cultural studies, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Victoria (2005) and a Masters of Law in administrative and constitutional law from Osgoode Law School (2016) where she also completed the certificate program in Tribunal and Board Adjudication. She also holds certificates in mediation (Harvard University and US Department of Justice), leadership coaching (New Ventures West, San Francisco) and restorative justice (Simon Fraser University) and received training and teachings in Zen chaplaincy (Upaya Zen Centre).

“Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected … When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.”

~ Rachel Naomi Remen