About Michael Bach
Twenty years on the inside of this work.
I've spent twenty years doing this work from inside the building, not the sidelines. KPMG. Pride at Work Canada. The Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. Countless consulting clients. The advice on this site is shaped by the rooms I've been in, the projects I've worked on, and the calls I've had to make in real time.
Origin story
KPMG, CCDI, and twenty years in between.
My career in this field started inside one of the largest professional services firms in the world. I joined KPMG Canada in March 2005, and in December 2006 I took on the role of National Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, building the firm's first national DEI team and securing executive sponsorship at the most senior levels. Two years in, the global firm seconded me as Deputy Chief Diversity Officer for KPMG International, where I wrote the business case for and launched KPMG's first Global DEI Team, supporting cultural change across more than 150 countries.
Alongside that day job, I started and served as Founding Chair of Pride at Work Canada from 2006 to 2012, the national 2SLGBTQI+ workplace advocacy organization. The two threads informed each other: corporate inclusion strategy on one side, community organizing and policy advocacy on the other.
In February 2013, after eight years at KPMG, I founded the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, and CCDI Consulting, two distinct but interrelated organizations, and led them as CEO for a decade. We scaled to roughly fifty staff and eight million dollars in annual revenue, delivered more than two thousand DEIA consulting engagements, and reached more than fifty thousand professionals through our learning programs.
Since November 2022, I've run an independent advisory practice. Clients range from Fortune 100 companies to global professional services firms to government, across four continents. The posture is the same in every room: candid, well-evidenced, and useful where the decision actually gets made.
2006-2013 · KPMG era
National Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, KPMG Canada. Toronto Star feature.
2013-2022 · CCDI era
Founder and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, and CCDI Consulting. Canadian Club of Toronto keynote.
Present · Independent practice
Advisory work and keynotes for Fortune 100 companies, professional services firms, and government, across four continents.
The thesis
DEIA work has to hold up outside the DEIA team.
A DEIA strategy that reads well in a deck and falls apart when senior leadership asks how it's measured, what it costs, and what gets cut if revenue dips isn't strategy. It's a press release.
The work that holds up has already answered those questions before it walks into the room. It can name its operating metrics, its trade-offs, its risk posture, and its legal exposure. It can be defended in plain English to a board, to a regulator, to a journalist, and to a line manager who's been doing the job longer than the consultant has been alive.
My practice is built around that test. The advisory work, the keynotes, and the books all come back to the same question: when this gets stress-tested in a room without a single sympathetic face, does it still stand up.
Track record
Range, not stature.
Twenty years working in this field looks like a lot of different rooms. Fortune 100 companies and small mission-driven non-profits. Global professional services firms and federal government agencies. Boardrooms in Toronto, Mumbai, Johannesburg, London, and Sydney. Audiences of three executives and audiences of three thousand.
The point isn't the logos. It's that the same operating questions show up everywhere: how do we measure this, who actually owns it, what does it cost when it fails, and what's the defensible position when someone in the room decides to test it.
Credentials
- Post-Graduate Certificate in Diversity Management, Cornell University
- Cornell Certified Diversity Professional, Advanced Practitioner (CCDP/AP)
- Intercultural Development Inventory Qualified Assessor
- Former National Director of DEI, KPMG Canada (2006 to 2013)
- Former Deputy Chief Diversity Officer, KPMG International (2007 to 2010)
- Founder and CEO, Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, and CCDI Consulting (2013 to 2022)
- Founder and Chair, Pride at Work Canada (2006 to 2012)
A working life
Recognition
Michael has been named one of the 10 Most Influential DE&I Leaders Revamping the Future by CIO Views Magazine (2023), received the Lifetime Achievement Award for LGBTQ Inclusion from the Inspire Awards, and been recognized by Catalyst Canada Honours as a Human Resources and Diversity Leader. Earlier in his career he was named LGBTQ Person of the Year by the Inspire Awards, one of Women of Influence's Canadian Diversity Champions, and received the Out on Bay Street LGBT Advocate Workplace Award, and the TRIEC's Immigrant Success Award Canadian HR Reporter Individual Achievement Award.
Books
Three best-sellers, two lanes.
Birds of All Feathers (2020) is the practitioner book on DEIA fundamentals. Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Amazon best-seller; silver-medal winner in the 2020 Nautilus Book Awards.
Alphabet Soup (2022) is the workplace book on 2SLGBTQI+ inclusion: history, language, and what employers actually have to do differently. Toronto Star and Amazon best-seller.
All About Yvie (2024) is the co-authored memoir, in a different lane entirely, and based on a personal obsession for all things drag. USA Today and Amazon best-seller.
What's next
If this sounds like the help you need.
Tell me what you're working on. I'll read it, and you'll get a personal reply within two business days. If it's a fit, I'll say so and propose a way forward. If it isn't, I'll say that too, and usually point you somewhere more useful.