Michael is a leadership and advocacy strategist with more than 30 years on the front-lines of senior management in the private and public sectors.  He is also an Associate at the Telfer School of Management.  Michael provides confidential counsel to private sector companies, governments at all levels, and multilateral institutions in Canada, the US and abroad.

Michael has been recognized as one of Canada’s leading facilitators and leadership experts; providing targeted interventions for senior managers and strategic advice to CEOs and senior leaders.  He also creates, designs and delivers his own leadership programs that always include hands-on strategies that provide tangible tools and skills. 

Michael spent more than a decade as a Senior Executive with the government of Canada, often working with Deputy Ministers in that awkward space where public service process meets political imperatives.   He trained Prime Ministerial appointees, pushed government departments and agencies to embolden their strategies, and facilitated major transformations.  He was also Interim President of CAPAM (Commonwealth Association of Public Administration Management); Canada’s only Commonwealth agency.

Before entering the leadership advocacy field, Michael spent a dozen years building, from the ground up, a national lobby business for the foodservice industry; opening up offices around the country and saving the business hundreds of millions of dollars a year.  Working with CEOs of some of Canada’s largest companies, he was renowned for his ability to weave, cajole, and negotiate his way through the conflicts between business needs and government mandates. 

Earlier in his career, Michael was Legislative Assistant to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Justice.  He was also a senior advisor to Canada’s first woman Prime Minister, secretary to her transition team, and a strategic communications advisor in the Prime Minister’s office.

Michael is a Canadian who grew up in Montreal, Ottawa, Africa and Europe. He has worked as a tour guide at Vimy Ridge in northern France; a sports reporter for a weekly newspaper outside Toronto; and as a surveyor on a game ranch in Kenya.  Michael and his wife Laura Redican have a 16 year-old son and a 22 year-old daughter. 

He also has a Sesame Street character named after him.

• “Michael was a very engaging speaker who clearly believes in the material and the value it brings”

• “I cannot begin to state what a profound impact Michael had on the entire working group”

• “Very knowledgeable, easy-going, non-judgemental and approachable”

• “A very concise, no nonsense approach…. A great experience”

• “One of Canada’s best!”

Michael Ferrabee. Founder and Team Lead