Helping leaders thrive with purpose and precision.
At PurposeWay, we come alongside leaders, boards, and organizations navigating growth, change, complexity, and opportunity. Through executive coaching, strategic advice, facilitation, and governance support, we create space to step back, clarify what matters most, wrestle with difficult choices, and move forward with confidence. We bring decades of leadership experience, thoughtful listening, strategic insight, and a deep belief in the importance of purpose to every engagement.
“Purpose isn’t just a feeling—it’s a way of leading, living, and making a difference, even when the path ahead isn’t clear.”
Explore what we offer
EXECUTIVE COACHING
Supporting leaders to lead with clarity and purpose
Like a trusted running partner, we come alongside leaders navigating growth, transition, and change. We work with CEOs, senior executives, emerging leaders, and founders who want to lead with greater clarity, courage, and purpose. Our coaching draws on deep leadership experience, thoughtful listening, and a commitment to your growth. Whether you’re carrying the weight of leadership, stepping into a new role, navigating change, or considering what comes next, we provide a trusted place to think, reflect, and move forward.
STRATEGIC CONSULTING AND ADVICE
Helping organizations and teams navigate complexity
Organizations sometimes reach moments when the way forward isn’t obvious. Like navigating unfamiliar terrain, moving forward requires a clear sense of the destination, an understanding of the landscape, and good choices about the path ahead. We work with leadership teams facing questions of strategy, organizational effectiveness, growth, transition, and renewal. Drawing on decades of leadership experience, we help teams step back from immediate pressures, clarify what matters most, wrestle with difficult choices, and align around a way forward.
BOARD DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT
Strengthening governance for greater impact
Strong governance creates the conditions for organizations and their leaders to thrive. Like a well-designed bridge, it provides strength and clarity while connecting what matters: mission and operations, board and CEO, oversight and strategic direction. We work with boards to strengthen these connections, improve the quality of strategic conversation, and help them become thoughtful, effective partners in advancing their organization’s purpose and impact.
About us
Michael Messenger, ICD.D, Principal
Michael is a seasoned executive, coach, and trusted strategic advisor who has spent more than 35 years helping people and organizations lead with purpose.
Through PurposeWay, Michael works with CEOs and senior leaders as an executive coach and advisor, and with boards and leadership teams on strategy, governance, organizational effectiveness, and leadership development. His recent work has included coaching nonprofit and business leaders, advising national and international organizations, facilitating board and senior leadership conversations, and supporting organizations through periods of growth, transition, and renewal.
Michael has extensive leadership experience across the nonprofit, business, legal, and international development sectors. Most recently, he served for a decade as President and CEO of World Vision Canada, one of the country’s largest humanitarian charities. He led a team of more than 400 staff and worked across a global partnership serving vulnerable children and communities around the world. His leadership encompassed strategy, fundraising, advocacy, governance, organizational transformation, and international development.
Earlier in his career, Michael was a partner in a leading Canadian law firm. He holds a law degree from the University of Toronto, an undergraduate degree in economics, and an MBA from the Ivey Business School, where he was the gold medallist and an Ivey Scholar. He also holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Across his work, Michael is particularly interested in the human side of leadership: how leaders make good decisions amid uncertainty, build trust, create clarity, develop others, and sustain a strong sense of purpose. His approach combines strategic thinking and practical experience with curiosity, careful listening, and a belief that leadership is ultimately about people.
Michael is also a speaker, teacher, writer, and mentor. At Western University’s Ivey Business School, he has taught courses in Sustainability and Responsible Governance in the Executive MBA program and contributes as a guest lecturer, mentor, and facilitator across Ivey’s programs, with a particular focus on purpose, leadership, governance, and sustainability. He serves on corporate and nonprofit boards and is active in his local church, where he is involved in teaching and leadership development.
Originally from the Maritimes, Michael lives near Toronto with his wife, Yvonne, a professor of education. His work through PurposeWay reflects a conviction that has shaped his career: people and organizations do their best work when they are clear about their purpose and intentional about how they lead.
michael@purposeway.org (416) 567-2382
Learn more about Michael’s professional experience on LinkedIn
Contact Us
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