our ambassadors' club

A man with a heart for helping others, Jean-François began his career as a lawyer in private practice, before moving into financial services. 

In recent years, he worked as a specialist financial planner for professionals and business leaders, until the day his life literally turned upside down. No one is immune to depression, and Jean-François had no idea that he would one day suffer the consequences. 

Convinced that his story could influence someone else's path, he embarked on a career as a speaker to raise awareness and help prevent depression. 

He is extremely proud to be able to join the Relief team as an ambassador in making psychological health a priority within our organisations.

Florence K has always been passionate about music and writing. A successful pianist and singer for over twenty years, she has won several artistic awards, including two Félix (ADISQ) awards and numerous JUNO nominations, for one or the other of her ten albums.

In 2015, following a major depressive episode, Florence wrote her story and published her first book, Buena Vida (Libre Expression). It quickly became a bestseller, reflecting the importance of discussing mental health openly. This was followed by “Nueva Vida: Leading the Dance with Bipolar Disorder” (Libre Expression, 2021). She is currently working on her next book, “Quand ceux qu'on aime sont en détresse”, “When those we love suffer”, in collaboration with the Relief organization (to be published in 2025 by Libre Expression).

Florence K is currently pursuing her PhD in clinical psychology and research at UQAM and her research focuses on the links between creativity and mood disorders. She also devotes much of her time to destigmatizing mental health and promoting access to psychological care.

Since the beginning of her studies, she was awarded the Grande Diplômée de l'Université TÉLUQ and the diplômée d'honneur du département de communication de l'Université de Montréal, in addition to receiving a Fonds de recherche du Québec grant, a perseverance grant and a commitment grant from the Université de Montréal, as well as an excellence grant from the Fonds de l'Université du Québec.

Her conference "Mental Health: Leading the dance" is in great demand in the community, educational, corporate and healthcare sectors. Florence also hosts the weekly radio show C'est Formidable! on CBC Radio and CBC Music.

And her new album, Brésil mon amour, is a tribute to Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim. 

Nicholas Routhier is a serial tech entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in the information technology and multimedia sectors. He notably co-founded SENSIO Technologies and led it from its inception to its initial public offering, collaborating with world-class partners and clients such as Samsung, Disney, the NBA, and FIFA. His journey was marked by significant successes but also major setbacks. The closure of SENSIO in 2016 marked the beginning of a challenging period that culminated two years later with the suicide of a former colleague. This experience triggered a significant personal journey of grief, recovery, growth, and well-being that transformed his life and his entrepreneurial perspective.

Since 2016, he has been mentoring leaders of tech startups in achieving their success and realizing their dreams. Having personally faced episodes of stress, anxiety, and psychological distress, Nicholas now advocates for a more humane entrepreneurial approach based on respect, compassion, and mental well-being for founders. Driven by this vision and a desire to be a catalyst for change, he decided to join Relief as an ambassador in 2021. He openly shares his experiences, successes, failures, and the lessons learned without reservation, in order to pay it forward and enable a new generation of entrepreneurs and businesspeople to navigate their professional journeys with greater serenity.  

Paul Simard is the father of three beautiful girls, a speaker and writer, a death doula, and a trained mental wellness guide. He focuses on small-group facilitation, primarily with men and couples, as well as small-to-medium sized organisations.

He uses a variety of tools to create brave spaces for participants to move through a range of experiences, from stress and anxiety to addiction, abuse,trauma and our relationship to death and dying. His focus is to support individuals and organisations to engage in the “Dangerous Conversations” that they never knew they had to have, but that support their overall health, well-being and success.

Throughout his life, Paul has navigated a wide range of mental health challenges, with significant impact on his psychological and physical well-being, as well on his personal and professional life. With a commitment to being a more supportive father and global citizen, he has come to believe that one of the most important shifts we can make around mental health is the relationship that we have with our emotions and experiences.

He has written multiple articles on mental wellness, death and dying, masculinity/femininity, decolonization/ repaganization, and leadership, has been a guest on multiple podcasts, and is a TEDx Speaker (The Mythical Man).

Petrona's planned suicide 10 years ago was a cry to God. And when a friend of hers joked about her being "bipolar", she brushed it off. Years later, while suspended on a 30,000 feet bridge and having the worst panic attack of her life, she was forced to face her mental illness. She will probably always live with suicidal tendencies, but now understands how to ride the waves of her depressive episodes. She knows that hope and despair come and go in waves and her job is to make my way back to the shorelines of hope.

Sharing her story is one way that she can contribute to breaking the cycle of stigmatization, shame, fear, and guilt that compounds our efforts to heal our mental health. Her book Stigmatized, an Amazon Best Seller, exposes the tremendous power of hope and healing and is told to offer new hope to others who are coping every day with mental illness.

A creative business leader with an explorer’s ingenuity and drive, Martin Enault embraces new ways of experiencing the world and doing business differently. Chief entrepreneur in residence at Centech, one of the top 10 business incubators in the world, Martin brings entrepreneurs to build companies structured solidly both financially and with strong human values. He was previously COO of Felix & Paul Studios, an EMMY® Award-winning immersive entertainment studio, where he collaborated on projects such as the first captation in VR within the International Space Station. He was also COO of C2 Montreal and CEO Asia-Pacific for C2 International. He’s collaborated with some of the world's leading minds such as Richard Branson, James Cameron, Chelsea Clinton, Snoop Dogg, Yuval Harari and Steve Wozniak, on events he produced in various continents.  In 2009, he co-founded and became CEO of Intellitix, the first company in the world using RFID for access control and cashless for large events, he implemented the technology for the world’s largest festivals.

Martin has been involved in bringing changes in mental health for the past 15 years. As Chairman of the non-profit Relief, he has been sharing how his struggles with anxiety and depression have shaped his life and career.

Christian is an executive in the Healthcare industry with 15+ years of experience who has personally faced “Professional Burnout”. After facing and overcoming this struggle, Christian is hoping that sharing his experience and learnings will inspire and help individuals to become aware for themselves and others to prioritize mental health.

“On November 29, 2018 my world collapsed, I learned the hard way and did not anticipate that I would be spending several months away from work on disability. #Burnout or “épuisement professionnel” is multifactorial, no one can point out one single real cause... but it happens to the best of us!”

“This journey has been a blessing in my case due to the love, understanding, and support of my family (Bérengère - my better half, Adrien and Axel - my boys), my friends, and the help of professionals (Chantal - my family physician, Céline - my soul doctor) and my corporation. Their kindness has been the most powerful source of renewable energy that shaped me today into a better version of myself!”

After facing and overcoming this challenge, Christian is grateful every day and believes that giving back is not an option but rather an obligation. It is therefore only natural for him to partner with Relief to openly discuss and reduce the stigma associated with mental health in the community and workplace.

Christian has been fortunate to live and work in many different countries (Congo DRC, Guinea, Belgium, France, and Canada).  He hopes that this multicultural experience will allow him to further connect with individuals who want to discuss mental health.

Martin has been involved in group insurance, employee benefits and corporate health and wellness for 22 years.

He joined Manulife Financial in 1999. For the next 14 years, he worked in the disability and sales field as a corporate representative for another major insurer, Medavie Blue Cross. In 2016, he was promoted to Director and Senior Consultant at Morneau Shepell, an employee benefits consulting firm, and in 2019, he became Director of Business Development and then Chief Operating Officer (COO) at health and wellness firm Optima Santé globale.

From 2021 to 2024, he worked as Senior Director, Growth and Development at Relief, an organization that helps people living with anxiety, depression and bipolarity. He remains a proud ambassador for the organization.

Today, he is Vice-President, Growth and Development at inpowr, a Quebec-based company that offers health and wellness solutions to companies and the people who make them up.