Michelle Ell is a Canadian nonprofit executive with 20+ years of experience leading community-driven organizations through periods of growth and transformation.

 

Her career began in youth leadership and advocacy in Canada — helping young people develop the skills to influence their communities through public speaking, stakeholder engagement, and grassroots organizing. That early foundation in relationship-building and community mobilization has shaped everything since.

 

From Canada, Michelle moved into program coordination with a Canadian NGO, which brought her to East Africa supporting field based teams. What she found in the field was a gap she could fill: frontline teams lacked the guidelines and tools to reach communities effectively. She shifted into strategic communications — designing training materials, community engagement strategies, and behaviour-change campaigns that were ultimately adopted by three government ministries.

 

That work led to progressively senior leadership roles managing large-scale health and social service programs across Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Over the next fifteen years, Michelle managed portfolios up to $50M, led teams of 40+, and worked closely with boards, government partners, and funders to scale services reaching hundreds of thousands of people. She built organizational cultures where people thrive — achieving 91% staff engagement and reduced turnover from 60% to 5% in one of the largest international NGOs — and led workforce development initiatives that reached thousands of frontline professionals.

 

Most recently, Michelle has worked at the systems level — advising national and provincial governments on strengthening service delivery infrastructure, leading the development of professional standards adopted into law, and building cross-sector coalitions that changed how services reach vulnerable populations.

 

At every stage of her career, Michelle has been the person who builds bridges to establish meaningful connections with stakeholders, and to merge best practice with local expertise.  She is known as someone who thinks without the box, and someone who leads with both heart and strategy - helping diverse leaders advance transformational change at scale.

 

Michelle holds an Executive MBA and Graduate Diploma from Athabasca University, a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) with executive education from MIT Sloan (AI & Strategy), Yale (Environmental Leadership), and Cornell (Conflict Resolution). She is now based in Alberta and seeking her next senior leadership role with a mission-driven organization in Canada.

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