The facilitator other facilitators call when things get complicated.

For over two and a half decades, Nadia Chaney has been the person organizations, leaders, communities and facilitators turn to when standard approaches aren’t enough. She’s the one who gets called when conflicts seem intractable, when teams are stuck despite everyone’s best efforts, when something genuinely transformative needs to happen.Her client roster reads like a who’s who of change-makers: senior NGOs,  philanthropists and government officials changing the ways they collaborate for large scale shift, activist networks healing internal fractures, indigenous organizations working with settlers to change school cultures, corporate leaders reimagining how they operate, and AI technologists grappling with the ethics of their innovations. What do they all have in common? They needed someone who could handle complexity without losing sight of humanity.

What makes Nadia different isn’t just her experience—it’s her unusual combination of capabilities. She’s simultaneously a systems strategist and a multimedia artist, a conflict mediator and a science fiction writer, a pattern recognition expert and a ceremonial designer. 

This isn’t diversification for its own sake; it’s integration that creates rare insight. While others might see contradictions, Nadia sees the whole picture. Her artistic practice sharpens her ability to sense what’s emerging in groups. Her systems thinking gives structure to intuitive insights. Her decades of conflict work taught her that transformation requires both fierce clarity and deep compassion. And everything she attempts is rooted in a deep, ecological connection to spirit, lineage, body and place. 

The result? Facilitation that actually works when the stakes are high. Groups don’t just solve their immediate problems—they develop new capacities. Organizations don’t just change their policies—they evolve their culture. Leaders don’t just learn new techniques—they discover new ways of being. Based in Ottawa, working globally, Nadia brings threshold practices to wherever complexity lives.

Training & Education

Nadia’s educational journey is a long and winding road. As a scholar and educator, she is deeply related to the project of learning and pedagogical innovation; her experience of formal learning institutions has often been challenging and complex but she was fortunate to also have years of mentorship and apprenticeship with some of the most innovative facilitators in the world. 

Nadia completed a Masters of Educational Philosophy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver Canada. She studied with the Imaginative Education Research Group (CIRCE)

Testimonials

I have no hesitation in saying the
Nadia Chaney is one of the top
international facilitators. I have seen
the incredible ripple effects her work
has had on communities globally.
She is a sharp critical thinker, an
excellent trainer, a caring soul and a
vibrant creative facilitator.

Ella Cooper

Filmmaker, Founder of Black Women in Film,
Creative facilitator, Toronto, ON

My workshops with Nadia were inspiring and transformative,
both for me as a facilitator as well as personally. Nadia took our
group to a place which not only exceeded my expectations, but
also stretched my imagination in terms of what is possible in a
group setting. We went deep, we pushed our edges, and then
we went even deeper. She was able to take the tension in the
room and use it to move us to a space I never thought was
possible. I simply cannot sing her praises enough

Natasha Duchene

Art Therapist, Yellowknife, NWT