Canadian HR Expert Series:

We launched this series to highlight Canadian people leaders - the ones doing the often unseen work that helps businesses grow stronger, teams thrive, and leadership evolve. 

Meet Kimberly Callaghan

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Kimberly Callaghan is the President of PPF Growth & People Solutions, a people and organizational consulting firm built to support small and medium-sized Canadian businesses. The division, known simply as GPS, was created as part of the broader PPF Group to offer something many growing companies need and lack: deep, strategic people support that elevates the team and its results.

After years in corporate leadership, Kimberly was approached by PPF to design and lead a new kind of people solutions business. One that wasn’t just about compliance or checklists, but about enabling real growth through structure, leadership, and long-term planning. What stood out to her was the opportunity to keep learning. “You still learn every day in senior roles,” she said, “but this brought a different kind of growth. Stepping into this position meant stepping into something I hadn’t done before.”

“I’ve Never Really Been in Traditional HR”

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Kimberly makes it clear that while her work can fall under the HR umbrella, that’s never how she’s seen it.

“My background has always been in organizational design and people enablement,” she explained. “Traditional HR is vital, of course. But the compliance side, policies, procedures, legal documents, that’s never been my lane. I’ve always been focused on strategy, productivity, and supporting people to perform at their best.”

Even in companies where she worked closely with traditional HR, her focus remained on the structural side of people operations. Whether she was leading learning and development, helping teams navigate change, or building high-impact onboarding programs, her perspective stayed rooted in enablement and business outcomes.

Supporting Business Growth by Design

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GPS was named with intention. “It’s about helping companies get where they need to be,” Kimberly shared. “We provide that foundational HR support. Things like policies, contracts, ESA compliance, but we also do the deeper work that drives revenue and profit growth.”

That deeper work can take many forms. One of her current clients is undergoing a full organizational planning initiative. Another is a family-run business preparing for a generational leadership transition, a project that will span two full years. Some engagements are more focused, like designing leadership development programs, supporting sales enablement, or building custom onboarding materials, complete with animations, to ensure new hires are aligned from day one.

The third component of GPS’s offering is systems support, which is where Collage HR comes in. “Collage is the foundation of the HR tech stack we set up for clients,” she said. “It’s modern, flexible, and scalable. And most importantly, it’s designed to meet businesses where they are.”

The Shift from Corporate to Client Work

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After decades in corporate roles, stepping into consulting brought new opportunities, and new constraints.

“When you’re in-house, you can make decisions. You have the agency to drive change” Kimberly said. “With clients, you need to hold space. You offer insights and let them decide if they’re ready for the next step.”

It wasn’t a change she anticipated, but it’s one she’s grown through. “I’ve always been someone who sees the root cause quickly. But now, I’ve had to learn to be more patient. You see the opportunity, but you wait for the client to see it too.”

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Leadership, with Grace

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One of Kimberly’s guiding principles is something she coined early in her career: graceful leadership. It reflects the way she works with collaboration, empathy, and respect for the people she’s supporting.

“I’m not the kind of leader who says ‘do this’ or ‘do that,’” she explained. “I listen. I invite people to share ideas. I work alongside them. That’s my nature and that’s what builds real connection.”

The part of the job she finds most fulfilling is helping others succeed. Whether it’s a leader gaining clarity, a team solving a problem together, or a client avoiding a major risk, she finds energy in seeing others grow. “When someone says, ‘What would we do without you?’, that means everything to me.”

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A Moment that Changed Everything

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There’s one moment Kimberly still carries with her, decades later. She had brought a well-thought-out solution to a senior leader, convinced she’d cracked the code on a pressing business issue. The leader listened, nodded, engaged, and then asked a single, thoughtful question. It was enough to make the entire plan fall apart.

“I’ll never forget that,” Kimberly said. “I realized at that moment that I needed to slow down and ask more questions. It changed how I think. From then on, I started mapping the connections before moving forward. That one experience probably accelerated my career by five years.”

It wasn’t a moment of failure, it was a moment of learning. And that, she says, has made all the difference.

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Where Businesses Should be Focusing now

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In today’s climate, Kimberly sees two challenges coming to the forefront. The first is uncertainty, especially after the 2024 U.S. election. Leaders are being called to make decisions that balance financial strategy with transparency and care for their people.

The second, and potentially more long-term, is a looming leadership gap. “We’re at the edge of a big generational shift,” she said. “With boomers retiring and more seasoned leaders stepping away, the 35-and-under workforce is about to lose access to a lot of institutional knowledge. We’re entering a time where leadership development needs to be intentional.”

And for companies wondering where to start? She points to the middle layer. “Your managers and directors are the key. They’re the ones bridging the strategy at the top with execution on the ground. If they’re not strong, your business won’t be either.”

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Why Collage HR is her Platform of Choice

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Kimberly has used just about every HR system out there, including some of the largest platforms in the world. One implementation she led cost nearly $7 million, and failed. “They wouldn’t even let us add a language checkbox,” she recalled. “No customization, no service. Just a clunky system that didn’t meet our needs.”

She chose Collage HR for the opposite reasons. “It’s flexible. It’s intuitive. It’s backed by a team that cares. I can message the team and know I’ll get a thoughtful response.”

Even new team members can pick it up quickly. Kimberly shared that her OD Coordinator, who had no prior experience with HR systems, was up and running within two weeks. “That’s how easy it is to learn. That’s how well it’s built.”

Her Advice for Leaders Today

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Kimberly doesn’t believe in overcomplicating things.

“You don’t need a shrink-wrapped solution or a 400-page playbook,” she said. “You need structure. You need clarity. You need someone to help you look at your business and say, here’s what I’d do if I were you.”

She’s not there to take over. She’s there to guide. “Sometimes I just hand my clients the framework and say, you’ve got this. You don’t need me to do it for you, you just need the roadmap.”