Hollyhock Presenters

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Our presenters are curated for their quality, depth, integrity, and alignment with our educational purpose. Since 1982, a distinguished faculty of authors, educators, activists, artists, performers, and practitioners have shared their work at our Cortes Island campus and in Vancouver.

People smiling at Activate 2023 Hollyhock Leadership Institute

Elissa Berrol

Elissa Berrol, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, is passionate about helping organizations increase their internal capacity to successfully navigate external complexity. She masterfully facilitates teams and coaches leaders to examine default habits, surface and manage polarities that create stalemate, and create conditions for seeing and shifting unhelpful dynamics. An insightful, collaborative change agent, she pursues strategies and interactions that challenge old narratives, promote diversity of thought, and tap into the inherent wisdom of her clients.

Elissa works with leaders and teams at all levels to (re)connect them to their values and practice courageous and authentic behaviours. She has a warm and engaging style with an ability to break down barriers quickly to create a safe environment for honest dialogue and experimentation with new ways of seeing and leading. While Elissa has a down-to-earth grass roots approach and ability to cut through BS—without causing defensiveness—her deep compassion, humour and courage enable leaders and teams to liberate from self-limiting beliefs and fear-based thinking so they can lead with clarity, congruence and connection.

Elissa comes from a rich organizational consulting and coaching background working with a wide cross-section of industries. She holds a Masters from Harvard University in Education, and a Masters from Sonoma State University in Organization Development. She is a credentialed ICF Coach through The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and is certified in a variety of techniques and modalities all focused on unleashing human potential by evoking self knowing and connection to our deepest purpose. She lives in Davis, California with “the best thing that ever happened” to her – her 11 year old daughter Sedona and their “naughty bad dog” Lulu. When Elissa is not working on liberating human potential she can be found in the wilderness mucking about on rivers, mountains and deserts with her community, hitting farmers markets or exploring new horizons.