Humans of Tech: Lyse Cornelius-Biggs

Humans of Tech: Lyse Cornelius-Biggs
Chief People Officer

Most people hear “Chief People Officer” and picture hiring, firing, and the occasional uncomfortable chat about policy. Lyse Cornelius-Biggs would argue it’s a lot more interesting than that. “Realistically, it’s like leading an orchestra,” she says. “Connecting all the parts, making sure they sync together so we work well together.” What tends to surprise people most is how far the role reaches into business strategy: where the company is going, and how we think about work itself.

The Jacket That Never Quite Fit

Lyse joined tech six years ago. Before that, her résumé read like the greatest hits of Canadian business: Bell, Rogers, Shoppers Drug Mart. She also spent time in the public sector at George Brown College. Different logos, but a common refrain followed her from role to role: “Slow down. We don’t have to build everything.”

She did the work well, but it always felt a bit off. “It was like wearing a jacket that didn’t quite fit,” she says. Nothing was explicitly wrong, it just didn’t match her pace.

Then a friend moved into tech and called with a simple line: “I need a ‘you’.” That invitation cracked something open. Tech became the space where her pace was an asset. “It was the perfect space for me to run,” she says. “Like being set free.” Surrounded by smart people, hard problems, and room to actually build, the jacket finally fit.

Looking back, she wishes she’d made the leap sooner. “Bet on yourself more. Take the risks. Don’t always play it so safe,” she says. Being careful and calculated had worked for her on paper, but she realizes now it also kept her from jumping faster into a space that fit.

Being a Phenomenal Force

When you ask Lyse about the challenges that shaped how she leads, she starts with a bright spot. Early in her career at Bell, she worked for a manager named Heather Lawson, the kind of People leader she hoped to become. Heather could talk business intricacies as fluently as she talked HR. She knew the numbers, how the company made money, and how people decisions landed on the P&L. She saw herself as a business leader first. 

At the same time, she was deeply present for her life outside of work. She had two daughters; if they called, she always took the call. “She was a phenomenal force,” Lyse says, “and she prioritized her family.” That combination of ambition and presence really stuck.

Heather also refused to let Lyse play small. In her twenties, Lyse found herself staring down a new compensation project just as Heather was heading out on vacation. Instead of delaying, Heather turned to her and said: “Why wouldn’t you do it? You can do it, and you will.” So Lyse did.Heather saw something in her that she hadn’t yet seen in herself. Today, when people on her team say “I can’t,” Lyse hears herself channeling the same response: “Yes, you can.” She’ll throw people in the deep end, but she makes sure they have lifejackets and her hand to hold. 

“She was a business leader first,” Lyse says. “She knew our business, our numbers, how we make money. She thought about strategy through the lens of people.” That’s the bar she still measures herself against.

Getting Clear

Another pivotal moment was less uplifting, but just as important. Lyse took a big, global role at a massive company. On paper, it was exactly the kind of job you’re supposed to want. Six months in, she found herself crying. “It was the worst decision I ever made,” she says. “Slow. Didn’t fit. I couldn’t get anything done. Just a completely different mindset.”

She felt trapped. Leaving would “look bad.” She beat herself up, convinced she had to stick it out. Eventually, she left—and ran straight into another role that also wasn’t right. Those experiences taught her an invaluable lesson: don’t just run away from something. Get really clear on what you’re running to. “It’s okay to recognize when something doesn’t work,” she says. “But you have to recognize what it is that you want to go to.” That clarity ultimately led her toward the roles that followed. It was painful in the moment, but it reset how she evaluates fit and what she says yes to.

How She Leads

If Lyse had to distill her leadership style into three words, she’d pick: pragmatic, human, curious. Her teams would probably add a fourth: her standards are way high.

In a tech environment that loves speed for speed’s sake, she has a different reflex. “Don’t get caught up in the desire to run fast just to run fast,” she says. In a culture that can over-index on momentum, she intentionally comes back to first principles. “What are we actually solving for?” she’ll ask. It’s a grounding voice when everyone else is tempted to sprint without a clear destination.

When she’s hiring, she looks well beyond technical skills. Competence matters, but she’s just as interested in how someone shows up as a person. One of her favourite interview questions is simple: “What’s your superpower?” Candidates don’t expect it, so they drop the polished, often rehearsed answers. “You get the real essence of them,” she says.

She looks for people who don’t take themselves too seriously, who are authentically human, and who understand that work is a team sport. “We spend a lot of time with people,” she says. “I want people who can do the work and also be great humans to do it with.”

Where Teams Hum

Lyse has been lucky to work with some great teams, but the ones where she’s felt true belonging share a common thread.

“It’s the places where I can show up,” she says. “There is mutual respect. We like each other. We come with our different sets of skills and it’s not a competition, but a collaborative, cohesive unit.” Those teams push each other, but it feels like rowing in the same direction, not fighting for the same seat.

At Varicent, she had that. “We got shit done,” she says, laughing. They all came with their own areas of specialty but banded together when it mattered. She loves when people show up, bring their A‑game, and see each other as humans and as operators, not just a means to an end. When it works, there’s a feeling she loves: the team is humming.

Beyond the Shiny Thing

When Lyse looks ahead, she isn’t dreaming about another shiny app so much as a reset. What excites her is a slight correction in tech: a move away from adding tools for the sake of it, toward asking whether what we build truly helps people and businesses.

Beneath the noise about AI taking every job, she sees a shift that isn’t getting the same headlines. People are realizing that two things can be true at once. We can embrace powerful technology and still have people doing great work; it doesn’t have to be one or the other. “If you read deeper,” she says, “you’re seeing companies say, ‘we went a bit too far.’”

For her, that’s exciting. It tells her the pendulum has a chance, if not to swing all the way back, then at least to land somewhere more balanced. The real business operators are recognizing that two things can be true. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.

Her hope is to help shape that next wave: one that recognizes we can augment and still be human. A version of tech that doesn’t force people to run endlessly without an end in sight. One that adds thoughtfulness into what’s possible, and remembers that at the end of the day, we can be disruptive and find new opportunities while still holding a humanistic perspective.

She’s quick to point out she’s not a “warm, fuzzy, kumbaya” person. But she believes this perspective is needed even more right now, when everyone is enamoured with the shiny thing and obsessed with not being left behind. In that rush, it’s easy to forget that progress doesn’t have to be an either/or when it comes to embracing innovation and building thoughtfully, with humanity. As Lyse puts it, “It’s an ‘and’ instead of an ‘or.’”

‍

🔗 Connect with Lyse on Linkedin