Calissa Ngozi

Mental Health, Workplace Performance & Sustainable Success Expert

Calissa Ngozi is a 9x award-winning mental health expert, bestselling author, business owner, organizational leader, professor, and trusted media voice who helps organizations unlock better performance by putting people at the centre of how they lead, work, and succeed.

With more than 25 years of experience spanning mental health, education, social services, and entrepreneurship, Calissa understands both sides of workplace performance: what organizations need to achieve and what people need to achieve it. Her keynotes explore the human factors behind high-performing workplaces, from leadership, trust, and psychological safety to resilience, engagement, workplace culture, and sustainable success.

Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller The Oxygen Mask Mindset™ and a sought-after expert featured on CP24, CTV, Global News, Breakfast Television, SiriusXM and more, Calissa brings warmth, credibility, humour, energy and practical insight to every stage, helping people thrive so organizations can, too.

Biography

Calissa Ngozi is a 9x award-winning mental health expert, bestselling author, business owner, organizational leader, professor, and trusted media voice who brings a uniquely human perspective to one of today’s biggest workplace questions: How do we create environments where people can thrive and perform at their best?

With more than 25 years of experience spanning mental health, education, social services, healthcare, rehabilitation, and entrepreneurship, Calissa has spent her career understanding what helps people function, adapt, connect, and succeed. Today, she brings that expertise into organizations to address the human factors behind workplace performance, from leadership, communication, trust, and psychological safety to resilience, engagement, culture, well-being, and sustainable success.

Calissa also understands workplace performance from the organizational side. As a business owner and leader within a multimillion-dollar organization, she knows that organizations have real goals to meet, results to deliver, and change to navigate. Her work bridges those two realities, helping leaders create the conditions people need to do their best work without compromising accountability, expectations, or performance. This balance is reflected throughout her current keynote work, including adaptive leadership, creating cultures where people feel valued, building resilient teams, and uncovering the human factors beneath performance challenges.

She is the author of the Amazon #1 bestselling book, The Oxygen Mask Mindset™: Reclaiming Your Energy in a World That Glorifies Exhaustion, which challenges the idea that achievement has to come at the expense of well-being. Her signature Oxygen Mask Mindset™ and CARE Framework give audiences practical tools for protecting their capacity while continuing to perform at a high level.

A Professor at Mohawk College, Calissa has shared her expertise across television, radio, and digital media, including appearances on CP24, CTV, Global News, Breakfast Television, SiriusXM, The Social, CHCH, and more. She has also served in leadership and community roles, including as a former Board Director with the Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care and as a member of the Pathstone Mental Health Foundation Board.

On stage, Calissa combines deep subject-matter expertise with storytelling, humour, warmth, and practical application. Whether she is speaking about leadership, workplace performance, resilience, culture, mental health, or sustainable success, her message is grounded in a simple belief: when organizations get the people side right, stronger performance follows.

Expertise

Workplace Performance
Adaptive Leadership
Psychological Safety & Trust
Employee Engagement & Retention
Workplace Culture & Belonging
Resilience & Change
Mental Health & Well-being
Sustainable Success

Published Books:

Amazon #1 Bestseller

The Oxygen Mask Mindset: Reclaiming Your Energy In a World that Glorifies Exhaustion

It challenges the idea that achievement has to come at the expense of well-being. Her signature Oxygen Mask Mindset™ and CARE Framework give audiences practical tools for protecting their capacity while continuing to perform at a high level.

Media & Visibility

A trusted voice across television, radio and digital media.

CP24
CTV Your Morning
CTV News Channel
CTV Montreal
Global News
Breakfast Television
SiriusXM
The Social
CHCH Morning Live
CJAD Montreal
Newstalk 1010
YourTV Niagara

Watch

See her change the temperature

Speaker reel / 2026

Three minutes with Calissa Ngozi

Workplace performance without the burnout tax. She gives leaders something to do on Monday, not just something to feel on the day.

Start here

Little Black Girl, Do You Know Your Worth?

Speaker Slam winner

Keynote Topics

The Oxygen Mask Mindset™: How to Achieve Sustainable Success Without Running on Empty

High performance should not come at the expense of well-being. Drawing on her signature Oxygen Mask Mindset™, Calissa challenges the belief that success requires constant sacrifice and shows audiences how to protect their capacity while continuing to perform at a high level.

Through her CARE Framework of Clarity, Activity, Resilience and Engagement, participants learn a practical approach to recognizing depletion, strengthening well-being and creating success they can sustain.

Key Take-Aways:

Recognize the habits and patterns that lead to chronic stress and burnout
Set boundaries that protect energy without compromising performance
Build practical habits that support mental health, resilience, and long-term success

The CARE Framework:

Clarity – get clear on what matters most
Activity – take intentional action
Resilience – build the capacity to adapt
Engagement – reconnect with purpose and people

Ideal Audiences:

The Leadership Flex: How Great Leaders Adapt to Bring Out the Best in Everyone

Great leadership is not one-size-fits-all. Just as different people are motivated, challenged, and supported in different ways, they need different things from the people who lead them.

Calissa introduces a more adaptive approach to leadership that helps leaders understand who is in front of them, flex how they communicate, and give people what they need to succeed without compromising expectations or accountability.

Key Take-Aways:

Recognize why identical leadership does not always create equitable results
Adapt communication and leadership styles to different people and situations
Balance empathy, accountability, support, and expectations
Build stronger relationships that improve trust, engagement, and performance

Ideal Audiences:

The Value Effect: What Happens When People Feel Seen, Heard & Valued at Work

People work differently when they know they matter. In this human-centred keynote, Calissa explores the powerful connection between feeling valued and how people engage, contribute, collaborate, and stay.

Audiences discover that creating a culture of value goes far beyond recognition. It is built through everyday leadership, communication, connection, and the moments that tell people, “You matter here.”

Key Take-Aways:

Understand the connection between feeling valued and workplace performance
Identify everyday behaviours that help people feel seen, heard, and appreciated
Strengthen belonging, trust, and connection across teams
Create a culture that supports greater engagement, commitment, and retention

Ideal Audiences:

Resilient by Design: Turning Change into Your Team’s Competitive Advantage

Change is inevitable. How teams respond to it can become their greatest advantage. Calissa reframes resilience from simply pushing through adversity to developing the mindset, behaviours, and workplace conditions that help people adapt, recover, and continue performing when circumstances change.

This keynote equips teams to navigate uncertainty without losing their well-being, connection, or momentum.

Key Take-Aways:

Reframe change as an opportunity for adaptation and growth
Develop healthier, more sustainable responses to uncertainty and pressure
Strengthen individual and collective resilience before challenges arise
Build teams that can adapt, recover, and move forward without burning out

Ideal Audiences:

Corporate Teams
Leadership Teams
Organizations Navigating Change
Healthcare Professionals
Associations

The Human Advantage: Why People Will Always Be Your Greatest Competitive Edge

When performance slips, organizations often look first at processes, productivity, or strategy. But behind many performance challenges are human ones: trust, communication, leadership, connection, psychological safety, and well-being.

Calissa challenges leaders to look beneath the symptoms and understand what their people actually need to do their best work. Because when organizations get the people side right, stronger performance follows.

Key Take-Aways:

Identify the human factors hiding beneath common performance challenges
Understand how trust, communication, psychological safety, and well-being affect results
Recognize leadership behaviours that strengthen or undermine performance
Create workplace conditions where people are equipped and inspired to do their best work

Ideal Audiences:

Executives & Senior Leaders
Leadership Teams
HR & People and Culture
Corporate Conferences
Managers

People aren’t your greatest asset.
They’re your greatest advantage.

Calissa Ngozi

Testimonials

Calissa brought incredible energy to the stage, kept the momentum going, and built a strong sense of continuity throughout the program. What impressed me most was her ability to go with the flow when things shifted behind the scene. She handled changes seamlessly and made it feel effortless to the audience.

Lori Pugh, Vice President, MPI Academy

Calissa has that rare ability to connect authentically with people. She made the program flow seamlessly while also weaving in fun and memorable moments that elevated the experience for everyone in the room. Her presence was warm, professional, and energizing, and she truly set the tone for a successful event.

Julia McDevitt, Owner & Principal Planner, Elm City Events

Having collaborated with Calissa on a mental health conference, I have witnessed firsthand her remarkable ability to engage and empower audiences through her powerful and engaging approach. Her passion for mental health advocacy and commitment to fostering resilience in others is truly inspiring.