About

Annahid is CEO, activist and co-founder of Anima Leadership, a global-reaching socially innovative company that has been revolutionizing justice and inclusion work in organizations and communities since 2006. Over the last twenty-five years Annahid has inspired, educated and coached thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations toward deeper experiences of belonging.

With a Masters in Adult Education and undergraduate degree in psychology, as well as additional certifications in Process Work conflict facilitation, Somatic experiencing trauma training, and Traditional Chinese Medicine, she brings a deeply inside-outside approach to cultivating systemic shifts. She started out as a political activist organizing national campaigns breathing in more tear gas than she cares to remember but now focuses on change one conversation, one compelling story at a time. Believing that diverse voices are the underpinning of our democracy, she sits on the Board for the Writer’s Trust of Canada and helps edit Write Magazine.

She’s the author of the best-selling books Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World (Dundurn, 2023) and Breaking the Ocean (House of Anansi, 2019) and which Ms. Magazine prophesied “may change you.” Her upcoming book Fire and Silence: A Roadmap for Leaders of Color (Dundurn) is coming out February 2026.  Having grown up in three different countries—Iran, England and Canada—on three different continents, Annahid is a citizen of the world, a lover of stories and a truth speaker for a more just future.