Meet Our Team
CEO & FOUNDER
Michael Griffin
Michael J Griffin is the founder of ELAvate – Equipping Leaders for Asia. For 30 years he has served over 1,000 organizations across 21 nations to develop and grow leaders that transform “strategy to results through relationships.” His life mission is to equip and inspire young people to be the transformational leaders they have the potential to be as multipliers of healthy relationships. His expertise to grow leaders for organizational success revolves around these core disciplines: Leadership Development & Coaching, Sales Productivity Consulting, Cross-Cultural/ Inclusivity Training, Effective Public/Virtual Speaking, and Strategy Mapping with Balanced Scorecard implementation. Michael now spends about 20% of his time doing volunteer training for NGOs, educational institutions, and churches.
OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
Manish Harsora
Manish Harsora’s primary role in ELAvate Training is that of handling the Global Overseas Accounts and additionally, he is also responsible for the Training Team and Stellar Implementation Team for the successful rollout of the seminars. He has been with the company since 2001 and has grown in the organization from a support function to being a Director. With a serving attitude and passion for people development, he continues to strive to be a key member for ELAvate Training in the SAARC region.
FINANCIAL CONTROLLER
Pinkesh Kapadia
Pinkesh Kapadia has been the ELAvate Group Financial Controller and Advisor for over 22 years. His expertise in accounting, cash flow, and international taxation has supported ELAvate growth and success. He has a Chartered Accountant degree from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India since 1987. He is the founder of Pinkesh Kapadia & Co., Chartered Accountants, and is the financial accountant and advisor to premier global companies that aspire to conduct their financial matters with integrity and efficiency. Pinkesh is a well-known volunteer for various charities in India.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Atik Suharyati
Atik is a Senior Training Performance Consultant at ELAvate with over 17 years of experience across a variety of training workshops in Sales, Leadership, Customer Service, and Presentation Skills. She had successfully completed “Achieving the Complex Sales – Top Gun School” in Tampa, Florida USA, and is certified as a Professional Behaviour Consultant from TTI Success Insights of Phoenix, USA. She has conducted training/ consulting across these sectors: oil and gas, financial services, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, automotive, and heavy equipment. Atik is one of ELAvate’s most motivating trainers because of her energetic style, industry experience, and ability to adapt training environments to inspire participants to improve and apply skills learned. She is fluent to train and motivate participants in both classroom and virtual training environments.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Hema Srinivas
Hema has over 27 years of work experience across various industry sectors. She has been a world-class trainer with ELAvate since 2008. Her key training and coaching areas are leadership development, communication & presentation skills, and sales force effectiveness. Hema is a Certified Coach (ACTP), Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst from TTISI, and a Certificate of Competence in Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal profiling. She has graduated as a Gold medallist MBA, Cost Accountant Bachelor's degree. Recently she completed an MIT Sloan course with a distinction in Innovation of Products and Services: Design Thinking from MIT. Hema's energetic style and persuasive communication enable rapport-building with her participants that motivates them to learn and apply the skills taught. She facilitates through storytelling and vivid real-life examples, thus ensuring pragmatic takeaways from her sessions. Hema is a results trainer that always focuses on her participants’ success in growing them as leaders.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Benjamin Cheng
Benjamin Cheng is a change consultant, coach, motivational speaker, and master trainer. His passion to develop leaders through training, coaching, and mentoring has added value to over 100 organisations in more than 30 countries around the world. Since 2018, Ben served ELAvate to deliver high-quality workshops in public speaking, virtual communication, and persuasion in both English and Mandarin. Ben also holds the accolade of being a trainer-coach to new trainers that join the ELAvate team because of his attitude to be a servant leader and example to follow at ELAvate.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Dr. Tan Buck Chye
Dr. Tan Buck Chye is an internationally acclaimed trainer with over twenty years of experience in training adults, teens, and children in partnership with Tony Buzan in Mind Mapping & Thinking Skills programs. He specializes in self-leadership mastery, leading teams, organizational management, and mental literacy courses that include improving innovation, memory, critical thinking skills, and emotional intelligence. Dr. Tan also collaborates with ELAvate as a John Maxwell EQUIP Asian Associate leadership trainer. He is also a certified Singapore WSQ trainer and trains for various Singapore government institutions.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Dharmesti Sindhunatha
Dharmesti has a Master's Degree in Human Resources from the University of Dallas, USA. She has over 25 years of experience in human resource management, leadership development, training & marketing communications. Her clients include banking, real estate, media, finance, public relations, and non-profit organizations. Her passion to develop leaders has inspired her to become a certified coach and world-class trainer who develops leaders by employing Emotional Intelligence (EQ). This combination of coaching certification and EQ knowledge has made her one of ELAvate’s best sales productivity trainers and leadership coaches. Dharmesti spends considerable volunteer time as the Asian leader and trustee of CISV. CISV was founded in the belief that peace is possible through building friendship and mutual understanding, focusing on developing children as global citizens who respect and appreciate others across cultures.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Yenni Wu
Yenni is our ELAvate Communications Trainer in the skills of public speaking, virtual communication, and employing DISC profiles for team collaboration. She has sharpened these essential skills through her 25-year career in cross-cultural communication and marketing. She has worked in Taiwan, Singapore, Silicon Valley, USA, and China for multinationals, entrepreneurial firms, and NGOs. Her trainer style is an inspiring combination of high energy and skill that achieves a positive attitude and behavioral change in her students. Yenni splits her time between New York, Taiwan, and Singapore managing her wellness business, serving in an inner-city children’s NGO, and as a global trainer for ELAvate.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Nirupama Subramanian
Nirupama has over 28 years of professional experience across the industry. She has been a world-class trainer and associated with ELAvate since 1998. Her key training and coaching areas are sales force effectiveness, leadership development, cross-culture, and communication & presentation skills. Nirupama is ICF Certified Coach. She has post-graduated as an MBA Finance from XLRI. She is co-founder of the non-profit “Growing Leadership of Women (GLOW)”, “My Daughter is Precious” and “Powerfullife Solutions”. She is an inclusion and diversity champion and has consistently demonstrated her passion for inclusivity whenever she coaches or trains. Nirupama is passionate about living with purpose and helping people discover their potential to become leaders at work and in their personal lives. She focuses on enabling personal growth along with business impact through customized interventions for organizations. She herself is a constant learner and welcomes new experiences and new ideas. Nirupama is also an author and columnist. She has written two bestselling books “Keep the Change” and “Intermission” and her 3rd book “Powerful - The Indian Woman’s Guide to Unlocking Her Full Potential” which is being published by Harper Collins in July 2021. Hema is a member of the Indian Women Network (an initiative of the Confederation of Indian Industry) where she is a mentor.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Jessie Xiang
Jessie Xiang has over 20 years of varied and dynamic working experience in diverse fields such as quality management, human resources, consulting, and coaching. Since 2015, she has been devoting herself to the jobs helping people, by coaching and training, to grow and get better career development. She has a Master's Degree in Business Administration from Beijing Normal University. She has been associated with ELAvate since March 2018 and has become a superior communication and public speaking trainer coach.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Sharon Ng-Ward
Sharon Ng-Ward is an experienced trainer and leadership development researcher who is passionate about helping individuals make an impact in their homes, workplaces, and communities. From 2006 to 2008 she was the General Manager of ELAvate Singapore and was a key leader in supporting 40 volunteer trainers to deliver John Maxwell leadership training across 19 nations. Her training strengths were developed during this time in leadership, team building, and public speaking as well as running an entrepreneurial organization. She moved to the USA and received her MBA from Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Currently, Sharon completing her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University with an emphasis on cross-cultural leadership. Sharon trains in both English and Mandarin. She lives in Singapore with her husband and three children and is now a senior trainer with ELAvate.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Clement Wang
Clement is a seasoned cross-disciplined leader, currently the Managing Director of US-Europe robotics automation engineering group in Asia, and a certified Executive Presentation Skills trainer. He is an accredited ICF executive coach & has been a consultant for various companies across China & Asia in the past 8 years. Clement did his Economics & Management honorary bachelor’s degree at HKU, and then a master’s management course at Cheung Kong Graduate Business School, China in 2004. He shows great passion for developing people as world-class leaders. He was the lead consultant for a leading Chinese learning consortium of EMBA teaching graduates from the elite China Europe Intl Business School (CEIBS). He collaborates with professors from other distinguished schools like Cambridge, NSU & HKU. Clement was a lecturer for the compact-EMBA program in the inter-company corporate university.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Anne Manning-Pedersen
Anne is a Transformational Leader with over 35 years of cross-cultural training experience, having served more than 30 profit and non-profit organizations in 13 countries over 5 continents, presently dividing her time between Denmark and India. She has served with ELAvate since 2010, as a Master Trainer and Coach, and also in the capacities of Chief Learning Officer and Training Director on the Board of ELAvate Directors. She trained and certified ELAvate trainers, and trained ELAvate clients in Personal and Team Leadership, Customer Service, Communication Excellence, Behaviour Analysis, and personal/team coaching based on it. Anne is a distinction-holding Post Graduate in Organisational Leadership and Management, a Certified Coach and Behaviour Analyst. She uses her wide experience to enrich training content with real-life experiences to inspire her clients by proving that the principles she talks about have worked for her and others in their walk through their careers and lives. She is confident and poised, with world-class communication, presentation, and training skills.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Celest Foo
Celest has more than 20 years of training experience in customer service and servant leadership. Because of her leadership potential, Singapore Airlines promoted her to become a trainer for over 10 years. She has proven herself as a world-class cross-cultural trainer across Europe, the United States of America, Australia, and many countries in the Asia Pacific region. Celest obtained certification as John Maxwell Team trainer and executive coach. Celest is a proven presentation skill and public speaking coach who improves executives’ presentation skills in speaking with charisma, conviction, and influence. Celest’s whole-hearted embrace of helping people grow their leadership and influence is what makes her a passionate and dedicated trainer. Celest has a Bachelor of Business (Southern Cross University) and the Advanced Certificate in Training and Development (ACTA) issued by the prestigious Singapore Government Workforce Development Agency.
ELAVATE TRAINER
Vince Concio
Vince is driven to empower organizations and individuals alike, to instill confidence brought about by knowledge and skills that will allow them to jump in the transformations they need to embark on in this day and age. As a Thought Leader, Vince loves to engage his audience and clients in ways that will stimulate creativity, surface insights, and evoke passion. His belief that developing lifelong learners will create ripples of change fuels him to cultivate a learning spirit in every person he interacts with. Vince currently is the president of his own consulting company based in Manila and a regional partner with ELAvate. He excels in leadership development, sales productivity, and team-building training.
ELAvate has successfully implemented a number of global and regional training rollouts across every continent (excluding Antarctica - any takers?). We have a network of over 60 trainers/consultants who have the cross-cultural experience to deliver leadership or sales training as well as assessments and productivity consulting to multinationals, local conglomerates, governments, schools, and not-for-profit organizations. Contact us for your global or regional training requirements.
ELAvate World-Class Support Team
ELAvate is very proud of its world-class support team that ensures we deliver good marketing communication and stellar implementations for training workshop set up and materials.
Chiky Siera is our graphic designer. She has a BSc from Raffles Design Institute of Singapore In Fashion Marketing. This creative degree ensures ELAvate digital content is relevant and appealing. Chiky lives in South Africa.
Eka Susanti supports our consistent social media presence but her more demanding role is the ELAvate Stellar Implementation Process Coordinator in Jakarta, Indonesia. This role requires her to coordinate all workshop logistics with customers, trainers, and account managers to ensure ELAvate delivers professional workshops to participants - either in a face-to-face classroom or virtual environment.