Michel Shah

Michel Shah is an experienced educator, speaker, coach and consultant who has been a leader in the development of personal and interpersonal skills for over twenty years. She is engaging, “thought-provoking, insightful and inspiring!” Her passion, enthusiasm and confidence combined with a witty sense of humour inspires engagement and excellence.

She is highly regarded for her creative, innovative and problem solving skills. Michel values integrity, respect and excellence so she has high expectations of herself and others. She challenges participants to think and act in concrete ways to achieve desired results. From education and health care to finance and government, Michel provides strategies and readily actionable steps for skills development.

Michel is a professor and faculty consultant for human skills development at George Brown College. Facilitator of Executive Education at Schulich School of Business, York University, the author of Explorations in Career Development: Personal and Professional (2019), and UpSkill: Soft Skills and Professional Development Essentials (2021), McGraw-Hill Education.

She provides consultation, training and coaching services to a range of corporate clients, municipalities and crown corporations.

Michel has a Masters in Gender and Social Policy from the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is a Certified Training and Development Professional, Certified Emotional Intelligence Coach and a Project Management Professional.

She incorporates sound pedagogical principles, adult learning methodologies, applied practice to transfer learning, Universal Design for Learning principles and accessibility compliance standards in the teaching and learning process. Michel unpacks complex issues bit by bit using relatable stories and practical examples that inspire greater awareness and produce many “aha” moments. Then she provides “bite size” steps that are readily actioned to deliver measurable results.

She truly believes the development of personal and interpersonal skills can significantly improve how we work, play and live with each other and have a lasting impact on our rapidly changing society.

More recently Michel has been sharing stories, leading conversations and reflections on bias consciousness, diversity, equity and inclusion. One story Michel loves to share is the story of how she got a boy’s name.

On the personal side, Michel enjoys travelling and learning about other people and cultures or hanging out at home with her husband, children, family and friends.