Finding Your Way Home - With Support

Coming home to yourself as a leader isn’t about adding more tools to your toolkit.

It’s about naming what has cost you. Unlearning how you have been conditioned by colonization and systems of oppression to perform. And reclaiming the kind of leadership that doesn’t ask you to leave parts of yourself at the door.

This is the work. It is a lifelong practice. 

I work with Inuit, Indigenous, Black, racialized and historically marginalized professionals who are navigating systems that weren’t designed with their wholeness in mind. 

I work with leaders who are tired of shape-shifting. Who know the difference between being included and being seen. 

And I work with organizations who are ready to stop performing reconciliation and start doing and practicing it – especially when it is uncomfortable, slow and structural. 

If you are looking for a checkbox, I am not your person. 

If you’re ready for the real thing, let’s talk. 

To stay rooted in your values while navigating uncertainty, change and tension. To deepen your commitment to empowerment and decolonization as a living practice.

This work is not

  • A workshop to make your organization feel better about its engagement with Inuit and Indigenous peoples
  • A shortcut to a reconciliation checkbox
  • Coaching that asks you to optimize yourself to fit a system’s narrow view of leadership
  • Available to organizations who want Inuit involvement without accountability to Inuit

For Leaders

One-on-one coaching for Indigenous, Black, racialized and marginalized professionals, visionary leaders, changemakers and status quo disruptors leading through uncertainty and transition.
We tend to all of you—not just your leadership challenges, but how you carry all the parts of yourself into the spaces you occupy. 
For leaders finding their way home.

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Thought partnership for leaders making complex decisions. I help you pressure-test your ideas, stay aligned with your values, and see what you can’t see when you’re too close to it. Challenge with care. Strategy rooted in integrity.
For leaders who need someone who understands the terrain.

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Next steps for us to connect and explore what you’re navigating

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For Organizations

Facilitation that centers relationships, not just outcomes. I hold space for teams to have the conversations everyone’s been avoiding—where you can speak truth, navigate conflict with care, and co-create vision rooted in shared values and trust, not just timelines.
For teams who know that the real work is relational, and who are ready to tend to it with intention.

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Support for values-aligned organizations wanting to engage communities with integrity. Not performative consultation. Not tokenistic engagement. Real relationship-building that honours Indigenous protocols and centers those most impacted.
For organizations committed to engagement work that doesn’t harm.

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Next steps for us to connect and explore what you’re navigating

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For Leaders

Holistic Coaching

I reached out to Marilyn for coaching services at a particularly stressful time for me professionally. I was daunted by organizational financial challenges that I had to solve at work, and the ripple effects on people I care about. In just 4 sessions, I made progress on my identified goals. I have more confidence, less fear, more ability to identify my own strengths and more trust that using those strengths will make a difference. Marilyn’s coaching skills helped me learn to watch for cues in my own body and use specific practices to move through tough feelings. I have so much gratitude for Marilyn as I go forward with more energy.
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Shannon Piedt
Program Manager

For leaders finding their way home.

What it is:

One-on-one coaching that tends to all of you. Not just your professional goals or leadership challenges – but how you carry all parts of yourself into spaces you occupy. 

We work with your whole self. Your body. Your relationships. Your values. Your ancestors. Your vision for the future. 

This isn’t coaching that asks you to separate who you are from what you do. It’s coaching that helps you integrate. To move from human doing to human being.

A note worth naming: If you are exhausted, it is not because you are not doing enough. It is because you have been doing the work of surviving in ecosystems that were never resourced to hold you.

That is not a personal failure. That is a structural one. This coaching begins there.

Who it’s for:

  • Inuit and Indigenous professionals
  • Black and People of the Global Majority navigating systems not designed for your wholeness
  • Women mid-career ready for non-traditional approaches to growth
  • Leaders who are tired of being the only one in the room, as well as the one expected to also educate the room
  • Anyone carrying the weight of representation while trying to stay connected to themselves

What makes it different:

I don’t offer productivity hacks or leadership frameworks divorced from who you are and what you carry. 

This is coaching that honours:

  • the spiritual and the structural
  • your lived experiences and ancestral wisdom
  • the political reality of your body in spaces you navigate
  • that you don’t need fixing – you need tending

We create space for you to slow down. To clear the clutter and the noise. To get back to yourself. 

Because you understand you can’t do this work until you’ve done the healing yourself. And that you can’t do this work alone.

Investment: Varies based on frequency and duration—let’s discuss what works for you

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Critical Friend & Strategic Adviser

For leaders who need a thought partner

What it is:

Sometimes you need someone who can hold the big picture with you. Someone who asks the questions you’re afraid to ask yourself. Someone who challenges you with care.

As a critical friend and strategic adviser, I’m the thinking partner who helps you:

  • pressure-test your ideas before you move forward
  • navigate complex decisions with clarity
  • stay aligned with your values when everything feels complicated
  • see what you can’t see when you’re too close to it

This isn’t consulting where I tell you what to do. It’s partnership where I help you find your own answers. 

Who it’s for:

  • Leaders developing new programs, initiatives, or visions
  • Organizations trying to do equity and decolonization work with integrity
  • Anyone making decisions that feel high-stakes or values-laden
  • Leaders who have advisers but no one who really understands the terrain you’re navigating

What makes it different:

I understand what it costs to lead in spaces not designed for you. I also know how easy it is to become complicit in those same spaces while trying to survive them.

I’ll help you see both. Not to judge you but to locate you clearly. So you can make decisions that are clearly yours. 

I bring lived experiences in the education systems, Indigenous governance,  and equity work. I know the difference between a system that’s broken and a system that’s working exactly as designed. 

That distinction changes everything about how you decide what to do next.  

I understand:

  • What it costs to lead in spaces not made for you
  • The tension between survival and integrity
  • How systems of oppression show up in everyday decisions
  • That good strategy and deep values aren’t separate

I won’t tell you what you want to hear. I’ll tell you what you need to hear – with care, clarity and respect for your leadership.

How it works:

  • Flexible arrangements – monthly retainer, project-based/fractional services, or as-needed
  • 90 minute strategic session
  • Document review and feedback on proposals, frameworks, communications
  • Email/async support for time-sensitive decisions
  • Thought partnership that evolves with your needs

Investment: Consulting rate starting at $300/hour. Project fees vary depending on scope – let’s discuss what works for you.

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For Organizations

Relational Facilitation

Organizations that work with me on decolonizing education and learning do not get a curriculum delivered to them.

They enter a relationship. Here is what one school learned what the difference means:

I was the Principal (Head of School) at The Mabin School from 2016-2024. During that time, we hired Marilyn as a Consultant and Facilitator to guide us in our ongoing learning about Indigenous ways of knowing. With her, we learned about Inuit culture, participated in online professional development, and strategized about the best ways to move forward in our efforts to participate in truth and reconciliation processes. Our learning with her deepened our understanding of Inuit culture, and led us to participate in a series of relational and experiential learning opportunities. As school leader, I appreciated her intentionality and care in planning our learning, and the iterative process she engaged us in as we moved through our year working together.
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Nancy Steinhauer
Retired Principal of The Mabin School, Educational and Leadership Consultant and Coach - Next Steps Consulting & Coaching

For teams and groups doing transformational work

What it is:

Facilitation that centers relationship, not just outcomes.

I hold space for groups to:

  • Have the conversations they’ve been avoiding
  • Build trust across differences
  • Navigate conflict with care
  • Co-create vision rooted in shared values
  • Make decisions that honour collective wisdom

This is facilitation that understands transformation happens in relationship. That real changes requires relational trust, brave space and sacred space. 

Who it’s for:

  • Teams working on equity, decolonization or justice initiatives
  • Organizations navigating change or tension
  • Groups of leaders who need to think and strategize together
  • Communities building something new
  • Any group where the how matters as much as the what

What makes it different:

I’m not a neutral facilitator. I’m a values-aligned facilitator. 

I bring:

  • Deep understanding of power, privilege and oppression
  • Skill in holding space for discomfort and emergence
  • Commitment to Indigenous ways of knowing and being
  • Ability to balance structure and flow, planning and presence

I design processes that:

  • Honour people’s full humanity
  • Make space for multiple ways of knowing
  • Attend to both task and relationship
  • Create conditions for authentic involvement

This isn’t facilitation that rushes solutions. It’s facilitation that trusts the process. 

How it works:

  • Half-day, full-day or multi-day sessions
  • Virtual or in-person (travel considered)
  • Pre-session consultation to understand context and design process
  • Custom agendas based on your group needs
  • Post-session support to integrate learning

Investment: Half-day sessions start at $2200. Sliding scales available for grassroots organizations.

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Reciprocal Engagement

Marilyn was a foundational partner in the development of teaching resources for the Art Canada Institute's (ACI) Canadian Schools Art Education Program. ACI worked with her on the development of curriculum for two Teacher Resource Guides, including "Learn about Intergenerational Knowledge through the Art of Annie Pootoogook", and "Learn about Land and Community Stewardship through the Art of Pitseolak Ashoona." Marilyn's expertise and insights made curriculum design an enriching, profoundly meaningful experience, and we look forward to every opportunity to work with her again in future.
Northern Lights in purple, pink, and green dancing over silhouetted evergreen trees under starlit sky.
Emma Doubt
Director of Programming & Education, Art Canada Institute

This offering is not for organizations that want to manage their obligations to rural and urban Inuit living in southern Canada. 

It is for organizations ready to be genuinely accountable to them. And are wanting to engage communities with integrity.

What it is:

Support for organizations who want to involve communities, partners, rights holders in ways that honour relationship and build trust.

Not performative consultation. Not tokenistic engagement.

Authentic involvement. 

I help you design and facilitate processes that:

  • centre the voices of those most impacted
  • build genuine partnership, not extraction
  • navigate power dynamics with care
  • create space for meaningful participation
  • Honour Indigenous protocols and relational ways of being

Who it’s for:

  • Organizations developing programs or policies that impact communities
  • Government or institutions required to consult to consult with Inuit
  • Anyone wanting to move beyond checkbox engagement
  • Leaders committed to doing involvement work with integrity

What makes it different:

I am Inuk. That is not a credential. It is a relationship to land, to community, to a history that this country has spent decades ignoring or consuming for its own purposes.

When you work with my on engagement with Inuit, you are not hiring a consultant to manage a process. You are entering a relationship with someone who carries this work personally, politically, and relationally.

I understand what symbolic recognition looks like AND what it costs the people it’s supposed to serve. I will help you do better than that. Only if you are willing to.

I bring:

  • Inuit worldviews along with understanding of other Indigenous worldviews
  • Experience navigating institutional and community spaces
  • Knowledge of what authentic involvement actually requires
  • Commitment to relationship over interaction

I won’t help you check a box. I’ll help you build real relationships.

How it works:

  • Project-based partnerships (3-6 months typically)
  • Process design and facilitation for engagement activities
  • Capacity building for your team on relational approaches
  • Ongoing support as you navigate community relationships
  • Evaluation and learning to strengthen future involvement

Investment: Consulting rate starts at $300/hour. Project fees depend on scope – let’s discuss what works for you. 

Sliding scale available for grassroots organizations.

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My Commitment to You

Hands gently cupping pink rhododendron blossoms, symbolizing care and holding space with tenderness.

Whether we work together through coaching, advising, facilitation or involvement processes, you can expect:

  • Presence over performance – I show up as myself and invite you to do the same
  • Truth-telling with care – I’ll be honest while honouring your dignity
  • Cultural humility – I bring my knowledge and stay open to learning
  • Confidentiality and trust – What you share stays between us
  • Ecosystem over extraction – I will not participate in processes designed to consume your community’s knowledge without returning something of value to it
  • Flexibility and responsiveness – Life happens; we’ll adjust as needed
  • Commitment to your leadership – I believe in you, even when you don’t

This work is not linear. It does not follow a curriculum. 

It moves the way relationships move:

  • with trust built slowly
  • setbacks absorbed together, and
  • direction emerging from the process rather than imposed on it. 

I will walk alongside you. And I will tell you truth about the terrain.

a group of people holding hands on top of a tree

What Happens Next

Step 1: Book a free 30-minute clarity call

Step 2: We’ll explore what you’re navigating, what you’ve already tried and whether working together makes sense for both of us. 

Step 3: If we decide to work together, I’ll create a proposal tailored to your needs 

Step 4: We begin our work together

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