Michael Held

Success begets success

Michael Held lives his company's quality-of-life philosophy. Like all of LifeSpeak's employees, he works from home. It's a virtual workplace that produces health and wellness training for a host of blue-chip companies in Canada, the U.S., and by extension, around the world.  Considering its tenuous beginning, LifeSpeak is definitely having the last word.

"If you ask my parents, I was crazy," Held laughs, recalling the risk he took quitting a successful job at the consulting firm Monitor to take part in the fledgling startup, alongside a former law colleague. "We literally started doing parenting classes in grocery stores," he says. "It's really grown to hundreds of topics over all sorts of areas."

LifeSpeak hires world-renowned experts to address a whole host of topics, ranging from parenting, to mental health, eldercare, heart health, sleeping tips, and everything in between. The interviews are videotaped and then posted online, where clients and their employees can watch them or listen to the sessions via downloaded audio podcasts, at their desks  or at home. Companies that have bought the service include TD Bank, Hewlett-Packard, Telus, Accenture, and dozens more.

It's certainly not how Held had imagined his life, when he began the JD/MBA program in 1993. "I actually always wanted to be a lawyer forever," he says. He did practice securities law after graduating with the gold medal, but only for a couple of years.  Held joined Monitor's Toronto office as a consultant in 2000, and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming office manager.

"Having the MBA allowed me to transfer into the consulting company," he says. "More than anything it opened doors." And Held says the dual degree continued to open doors, especially early on as he worked to promote LifeSpeak as a viable business. "I think when people saw my background it gave me an opportunity to be heard."

Today, Held says the JD/MBA program gave him the confidence he needed to take a big risk with a new idea.  LifeSpeak's success speaks for itself.

By Karen Gross

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