ABOUT.
I’m Michelle Cantor.
How I Got Here
I spent eighteen years with Accenture, where I began as a change management consultant before moving into senior leadership roles across several of Accenture’s consulting businesses. I co-led operations for their $500 million Smart Grid Utilities business and led Inclusion and Diversity for the 1,600-person North America Management Consulting practice. Across those roles, I saw firsthand what makes change actually work—and how much of it comes down to effective leadership.
What I also noticed, over and over, was that being really good at the work didn’t automatically prepare someone to lead it. Leaders had spent years building expertise in their field. But leading people requires a different set of skills—skills they hadn’t necessarily had the opportunity to build.
I started Volar in 2017 to do something about it.
Spanish was my college major and an important part of my life long before I entered consulting, including a year living abroad and my early work in Chicago. When I started Volar, the name felt like a natural fit. It means “to fly” in Spanish. It represents moving forward—not just seeing what can be different, but developing the skills and confidence to make it happen.
The Part That Isn’t On My Resume
I’ve been married for 29 years and have three kids in their twenties. Throughout my career, I’ve navigated the same competing priorities many of my clients do—a profession that matters to me, people I love and want to be present for, and only so much time to give to all of it.
I don’t balance it. I don’t think anyone does. What I do is make choices on purpose instead of by accident. I’ve found that’s the only way to make room for everything that matters.
That perspective shapes my approach more than it might seem. A lot of the leaders I coach are somewhere in the middle of the same math: a role that's growing, people who need them, and a sense that they're doing all of it at seventy percent. I'm not going to tell them how to fix that. I am going to tell them it's possible to do it with intention rather than perfection, because I've done it, and continue doing it every day.
Credentials
MBA, Indiana University Kelley School of Business. BA, University of Michigan.
ICF Associate Certified Coach. Certified Diversity Executive. Certified practitioner, Everything DiSC and The Five Behaviors. Leadership Oakland alum.
Named a 2023 Crain's Detroit Business Notable Leader in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
Based just north of Detroit.
