Executives and senior professionals
Power Player Academy
Executive presence, influence and authority for the promotion and the seat at the table.
Explore the AcademyFounder, EAC Leadership House
Eloïse Gagnon
Lawyer Head of Legal EVP CEO Founder
I spent twenty years in the rooms my clients are working to get into. Now I teach what it takes to lead there.
The path
I wasn't born a leader. I built it.
I started as an introvert who had to fight to be seen, heard and recognized. I followed my father's advice and became an international business lawyer, and built my career in mining, natural resources and gas: male-dominated industries, around the world.
Where it started
International business lawyer
LL.L., LL.M. For fifteen years I advised executives in mining, natural resources and gas and negotiated their deals. I worked 80 to 100 hours a week. I made sure I was always prepared. I believed the work would speak for itself.
Proving myself
Head of Legal
I made it to Head of Legal. I had the answers and I had the results. But in the rooms where the big decisions were made, I wasn't the one being heard.
The turning point
The job I didn't get
Then I lost my dream job. I was told I was invisible. That I didn't bring value. That I had no executive presence and couldn't influence. I remember how it felt to hear that about myself after everything I had given. It was the moment I stopped waiting to be noticed.
Rebuilding
One skill at a time
I studied how leaders speak, how they hold a room and how they bring people with them. I found mentors who taught me to stand up for myself. I practiced in every meeting, every negotiation and every presentation, until it became how I led.
The rise
Executive Vice President
That work took me to EVP, leading teams across 17 countries. The woman who had been called invisible was now leading people who didn't share her language, her culture or her assumptions, and getting them to move in the same direction. Out of those teams, 5 won awards for best-performing teams for the first time.
The CEO seat
CEO
Then I built two companies, one to $40M and one to $10M. As CEO, every word carries weight. My teams came from workplaces where a wrong decision could cost them their job, so everything came back to me. I had to learn a new level of leadership communication: direction clear enough to act on, hard conversations that kept trust, and the psychological safety that let my team decide.
Today
Founder, EAC Leadership House
Over 5,000 leaders coached, in English and French. The executive who is being overlooked. The founder carrying every decision. I have been both.
What 17 countries taught me
Across every culture I worked in, people followed the leaders they understood and trusted.
The people who moved organizations forward were rarely the smartest in the room. They were the ones who could make a decision clear, hold a hard conversation and get a team to act on it. That is a skill. It can be taught, and most leaders were never taught it.
Why I founded the firm
The problem was never talent.
I saw it in the executives I advised as a lawyer, in the teams I led across 17 countries and in my own companies. Capable people held back by how their leaders communicated, and by how they had learned to communicate themselves.
Everything I know about leadership I learned in the seat, often the hard way. In 2022 I founded EAC Leadership House in Montreal so the leaders I work with don't have to learn it the way I did.
How we work
We work on what is in front of you.
The meeting next week, the leader who isn't stepping up, the conversation you've been putting off. My team and I work in English and French, with three groups of leaders.
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Partner with usAt a glance
Eloïse Gagnon
EducationLL.L., LL.M.
CareerLawyer, Head of Legal, EVP, CEO
IndustriesMining, natural resources, gas
LeadershipTeams across 17 countries
Companies builtTwo, to $40M and $10M
Leaders coached5,000+
LanguagesEnglish and French
FirmEAC Leadership House, Montreal, 2022
Beyond the work
At home, on the sidelines.
I'm a mom to two boys who are obsessed with football. I'm raising them to be the next generation of leaders, on and off the pitch.
If I'm not on the sidelines, you'll find me hiking with my golden retriever, or in the kitchen cooking a new recipe I found online.
Personal photo: sidelines, hiking or kitchen
Work with our team.
Whether you're stepping into senior leadership, building your leadership team or developing leaders across an organization, we have a practice built for it.
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