Drew Bird

Drew Bird is a leadership development practitioner, executive coach, speaker, and author with more than two decades of experience helping leaders at every level become more self-aware, more effective, and more intentional about the impact they have on the people around them.

Before moving into leadership development, Drew spent twelve years as a network systems engineer and network manager in the financial services industry in the United Kingdom, working with organisations including the London Stock Exchange and the Bank of England. During that time he also established himself as a prolific technical author, writing fourteen IT study guides and reference titles. It was that combination of systems thinking, practical problem-solving, and the experience of leading and being led in high-stakes environments that ultimately drew him toward the field of leadership development — and shaped the structured, evidence-based approach that characterises his work today.

He holds an MSc in Organizational Psychology from the University of London, England, and an MA in Leadership from Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC, Canada, and has spent his subsequent career at the intersection of feedback, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and leadership development — working with leaders across a wide range of industries and sectors, from frontline managers navigating their first leadership role to senior executives leading large, complex organisations.

Drew is an instructor in the Faculty of Executive Education at the University of Alberta, where he also teaches in the EMBA program — bringing the same direct, practical approach to the classroom that he brings to his coaching and consulting work. He is the founder of The EQ Development Group and ClearPoint Leadership Strategies, and the creator of the ClearPoint360 platform — a customizable, rigorous 360-degree feedback tool designed to give leaders an honest, multi-perspective picture of how their leadership is actually being experienced. ClearPoint360 is used by organisations across North America to support leadership development at scale.

His work is grounded in a single conviction: that the most important development work any leader can do begins with an accurate understanding of where they currently stand. Not where they think they stand. Not where they hope they stand. Where they actually stand — as experienced by the people they lead, the peers they work alongside, and the managers they report to. Everything else flows from that.

Drew has worked with thousands of leaders over the course of his career, and brings to that work a combination of academic rigour, deep practitioner experience, and a direct, no-nonsense approach that leaders tend to find both refreshing and genuinely useful. He is known for asking the questions that other people are thinking but not saying — and for creating the conditions in which honest, productive conversations about leadership become possible.

He divides his time between Tampa, Florida, and British Columbia, Canada, and works with clients across North America and internationally.