Stephanie Shostak & Prism Consulting Services Ltd.

Stephanie Shostak is the President & CEO of Prism Consulting Services Ltd. Stephanie is also a Transgender Advocate from Edmonton, who focuses on Diversity, Inclusion, Stakeholder Collaboration and Engagement with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Stephanie also is a 20+ year Privacy Professional with a focus on Privacy Compliance and Breach Investigations.

Stephanie is also a Director/Board Member and current Treasurer on the Trans Equality Society of Alberta (TESA), who has a mandate to be a witness to and a voice for matters concerning Trans Albertans.  As a Director/Board Member of TESA, Stephanie is engaged by creating media releases, participating in media interviews and engaged in panel discussions and meetings with stakeholders and elected officials.

Stephanie has assisted in bringing positive change to Trans Albertans by working with the previous and current provincial government to make changes to or to bring about new legislation. This has included: the Vital Statistics Act and Traffic Safety Act which allowed for easier changes to Birth Certificates, Drivers Licenses and Provincial Identification Cards; An Act to Amend the Alberta Bill of Rights to Protect our Children (aka Bill 10) that allowed for the formation of Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) in schools; and Alberta Human Rights Amendment Act, 2015 (aka Bill 7) which brought in both gender identity and gender expression into this enactment.

On behalf of the Trans Equality Society of Alberta (TESA), Stephanie was very active in raising and continues to raise awareness around the implications, on all Albertans, of Bill 207: Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act, as tabled by MLA Williams.

Stephanie was one of the Co-Chairs for the 2019 Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) Conference in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  In 2017,  Stephanie was the only Albertan who served as a Member of the Organizing Committee for the 2017 Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) Conference, and with other Members from across Canada to ensure the success of the largest to date Transgender Conference in Canada. While at the conference, she served as a Moderator of Saturday’s Plenary titled “Fostering Safety & Celebrating Inclusion in Service Provisions, Systems & Sectors” and as the room coordinator for two sessions. In addition, she took it upon herself to coordinate the Alberta Caucus that brought together individuals from Albert to network with each other. 

In addition, Stephanie is a Volleyball Canada certified National Referee who referees all levels of volleyball, up to and including college and university, both in Canada and the United States.  Stephanie is also a member of the You Can Play - Western Canada Board.  You Can Play is dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.  Stephanie is also a member of the Canadian Federal LGBTQI2S Sports Inclusion Taskforce which is a flexible, informal coalition working to end  LGBTQI2S bias in sport through education form and promotion of LGBTQI2S inclusion in Canadian sport. For 12 years (July 1, 2008 to July 5, 2020), Stephanie was also the President, Volleyball Alberta Officials.

Stephanie also engages and collaborates with stakeholders in the development of policies, guidelines and other diversity and inclusion specific documents. Stephanie also has coordinated and facilitated Stakeholder Engagement Sessions and has the drafter of final reports on these sessions. Stephanie and makes herself available to speak to students at schools, colleges, and universities; at various sessions, webinars, seminars, events, symposiums and conferences in Canada and the United States.

Stephanie experience as a Privacy Professional includes expertise in privacy impact assessments, breach mitigation and compliance; strategic planning and policy development; management of staff, multiple projects and priorities; providing health information privacy expertise to support various initiatives; processing access requests; investigating and managing privacy complaints, breaches or allegations of breaches; and responsible for developing and administering privacy education sessions.

As a Senior Information & Privacy Manager in the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Alberta (2020-present), along with other OIPC staff, assists the Commissioner in the performance of  legislative and regulatory responsibilities in providing oversight of Alberta’s public, health and private sectors to ensure compliance with  the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), the Health Information Act (HIA), and the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). Through relationship building, strong leadership and effective mediation/investigation and communication skills, the position influences and effects change in the development and implementation of initiatives, programs, policies, goals and proposed legislative schemes in the public, health and private sectors.

As the former Privacy Manager at Alberta Health (2006-2016) and of both the former Regional Health Authorities (RHA’s) [Aspen (2003-2006) and Lakeland (2000-2003)] she was responsible for leading the provision of services to the department, RHA’s and the provincial health sector; developing and recommending privacy best practices regarding the privacy requirements of the HIA and FOIP.  This included the development and maintenance of Privacy Impact Assessment process; ensuring activities are privacy enhancing where possible; monitoring compliance with the privacy legislation; assessing privacy risk and for developing privacy risk mitigation strategies; and following up on privacy breaches, as appropriate.  She also provided health information privacy expertise as required to support Information Management initiatives including but not limited to the Electronic Health Record Information Systems (EHRIS), Personal Health Record (PHR), Open Government Initiative, and other provincial and regional systems initiatives as required.

While in the RHA’s she served on both Senior and Regional Management Teams where her responsibilities included: consulting and working with a wide range of stakeholders both internal and external to the health sector; developing, implementing and maintaining operational and administrative policies and procedures; negotiating various contracts and overseeing various Requests for Proposals; creating and managing a Regional Health Authority Foundation; developing and maintaining Business Continuity, Mass Causality Response and Emergency Evacuation Plans; managing budgets; and served as the regional contact and liaison with external Legal Counsel for litigation or potential litigation.