Kelly Cooper, Founder and President of the Centre for Social Intelligence, is on a mission to make social intelligence a competitive advantage in today’s workplace. She walks us through her ambitious journey towards instituting transformational leadership and societal change.
In a world where strategy can be copied and technology can be bought, how you lead people is considered by many to be the only real competitive advantage left. Workplace culture isn’t just about employee satisfaction. It’s also a critical driver of organizational success in a globally competitive landscape. So reads an excerpt from The EmBOLDened Warrior: Spearheading Social Intelligence in the Workplace, the latest book from Kelly Cooper, Founder and President of the Centre for Social Intelligence (CSI).
The book explains the hidden dynamics of toxic leadership, systemic barriers, and change-resistant cultures and provides a blueprint to identify and address these challenges, with clear strategies to transform organizations into workplaces rooted in integrity, inclusion and accountability. With examples, practical tips and actionable solutions for executives, leaders and human resource (HR) professionals, the book emphasizes how a sustainable and inclusive work culture, led by social intelligence, is as important to a company’s bottom line as economic indicators.
“Canada is at a cultural crossroads with rapidly changing workplaces, featuring greater cultural diversity and the steady rise of women into senior leadership roles. Workplace culture is no longer a soft concern delegated to HR departments. It is a business priority, a financial risk, and a moral responsibility. This book inspires readers to embrace their ‘inner warrior’ and lean into courage and allyship, ensuring everyone can feel valued and realize their potential without interference,” remarks Cooper.
Across her 30-year career navigating male-dominated industries, witnessing institutional betrayal, and facing systemic resistance, Cooper learned that lasting workplace culture change requires understanding how people and power truly operate. “That insight helps maintain integrity, empowering individuals to speak truth to power and to lead with empathy, courage, and awareness, even when others resort to manipulation or control; it’s what sets transformational leaders apart,” she explains.
This is also the basic tenet of social intelligence—a set of strategic skills that allows people to navigate the workplace, identifying unhealthy workplace behaviours that are both seen and unseen, interrupt the destructive patterns before they escalate and then take the necessary steps to transform the organization. It represents a more evolved and responsible way of leading—moving away from fear and control toward trust and collaboration, unlocking each employee’s potential, strengthening culture, retaining talent, and improving the organization’s overall performance.
Cooper, who lives in Ottawa but grew up in Toronto and the U.S., holds an M.A. in International Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex, UK, and an Honours BSc. from the University of Toronto, as well as certifications in GBA+, EQ-i 2.0 and ProSci change management (ADKAR model). She has worked across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe on various sustainable development projects, in industries such as mining and forestry in Canada, and in STEM sector roles in both the federal government and the private sector.
ABOVE: Kelly Cooper with Rechie Valdez, the Minister of Women and Gender Equality. On the right, Senator Marilou McPhedran, who provided a testimonial for The EmBOLDened Warrior, stands with Kelly Cooper.
She has also represented Canada on a United Nations environment sustainability panel, and has been a guest speaker at national and international sector association conferences, at the World Bank, and at the Canadian federal government level, advocating for greater female representation in senior executive roles and technical positions in the natural resource sectors. She is the recipient of the Women of Inspiration™ – Vision Builder Award (2025) for her leadership in improving workplace culture in a holistic manner, and was recognized as one of the 30 Women Under 30 by Global Affairs Canada in 2000.
Having witnessed firsthand the gender diversity and inclusion gap in the STEM sector where women still make up only 25 percent of the workforce and fewer than 15 percent hold leadership roles, Cooper started the Centre for Social Intelligence in 2013 to address these challenges.
Following the release of three national sector-wide reports on gender diversity and inclusion (GDI) in the workplace, how to be an effective ally, and how to be an inclusive leader, Cooper created leadership training for the C-suite, based on the findings of these reports. This experience was the inspiration for her first book, Lead The Change: The Competitive Advantage of Gender Diversity and Inclusion, that released in 2020, which using an economic lens, and interwoven with Cooper’s own experiences of being a woman in the STEM sector, targets decision makers to explain the value proposition of a work culture that embraces GDI and provides a blueprint on how to take action towards sustainable change.
Having cut her teeth in the environmental and sustainable development arena, another area of focus for CSI is the social side of sustainable development and social certification—a concept focused on measurable indicators for social impact, based on a code of conduct that ensures accountable and transparent leadership and an equitable and inclusive work culture—similar to organizational environmental certification auditing standards.
A solopreneur who works with associates on a project-by-project basis, she has also designed industry-tested, bilingual, mobile-friendly social intelligence e-learning courses that help transform leadership and work culture, utilizing pop culture analogies that make the course interactive and engaging. Using social intelligence as an economic and sustainable competitive advantage, the end goal is to create a socially intelligent workforce powered by employee satisfaction and equal opportunities for all. The training is offered across four modules, and upon completion, a CSI certificate is awarded. Through CSI, Cooper also offers individual coaching, private-sector consultation, and speaker engagements.
ABOVE: Kelly Cooper and CSI team members meet with a client.
“Firstly, I engage with the C-suite and find out what their needs are. Accordingly, we then build a strategy, followed by the implementation process, which includes online and/or in-person training and skill-building that encompasses all levels of the organization from junior to mid-level to senior executives. So far, the training has been really well received with nearly a hundred executives undertaking it to date,” avers Cooper.
In 2024, Cooper was awarded the Gender, Diversity and Inclusion award from the Canadian Institute of Forestry for her leadership on the Free to Grow in Forestry initiative. A sector-wide effort in partnership with the Canadian Institute of Forestry, the initiative was aimed at advancing inclusive workplace cultures that attract and retain diverse talent who can then grow in their careers without intervention—akin to how foresters deem the forest free to grow when it no longer requires human intervention.
In 2023, Cooper also partnered with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Canada to drive meaningful change and create inclusive workplace cultures across the sector by challenging outdated norms, engaging in new ideas, innovating, and driving positive results for the sector, both socially and economically.
However, her initial experience of working with the forestry sector on the Free to Grow in Forestry initiative was far from pleasant. “My first experience of mobbing took place when I was in my fourth year of the six-year project that lasted from 2018-2024,” reveals Cooper.
Mobbing is a form of psychological abuse orchestrated by manipulative leaders who, in tandem with subordinate team members, engage in a coordinated effort to isolate, discredit, or collectively target a single individual perceived as a threat to the leader’s power or ego.
“While I had resisted some initial challenges in the first three years of the project, in the fourth year, certain individuals who were threatened by me challenging the status quo, coerced a large number of people to pull out of the project. I found out about this using an Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) request to the government, through which I was able to access over 80 pages of communications between these individuals and the government,” says Cooper.
Instead of seeking legal recourse, Cooper was determined to keep the project going. Seeking assistance from organizational psychologists and her own research to address the issue, she subsequently engaged the entire forestry sector on the Free to Grow in Forestry initiative, with over 200 individuals participating. She successfully completed the project on schedule. Recognizing her extraordinary effort, she received an invitation to the World Forest Congress in Sweden to speak about the Free to Grow in Forestry initiative. This was the impetus for The EmBOLDened Warrior, a book that not only creates awareness about workplace abuse but details how to use the ‘carrot’ approach of social intelligence to transform toxic workplaces through leadership training, rather than adopting the usual ‘stick’ approach of taking costly legal action, which is usually ineffective in bringing about lasting change.
According to a National Survey on Workplace Harassment and Violence by the Canadian Labour Congress, 70 percent of workers have experienced harassment or violence in the workplace, with 70 percent of affected individuals reportedly skipping work due to these experiences and 88 percent experiencing negative career impacts, including job loss, suspension, or missed opportunities. From an organizational standpoint, toxic workplace culture is the strongest predictor of employee attrition, being 10.4 times more influential than compensation, according to a 2022 MIT Sloan Management Review. Low employee engagement, turnover, and lost productivity cost the global economy approximately US$8.8 trillion annually, representing about 9 percent of global GDP, as per a 2023 survey by Gallup Workplace.
“We have declining productivity and a mental health crisis here in Canada, and workplace culture is at the centre of it. How we operate or conduct ourselves is what makes or breaks the cycle,” notes Cooper. She adds, “We always focus on Canada’s natural resources, but miss the human resource superpower. We need to up our game on how we treat each other, both in the workplace and outside it, because that’s going to create the engine we need to maintain these natural resource mega projects.”
Early feedback for Cooper’s book has been encouraging, with readers acknowledging its clarity, relatability and tangible tips and solutions it provides. The Emboldened Warrior has already achieved bestseller status on Amazon in four categories: Economics of Labour & Industrial Relations, Labour Policy, Business Law and Business Diversity & Inclusion. “Many people have gone through these experiences, but never spoke up. Now with this book, they feel validated, understood and supported from my shared experience and are hopeful for change,” says Cooper.
Cooper’s goal is to reach one million people to spread awareness about social intelligence within one year of her latest book launch. “The majority of people want to know where the goal posts are. So this book empowers them with the knowledge and skill sets to confidently navigate workplace challenges in a way that they just didn’t know how to earlier. With social intelligence, we don’t just transform ourselves; we transform our culture. We become part of a collective movement, a group of warriors, changing and elevating society together,” she avers.
Cooper’s official book launch and signing event will be held in Ottawa on May 21 at the Heart & Crown on Preston Street from 5:00-6:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public, but requires prior registration on CSI’s website. The book tour kicks off in Toronto (June 11-14), followed by New York (June 18-21).
Kelly Cooper’s books are available for purchase at Amazon.ca. You can also follow her on LinkedIn, Instagram and X.
To sign up for training or to learn more about CSI, visit https://centreforsocialintelligence.ca/.
Header image: Todd Langille
