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Lee-Anne McAlear is Program Director of Schulich’s Centre of Excellence in Innovation Management at York University and president of the Toronto based innovation house, CURRENT. She is a highly regarded consultant, facilitator, speaker and training specialist. For over 20 years, Lee-Anne has worked globally with Fortune 500 and high growth entrepreneurial firms to help formulate strategy and enhance individual, team and organizational performance.
A graduate of University of Toronto, Lee-Anne’s expertise has taken her from Toronto to extensive work in 23 countries in North and South America, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, India, the Middle East and Australia.

An exceptional generalist, she has delivered a broad platform of award-winning consulting and facilitating initiatives in the leadership and team development, creativity and innovation, and change management. 

She has delivered leadership initiatives across many sectors (financial, pharmaceutical, technological, manufacturing, entertainment and governmental) and has piloted numerous innovation initiatives globally.


Her clients include the Royal Bank, CIBC, Deloitte, American Express, Astra Zeneca, Rogers, Alcon Labs, Toyota, Reckitt BenKieser, the University Health Network, Johnson and Johnson, Sony, the Heart and Stroke Foundation. She is sought after as both a dynamic speaker and facilitator of both large and small groups.

As Program Director at Schulich, Lee-Anne is responsible for the design and delivery of executive development programs in the area of innovation and creativity.

Lee-Anne is the only speaker certified in Jim Harris’ work. She has designed training programs for organizations based on the best selling books Blindsided! and The Learning Paradox. 

Lee-Anne is married, lives in Toronto, has trekked the Himalayas and scuba dived on the Great Barrier Reef. She paints rather unfortunate watercolours and dreams about workplaces alive with creative ideas and action.

Presentations Include:




Productivity, Innovation & Change Management – The Missing Link
This session is for you if you need to make your organization or department more effective and efficient (and for whom the old solutions are no longer working). Learn easy-to-use processes and tools that can be used immediately individually and in teams with other people in your organization.

Change Management: Art or Science?
We can understand the change process, develop the necessary interpersonal skills, and think and act implicatively but it is how we create heightened response in the moment that will make the difference. Our work is to unleash the ‘change artist’ that lives in all our employees.


Managing Change is Not Enough! or Managing Change: The Oxymoron or Change:

A Messy Business
People can be managed; change cannot.  Change is supported, accelerated, resisted or led but it is NEVER managed. It is by its very nature a non-linear, non-analytical business. Change is a creative process. Leading change demands that a team leap into an ‘unpredictable’ future where nothing is certain. It requires a foundation of thoughtful planning, an understanding of the transitional process and, if it is to succeed, heightened creative awareness and action.

Positive Turbulence: Unleashing Creativity in Times of Constraint
People are innately creative. A recent survey (IBM, Innovation, 2007) determined that the greatest source of ideas for organizational improvement come from employees! Given how "uncreative" most people feel at work, Lee-Anne explains how is this possible.

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