Karine Arsenault-Pelletier is a finance leader and transformation strategist whose career has been defined by a simple conviction: when organizations align clear strategy with disciplined execution, change becomes a competitive advantage. A Chartered Professional Accountant with a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and advanced leadership training, she blends financial rigor with a human-centered approach to guiding teams through growth, restructuring, and renewal. Her work spans manufacturing, information technology, financial services, and real estate—industries where systems, controls, and culture must move in concert for results to stick.
Today, as Chief Financial Officer at Han-Logement, a Canadian non-profit that provides affordable housing to people with physical and intellectual disabilities, Karine leads a comprehensive modernization agenda. She is building an integrated operating model that connects property management, maintenance, and finance in one cohesive system, while strengthening risk management and governance. Under her stewardship, financing structures are being calibrated to the organization’s long-term mission, enabling sustainable growth without compromising service quality or safety. It is a role that draws on every dimension of her experience—strategic planning, operational discipline, and deep empathy for the communities served.
Karine’s path to executive leadership is rooted in years of hands-on transformation work. As Finance & Performance Director and later CFO for Keyrus North America and Keyrus Life Science, she stood at the intersection of strategy and operations, translating ambitious growth plans into budgets, forecasts, internal controls, and dashboards that leaders could trust. She implemented best-practice frameworks, harmonized policies across jurisdictions, and built high-performing teams capable of meeting stringent reporting requirements under IFRS and SOX-style controls. The result was not only improved profitability and cash discipline, but a foundation of reliability that allowed business leaders to act quickly on accurate information.
Her reputation for steady leadership through complexity led to mandates as CFO at Black Ridge and Gestion Zagora, where she guided finance organizations through periods of rapid change. There, Karine modernized financial controls, rebuilt historical financials, and aligned systems for future scalability—work that required both technical fluency and the interpersonal skill to mentor teams through new expectations. She paired cash flow forecasting and scenario analysis with process redesign, ensuring that decisions were data-driven and that value creation was embedded in everyday operations.
Before these roles, Karine helped Banvest elevate its finance, HR, and operations practices, reinforcing the employer brand and aligning culture with strategy. She championed standardized processes that improved data quality and decision speed, always measuring impact through balanced scorecards and pragmatic KPIs. Earlier still, at Cresswell Industries, she united accounting, IT, and HR across multiple manufacturing plants, implemented a new ERP version, integrated disparate systems, and introduced performance indicators that sharpened visibility from the shop floor to the boardroom. In each environment, she demonstrated that transformation succeeds when people understand the “why,” processes remove friction, and systems deliver clarity.
Karine’s consulting practice—founded in 2009 and still active—has given her a broad vantage point across company sizes and sectors. As a trusted advisor, she moves fluidly from financial strategy and budgeting to variance analysis, cash management, and executive coaching. Clients know her for listening first, simplifying second, and then building solutions that last, whether that means deploying an ERP, refining governance, or designing a change roadmap leaders can communicate with confidence.
Education has been a throughline in Karine’s career and service. In addition to her CPA and BCom, she completed a leadership and management certification delivered in partnership with Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business Executive Centre, further strengthening her executive toolkit. She also pursued studies in international relations, expanding her perspective on how policy, development, and cross-border collaboration influence organizational strategy. This global lens, paired with bilingual fluency in French and English, equips her to navigate multi-jurisdictional contexts with nuance.
Beyond the office, Karine expresses her values through governance and volunteer service. As Treasurer and board member at Terre Sans Frontières and an Area Leader for CPA Canada’s Financial Literacy initiatives, she advances financial education and responsible stewardship. Her international volunteer work in Haiti—supporting organizations with management practices and Excel-based reporting tools—speaks to a belief that access to knowledge and systems can transform communities just as surely as it transforms companies. She brings that same ethos of empowerment to every team she leads.
Karine’s leadership style is grounded, transparent, and decidedly practical. She favors clear operating rhythms, crisp decision rights, and performance dashboards that align day-to-day actions with long-term outcomes. Her teams benefit from a coaching mindset: she sets high standards, invests in skill development, and celebrates the small wins that add up to cultural momentum. Colleagues describe her as a steady hand in uncertain times—someone who asks incisive questions, balances ambition with prudence, and turns insights into action.
Strategically, Karine is both architect and builder. She can design integrated finance and operating models, but she is equally comfortable rolling up her sleeves to reconcile a balance sheet, refine an account structure, or map a process that needs to be simplified. Her toolkit spans ERP implementations (including Microsoft Dynamics and Syteline), internal control frameworks, ROI analysis, and the measurement disciplines of balanced scorecards and financial indicators. Importantly, she never loses sight of the human dimension: change only endures when people are equipped, engaged, and heard.
What distinguishes Karine is not only the breadth of her experience but the consistency of her results across contexts. Whether leading a non-profit through sustainable growth, steering a scale-up through its first wave of institutional controls, or advising a mid-market manufacturer on operational excellence, she brings the same disciplined curiosity and bias for execution. She believes every organization can become faster, clearer, and kinder in how it makes decisions—and that finance, done well, is the connective tissue that makes this possible.
Looking ahead, Karine is eager to contribute her skills in boardrooms where transformation is on the agenda and stakeholder trust is paramount. She offers a seasoned perspective on strategy, risk, and performance, coupled with the practical experience of building systems that endure. For organizations seeking a leader who can unite numbers, narrative, and people into a coherent path forward, Karine Arsenault-Pelletier is a compelling ally.
Character:
Karine’s judgment is anchored in integrity, and she consistently chooses long-term value over short-term optics. She treats colleagues and stakeholders with respect, creating environments where candid dialogue is possible and encouraged. She views accountability as a shared practice—clear commitments, measured outcomes, and generosity in giving credit.
Knowledge:
Karine’s expertise spans financial strategy, internal controls, ERP deployment, and operational design, enabling her to see end-to-end connections others miss. She keeps current on standards and tools while translating technical detail into plain language leaders can use. She learns quickly in new industries because she asks precise questions and validates assumptions with data.
Strategic:
Karine links vision to execution through practical operating models, reliable metrics, and decision cadences that move the organization forward. She anticipates risk by pressure-testing scenarios and aligning resources with the most material drivers of value. She builds capacity as she builds solutions so improvements endure after the initial change effort.
Communication:
Karine communicates with clarity and calm, tailoring the message to boards, executives, frontline teams, or community partners. She turns complex analysis into narratives that inform, persuade, and mobilize action. She listens as intently as she speaks, ensuring communication is a two-way mechanism for learning and alignment.
