MEET indigenous HR professional & entrepreneur CARRIE LAMB
Carrie Lamb (she/her)
Indigenous HR Expert and Coach; Founder CL Group.
Carrie Lamb is many things, none more important than a mother, daughter, community member, wife, sibling, story sharer, and kindness advocate. Professionally, Carrie Lamb is a Coach, Indigenous Human Resource professional, and an expert on Turtle Island in the field of Indigenous People Practices and Improving how Indigenous workers experience employment.
Carrie identifies as First Nations and has community ties to the Sayisi Dene First Nation. Carrie’s story begins in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and the Sayisi Dene First Nations, with Sayisi Dene, Metis, and British ancestry.
Carrie has four separate businesses operating under one umbrella, tentatively named CL Group. [If CL Group changes, this is an easy edit at any point.]
CL Group is a multi-faceted Indigenous-led enterprise aiming to improve how Indigenous people experience the workplace, empowering employers, employees, and Indigenous workers to move from reconciliation to reconcili-ACTION.
“I want to create a space where indigenous professionals feel safe and cared for when they hear that HR is going to be at the meeting. As Indigenous HR professional the work that I do is put myself in that seat, and I call out the places where the policies and procedures don't speak to us as Indigenous people.” - Carrie Lamb
In The Media
Carrie Lamb Blazes a Path for Leaders Looking to Recruit and Retain Indigenous Talent
Carrie blazes a path for leaders looking to recruit and retain Indigenous talent. Read on.
MORE ABOUT CARRIE
“I was told…you identify yourself from your mother’s side first.”
Carrie's ancestral story is a multi-faceted story that starts with her mothers.
Her biological mother Ann Butterfield, daughter to the late Fred and Mary Duck, is from Little Duck Lake area in Northern Manitoba and is Sayisi Dene. Carrie’s mother was directly harmed by colonial systems. Carrie’s mother is a survivor of the residential school system, day school, and an experiment wherein Indigenous people were removed from their traditional territories to see if removing them would “kill the Indian in them”.
However, it's from Ann’s survival, resilience and perseverance through colonial harms that Carrie has gained some of her own focus to be a rebel with a cause. Carrie persevered through her parents' failed marriage, Child and Family Services, and overcoming the odds of being a teen mother and building her family.
Carrie’s relatives leave a legacy with her to “feel empowered because she’s so incredibly strong of what she’s lived through, and I want to honour them in the work and the space that I do.”
At a young age, Carrie’s parents lost her to foster care. It wasn’t until she met her foster Mom Rosina, that Carrie felt wanted and learned what unconditional love was.
Carrie was also traditionally adopted by a Blackfoot woman named Beverly Hungry Wolf, the woman credited with saving Carrie’s Indigenous identity and bringing her back to her, who she was meant to be. “If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t know who I am.”
On Carrie’s father’s side of the family, she experienced inner-family racism and immense grandmother love. Her father revealed to her later in life that Carrie’s ancestral story is one with Metis and British ancestry. Upon reflection, it’s an interesting finding of Metis connection in consideration of her experiences with inner-family racism.
“I want to move people away from polarizing fear of doing the wrong thing, to feeling comfortable in trying things…moving to action. I feel empowered to speak to as many people as possible to try to create safe places for Indigenous people. I want to empower so much that people just do the work.” - Carrie Lamb
Carrie's Impact Statement
Carrie’s human resources practices are grounded in a relational and community-building approach: an approach that exists outside the traditional colonialized human resources paradigm. As one of the few Indigenous HR professionals across Turtle Island, Carrie has emerged as an expert in the field of Indigenization of Human Resource policies and workplace culture to improve how Indigenous workers experience employment.
At its core, Carrie’s company aims to create a working environment where Indigenous people don’t experience anxiety or racism from declaring and embracing their Indigeneity while moving non-Indigenous people away from the polarizing fear of doing the wrong thing to action(s).
Carrie’s empowered mission is to speak, teach, and empower as many people as possible to feel comfortable trying things and move to action so they can do the work and move working environments toward reconcili-action.
What's Next for Carrie?
The path forward for Carrie is illuminated by a widespread bright light with her focus clear and expertise on display, creating generational impact with each speaking engagement and entrepreneurial aim. Working under the tentatively-titled CL Group, Carrie has four sub-divisions, each working toward the same goal of creating an inclusive, equitable, prosperous, and safe working environment for Indigenous people.
The four divisions of the CL Group engage companies, communities, and individuals in numerous ways of taking the step from reconciliation to reconcili-ACTION through improving the ways Indigenous workers experience employment. Carrie’s speaking engagements and expert seminars are educational, promotional, and an inspiring living example of how to take the step to reconcili-ACTION, with every word gratefully said.
Coaching is at the core of what the CL Group does.
Coaching is about fostering relationships to help achieve a goal or reach a new personal high. In Carrie’s case, coaching is empowering people with an Indigenized move to action and helping “people unleash the barriers” within themselves to fly far higher to do the work of decolonizing working environments and policy.
Coaching is where Carrie found her voice and her gift.
Under the CL Group banner, Carrie and her team intend to support grassroots community growth and develop the next generation of cultural leaders. Carrie and her team are developing a mentorship program, utilizing principles and best match teachings to help best match mentees with a mentor, each getting five potential matches.
Employers will be able to have the option for a discovery call, where they can connect and see if there is a connection. Mentors enter the space as honored and well-compensated professionals in a guided and supported mentorship to help the mentee find their path, work on project management, or personal growth. Employers can access this mentorship program to encourage developing their Indigenous talent, which will attract more Indigenous talent to that company and the wider industry.
The mentorship program also allows employers to explore corporate sponsorships at the grassroots level that will benefit tremendously from the mentorship program but may not have the financial means, even at special grassroots pricing.
Carrie and her team are developing an industry-leading Indigenous workplace policy program, informed by Carrie’s HR expertise and consulting practice.
This program will enable workplaces’ access to culturally-safe policies for Indigenous people. As changes happen in labor codes and standards, CL Group’s policy technology will automatically update and notify the workplace of changes to the policy that can affect its operation. This helps keep employers updated, reaffirming their commitment to reconili-ACTION and a culturally safe work environment for Indigenous workers.
"Carrie is a visionary. She dreams big dreams which enables others to do the same. She is a leader in the HR field that is opening doors for our Indigenous kin to be seen, heard, represented and thrive." - Vanessa Lesperance, LIFT Circle Lead
The LIFTing Your Leadership program brings together a cohort of 12 entrepreneurs for a combination of business development activities and relational resources co-created by The Indigenous LIFT Collective and co-facilitated by guest Indigenous Aunties bi-weekly.
These stories have been crafted in co-creation with the entrepreneur via the Amplify program which provides a combination of listening sessions and story coaching to create a digital profile for each cohort member. The Amplify portion of the project ensures Indigenous peoples and their perspectives are celebrated, seen and heard.
reGEN media will be creating a six-minute documentary to showcase hope, possibility, and the potential of collaborative partnerships to contribute towards Economic Reconciliation.
The co-creation of this impact initiative in its entirety is supported and made possible with our funding partners, Sunshine Coast Insurance Services Inc. and the Sunshine Coast Credit Union with the support of the Co-operators Advisor Community Fund. The Co-operators Advisor Community Fund supplements Financial Advisors’ donations to their community to help address unmet social, economic, and environmental needs, and build resilient communities for Canadians.
