Michelle Schafer⁠ — BA and ICF Certified (PCC) – Professional Career Coach / Facilitator

Michelle is a certified career coach specializing in career transition and leadership development.  She is passionate about people and inspired by their progress, with more than 25 years of professional and volunteer experience in multi-tiered profit and not-for-profit organizations.  She provides proven strong coaching, relationship building and facilitation skills, with the ability to help clients tell their “career story” and make lasting change in their life and career. Michelle has worked with clients in various functional levels, including experience in federal and municipal government, not-for-profit, high-tech, education, financial services, retail, hospitality and sport organizations.

She is known for her ability to connect with people and develop individual coaching programs with activities to help clients achieve results, including empowering employees, leading teams, establishing positive relationships with others in the workplace and having challenging conversations. Michelle is certified as an Integral Professional Coach, with practical experience facilitating training, managing large projects, engaging team members and improving organization visibility. Clients value her ability to create a safe and comfortable sharing environment, and describe her as empathetic, honest and a good listener. She is highly capable of building a psychologically safe learning environment in both in-person and virtual leadership development environments.

Michelle also provides pro-bono coaching to disadvantaged women with Up With Women and networking support with the Empowering Newcomer Women program with World Skills, helping clients in both organizations return to the workplace with confidence. She was recognized in 2020 as one of Ottawa’s Top 20 career coaches, and was selected in 2021 as an Executive Contributor and Global 500 award winner with Brainz Magazine.

Michelle’s qualifications include:

• Professional Integral Coach certification with Integral Coaching Canada, 2016
• Associate Integral Coach certification with Integral Coaching Canada, 2014 – 2015
• ICF Professional Certified Coach designation, 2021 
• Team Coaching Certification with Global Team Coaching Institute, 2020
• Honours Bachelor of Arts with Administration Option, Major in English Language and Literature, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario

Her areas of expertise include:

• Coaching (leadership, career transition) – 1:1 and group, both virtually and in-person
• Workshop Design and Facilitation in Leadership Development and career transition (both virtually and in-person)
• Public Speaking (Wilfrid Laurier University, World Skills, Up With Women)
• Relationship Management

Thomas PPA Certified Practitioner (Behavioural Styles assessment)