Celina Caesar-Chavannes is a business consultant, coach and international speaker, who currently serves part time as the Sr. Advisor, EDI Initiatives and Adjunct Lecturer at Queen’s University. Her new memoir, “Can You Hear Me Now?” was published by Random House Canada, in February 2021 and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 Shaughnessy Cohen prize for political writing and a book award finalist for the Speaker of Ontario Legislature. Her new leadership development app, MaximizingU, is available on Google Play and the App Store.

Celina was the former Member of Parliament for Whitby, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Parliamentary Secretary for International Development. During her term as a Member of Parliament, Celina was awarded several distinctions including a feature in the April 2018 edition of O (Oprah Winfrey) Magazine entitled, “What would you stand up for and named Chatelaine Magazine’s Woman of the Year (2019).

She has a Bachelor of Science, an MBA in Healthcare Management, an Executive MBA from the Rotman School of Management, and is currently enrolled in a neuroscience PhD program at Queen’s University exploring the intersection of empathy, leadership and equity. Celina is also a [Deepak] Chopra Certified Health and Meditation Instructor, and bases much of her work on Ayurvedic principles, as well as self-awareness and development.

Prior to politics, Celina founded Resolve Research Solutions, Inc. – a research management consulting firm with the aim to provide research, consulting and education services to organizations seeking equity and advancing progress for those with multiple intersecting identities.

Do you have empathetic courage to be the intentional, action-oriented, transformative leader that your industry, and most importantly, the world needs? In this session, Celina Caesar-Chavannes will push you to rethink equity through personal stories, self-reflection and an understanding of power and privilege. She will inspire, empower and renew confidence in your innate ability to use your past and present experiences to change systems (one workspace at a time).

Everything you have done, even your mistakes, informs your passion as a leader, unlocks your maximum potential and allows those around you to feel a sense of belonging. Moreover, harnessing the lessons from those mistakes activates the empathetic courage required to be an intentional, action-oriented, transformative leader. The question is, can you harness the lessons learned from your moments of embarrassment or exclusion to be the leader required in these changing times? In this session, Celina Caesar-Chavannes will push you to rethink equity. She will provide personalized examples that will leave you inspired and empowered as an equity practitioner and ambassador irrespective of your identity.

Ten easy to follow, practical, lessons and strategies to transform your life and maximize your potential

In this talk, Celina reveals the top 10 lessons she curated as an award-winning entrepreneur and continued to use throughout her political career. Through engaging anecdotes, funny stories and practical examples, she paints a clear picture of how individual leaders can thrive in their lives and organizations. From being on stage with Prince to dreadful stories of potentially irritating First Lady Michelle Obama, Celina is as vulnerable, as she is vibrant in this presentation, and it all starts with the first step to transformation.

This session is offered as a 1-hour keynote, interactive session or half-day workshop with curriculum, actionable lessons and take-home exercises.

Investing in DEI is easy. The challenge is getting a return on your investment. Most organizations do not know where to start or where the real pain points exist to enable real returns. In this presentation, Celina starts with the foundational elements, then shows through clear pictures and examples how most organizations continue to create inequity. Finally, she will help you understand what it is costing you and how you can fix it.

These talks leave audiences feeling refreshed and knowledgeable and give people the tools to overcome the challenges that limit creating real equity and building brighter futures for their organizations.

How to transform your organizational culture, and implement successful strategies by capitalizing on fear.

Why would anyone deliberately leverage fear to build back better? Because fear, in moderation, activates the amygdala, hypothalamus, and locus coeruleus of the brain, and has been used for centuries, to help us win. From fighting a sabre-toothed tiger to some other, more contemporary, threats, fear can compel us to do incredible things. By understanding how fear works to drive success, organizations can build innovative connections and create an environment to pay attention to the unusual suspects.