ABOUT MICHELLE

With over 25 years of experience, Michelle Cantor is a Certified Diversity Executive® and an ICF Certified Coach. She often refers to herself as a “Coachultant” because she skillfully leverages unique consulting and coaching techniques in her approach.

As a driver of thought leadership and strategic direction in organizational and talent development, she has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations. Michelle has a demonstrated track record of designing and implementing successful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs that integrate strategic planning, coaching, and organizational culture development. As a women’s leadership coach, she helps high-achieving women create a vision and clear path to accomplishing professional goals that enable their whole selves to thrive.

Michelle initiated her human performance consulting career at Accenture and rose from a performance consultant to Operations Lead for Accenture’s North America Behavioral Interview Center. She honed her expertise in strategic planning as a Program Lead for Accenture’s Global Smart Grid Consulting Practice, a 500-million-dollar business. Next, she became the Program Lead of the organization’s North America Strategy Inclusion and Diversity (I&D) Practice.

Michelle serves as the Board of Directors Chairperson for Living Arts, an organization dedicated to igniting creativity in the lives of Detroit youth through the arts. Additionally, she is an Inforum (a Michigan women’s leadership and networking organization) facilitator and coach. Crain’s Detroit Business has recognized her as a Notable Leader in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Michelle earned BA and MBA degrees from the Universities of Michigan and Indiana. Additionally, she is fluent in Spanish and an alum of Leadership Oakland’s Cornerstone program.

Michelle has been married for 27 years and has 3 children. She has forged her own path for work-life balance, keeping her mind, body, and spirit aligned by spending time with family and friends and being outdoors with her most loyal companion, Lucy.

Michelle is an ICF certified coach.

Client love

  • “Since Michelle’s approach has leadership being an active and critical part of the entire process, our leadership team is already embedding a more inclusive and equitable mindset into everything we do.”

    Linda Lutz

    CFO, Detroit Symphony Orchestra

  • “Michelle’s facilitation empowered our staff by allowing this diverse group of people to work together to identify bottlenecks, agree on solutions, and implement the changes. Staff are now communicating more often and more effectively with improved accountability.”

    Paul Blatt

    CEO, Gesher Human Services

  • “Michelle was an incredible coach, guiding me to understand how to leverage my strengths to meet my goals, and lean on other resources that complimented my strengths.”

    Susanna Borgelt

    Senior Manager of Partnerships & Development

  • “Michelle is a tremendous asset to Living Arts. Her ability to synthesize information quickly and provide insightful suggestions has provided tremendous value. Her innate demeanor as a coach and mentor is palpable upon introduction. Michelle’s deep understanding of complex systems and people’s motivations are her “secret sauce.”

    Alissa Novoselick

    CFOO, Empowerment Plan (Former Executive Director of Living Arts)

  • "Michelle’s knowledge of the work, including meeting facilitation, strategic planning, and the all-around DEI space, has added tremendous value to our team. Additionally, she has demonstrated the right presence to lead amongst organization and sector leaders in our region."

    Dustin McClellan

    Founder & CEO, Pontiac Community Foundation

  • “Michelle Cantor has provided her coaching and consulting expertise to facilitate webinars for our organization. No matter the topic, she facilitates an impactful discussion that enables participants to feel comfortable, be honest, and shift their perspectives. We have received exceptional feedback."

    Amber Martin

    Director of Member Relations, The Society for Diversity

  • “As a two-person company, it didn’t seem obvious that I needed help with diversity, equity and inclusion. But when I reached out to Michelle with a personnel issue, she helped me identify the greater issue: I needed diversity of thought.”

    Pamela Victor

    President & Founder, Happier Valley Comedy

  • “I would highly recommend Ms. Cantor whether you are just starting to explore the implementation of a DEI program, or if you are looking for further advancement of a system already in place."

    Kyle Kamidoi

    DEI Committee Chair, Garan, Lucow, Miller P.C.

  • "As a result of Michelle’s work, we were able to improve our diversity and inclusion metrics by the targeted amount and create great positive buzz throughout the Strategy Practice."

    Deborah Brecher

    Strategy Managing Director, Accenture NA

  • “We had not done a staff training encompassing everyone from C-Suite team members to facility staff before this time with Michelle. Many of these team members have never partaken in such a presentation before. The staff walked away from its interaction with Michelle feeling good about the time spent, the lessons learned and optimistic about how we could utilize the takeaways to further lift our community.”

    Jason Plotkin

    Executive Director, Temple Israel