Paul Phillips, for EY Canada's AI Learning Associate Director role.

AI and L&D share a common principle: their impact grows in parallel with the trust people place in them.

I know how to build that trust, bring a new tool to thousands of people, measure engagement and prove the results.

Paul Phillips

Enterprise learning leader and applied AI practitioner

Ontario

15+

years in enterprise L&D

2

years building agentic workflows, automations and tools, and working with enterprises on AI enablement

EY Canada's AI rollout, in its own numbers

Sources: Impact Report 2025, Copilot case study, May 2026

“Success isn't just about licence counts. It's about the depth of engagement experienced.”
EY Canada
From pilot to practice, May 2026
  • 3×

    human-led training rated three times more effective than e-learning; formal training rated effective by only 21%

  • 75%

    of EY professionals in Canada have achieved AI literacy

  • 82%

    of EY Canada professionals had active Copilot licences

  • 14%

    of those using Copilot were power users, on it daily

Skills

How my past experience fits the role

Applied AI

I implement AI systems and train people how to trust them.

I help small and medium enterprises put AI to work on their own data and documents. I set the architecture and direct AI coding agents on implementation.

What I build
Conversational agents, knowledge pipelines and cited knowledge bases (RAG).
How I run it
As a managed product, with versioned prompts, nightly drift checks, answer evaluations and automated retrieval tests.
What I work with
Agentic workflows, AI agents, RAG, MCP, AI evaluation, frontier models including Microsoft Copilot, and local models through Ollama.

GingerHawk Solutions
Director, AI enablement and data, 2025 to present

Building AI literacy

He is a brilliant facilitator and engages everyone in the room.
Charley Lowery
People Developer, Sales Trainer

At GingerHawk, I work with organizations to implement AI. That work shows me where it fails and what people need to know before they can rely on it. 15+ years of enterprise L&D is how I turn that into learning that changes behaviour.

Behaviour change

43%

Increase in application adoption across the area

Application rollouts reaching thousands of people who already had a way of working. Targeted workshops and reinforcement, until the behaviour changed.

Waste Management
Manager of Leadership Development, 2018–2020

8–12%

Faster time to productivity for new hires

Design thinking and targeted learning interventions, as a senior learning consultant advising leaders on capability needs.

Waste Management
Senior Learning Consultant, 2020–2022

Data and measurement

Beyond his interpersonal skills, Paul is a brilliant analyst.
Audrea Marie Fink
Sales Enablement Leader

I make decisions derived from data. I'm Kirkpatrick certified and Phillips ROI trained and embed strong evaluation support throughout program design.

I measure what people do differently, as well as what they complete.

Up to 40%

Productivity improvement against control groups

A process improvement program on system usage, measured against people who didn't go through it.

Waste Management
Sales Enablement Specialist, 2022–2024

With executive leadership, I designed an enterprise evaluation framework for 40,000 employees and 20+ programs, including executive dashboards and ROI protocols.

Waste Management
Learning Evaluation Manager, 2024–2025

Influencing senior leaders

Paul has also mastered the art of feedback. He leads by example in giving open, honest and productive feedback to all levels of the organization.
Lesley Warner
Senior Director, Talent Management and Employee Experience at WM

Years of advising senior leaders on learning strategy and capability to reach goals.

Learning Evaluation Manager
Designed the enterprise evaluation strategy and framework with executive leadership.
Senior Learning Consultant
Internal consultant to senior leaders and work groups, building learning strategies to improve performance and reach measurable results.
Sales Enablement Specialist
Worked with every level of the sales organization to develop the department's strategy and put it in place.

Builder's mindset

Paul works closely with myself and the leadership team to develop training programs that will not only lead to more growth within our market area but also offers coaching and mentoring programs to help with motivating our staff.
Robert Strutt
Director of National Accounts

I design, develop and implement learning programs, often starting from a blank page.

Sales enablement
Led needs assessment, design, development and deployment across the entire sales audience at Waste Management, covering process improvement, technology integration and soft skills, and developed the department's initial strategy.
Leadership programs
Designed and developed programs on coaching, accountability and leading through change, and delivered them to area managers at Waste Management.
New departments
Helped create new departments at Waste Management and Wirecomm, including their operating frameworks and onboarding, and led the people who did the work.

The enterprise evaluation framework began that way too, and so did my work with AI: self-directed, and by building with it.

L&D leadership

Paul was quickly recognized as a leader and mentor by our middle management.
Sam Rahim
Strategic Human Resources Leader

I've led trainers, supervisors and frontline teams, and run end-to-end programs for tens of thousands of people, multiple times, from design and development through implementation and reporting.

Waste Management
As Area Training Manager, I managed multi-site training operations, including train-the-trainer sessions, and mentored the training team.
Wirecomm
As Strategic Development Manager, I oversaw 10 supervisors and over 100 employees, and developed and mentored instructional designers and facilitators.
SC360
As Training Manager, I managed and mentored 3 trainers, with training schedules covering 5 offices across Ontario.
Special projects
I was on special projects that raised employee satisfaction in a department already holding the top score.
Vendors and budgets
I lowered vendor costs 30% across several channels at Wirecomm. At Waste Management I managed external vendor relationships and kept programs consistently under budget.

References

What people who worked with me say

See them on LinkedIn

Career

    Education and credentials

      Let's talk about the engagement experience you're creating at EY