About

Gabby Hillis is an Indigenous woman based in the Kispiox Valley on Gitxsan territory in northern British Columbia. Her career has been built around a single commitment: serving Indigenous children, youth, families, Elders, and the communities that hold them together.

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Gabby holds a BA in Psychology (Honours) and is currently completing a certificate in Public Relations. She has worked as an HR Manager, Program Development Manager, and Programs Manager across Indigenous and non-profit organizations in British Columbia, and now runs a consulting practice serving Indigenous organizations and First Nations governments on strategic communications, community engagement, fund development, and governance planning. She sits on the Board of Directors at BC Council for Families, where she serves as interim Secretary and sits on the Indigenous Advisory Council, Fund Development, and Finance Committees. She is also Board Treasurer at EmotionsBC: Emotions Health & Wellness Society of BC.

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Her work has always moved between the strategic and the relational. Whether she is building a communications plan from the ground up, writing a funding proposal, or helping a governance team navigate a difficult transition, she approaches the work with the same question: what does this community need, and how do we build something that actually serves them?

 

Gabby's current work centres a question that most governance frameworks don't ask: what does it take for people to feel safe enough to participate? Through her speaking, facilitation, and writing, she explores the dynamics of lateral violence in First Nations governance and the practices that build lateral trust. She is currently developing the lateral trust framework: a practice-based model for rebuilding relational trust in Indigenous communities, workplaces, and governance, grounded in both communications scholarship and Indigenous relational governance knowledge. Her writing on this topic is available on this site.

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She brings this work into rooms as a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator, working with First Nations governments, Indigenous organizations, and non-profits who are ready to have honest conversations about how their teams and communities communicate, make decisions, and hold space for one another.