Celebrating Excellence: CPC’s 2026 Awards of Excellence Recipients!

Awards of Excellence Recipients
Updated September 9, 2026

As Executive Director, one of my favourite privileges is to recognize the recipients of Career Professionals of Canada’s 2026 Awards of Excellence.

Celebrating excellence feels particularly meaningful this year.

What Remains Constant

Our profession is changing. The world of work is changing. Technology is reshaping how we serve our clients, build our businesses, and even think about the future of career development. At times, that pace of change can feel exciting. At other times, it can feel uncertain.

And then, each year, the Awards of Excellence submissions arrive and remind us what remains constant.

Behind every submission is a career professional who cares deeply about their work and the people they serve. Someone who has invested their time, creativity, expertise, and heart into helping another person move forward. Someone who is learning, adapting, contributing, and continuing to raise the standard of our profession.

That is worth celebrating.

This year, our judges reviewed numerous submissions from across our community. Selecting our Award of Excellence recipients, honourable mentions, and nominees is never easy, and I want to extend my sincere appreciation to our judging team for the care and professional expertise they brought to the process.

To everyone who submitted their work this year, thank you. Putting your work forward for consideration takes courage, and every submission represents something bigger than an award. It represents a commitment to your craft and to the people whose careers and lives your work influences.

And to our 2026 Award of Excellence recipients, honourable mentions, and nominees, congratulations!

Confidence in Where We Are Going

Your accomplishments give us something wonderful to celebrate, but they also give us something equally important: confidence in where this profession is going.

A great deal may be changing around us. Still, when I look at the talent, generosity, innovation, and genuine care within the CPC community, I am reminded that the future of career development is in very capable hands.

Technology will continue to evolve. Our profession will continue to adapt. The way we work may look different tomorrow than it does today. But excellence will always be human.

Please join me in celebrating CPC’s 2026 Awards of Excellence recipients, honourable mentions, and nominees and congratulating them on this well-deserved recognition.

2026 Awards of Excellence Recipients

Outstanding Career Leader

Outstanding Career Professional

Outstanding Community Outreach Strategist

Outstanding Employment Interview Strategist

Outstanding Social Media Strategist

Outstanding Résumé – Career Change

Outstanding Résumé – Creative

Outstanding Résumé – Executive

Outstanding Résumé – New Graduate / Entry-Level

Outstanding Résumé – Technical

Outstanding Volunteer Contributors (Executive Director’s Awards)

A tremendous amount of work happens behind the scenes at Career Professionals of Canada.

Throughout the year, volunteers give their time, knowledge, ideas, and professional expertise to support our events, certifications, communications, programs, governance, and so much more. Some contributions are highly visible to our members. Many others happen quietly, through an extra set of eyes on a project, a thoughtful conversation, an offer to help, or simply being the person who steps forward when something needs to be done.

CPC could not accomplish what it does without them.

The Executive Director’s Awards for Outstanding Volunteer Contribution are my way of recognizing individuals whose contributions have made an exceptional difference to CPC over the past year. This year’s recipients have contributed in very different ways. Still, they share something important: a willingness to give generously of themselves for the benefit of our organization, our members, and our profession.

A Special Full-Circle Recognition

I also must acknowledge that presenting one of these awards this year brought things wonderfully full circle.

For many years, CPC founder Sharon Graham recognized others through these awards. This year, I have the privilege of recognizing her.

While Sharon has stepped back from CPC’s day-to-day operations, she certainly has not stepped away from contributing. During a significant year of transition, she has given generously of her time, mentorship, institutional knowledge, and expertise. Among her many contributions, she championed Certification Modernization and devoted extraordinary volunteer time to developing the Certified Future Strategist (CFS) Certification from the ground up.

There is something very special about having the opportunity to recognize the person who spent so many years recognizing the contributions of others. And at the same time, Sharon stands alongside each of this year’s recipients for exactly the reason these awards exist: she saw opportunities to contribute and chose to step forward.

That spirit is reflected in every person being recognized this year.

To our 2026 Executive Director’s Award recipients, thank you. Whether you contributed through leadership, mentorship, communications, events, certification, strategic guidance, or simply by consistently asking, “How can I help?”, your contributions have strengthened CPC.

Recipients:

Barb Penney | Britt-Mari Sykes | Brad Whitehorn | Cathy Milton | Dorothy Keenan | Eman Ismail-Elmasri | Jennifer Bouley | Sharon Graham

Honourable Mentions:

Nothing would be possible without the outstanding contributions of our many volunteers. Honourable mentions go to our volunteer teams for their exceptional contributions to building our social enterprise and creating our national not-for-profit association.

Board of Directors | Certification & Awards Team | Communications Team | Events Team

Finally, a big thank you to all of CPC’s ad hoc volunteers and silent partners who help make Career Professionals of Canada an exceptional organization. To the many volunteers across CPC whose names may not appear on an award this year, please know that your work matters too. Every hour, idea, review, conversation, introduction, and helping hand contributes to what this community can accomplish.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated. It’s been another great year!

Skye Berry
Executive Director
Career Professionals of Canada

Image enhanced using ChatGPT.

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