Canada’s inclusive leadership and communication expert
Biography
Denis Boudreau is a consultant, trainer, coach, and speaker who helps organizations embrace the power of disability inclusion in leadership and communication. He specializes in creating digital experiences that welcome everyone – especially those marginalized by technology due to disabilities, ageing, or other circumstances.
Driven by a mission to empower people to truly connect, Denis works with leaders and executives to develop inclusive leadership and communication skills that resonate online, on stage, and across teams. His expertise has taken him to audiences across Canada, the United States, Central America, Europe, and Asia, where he’s delivered hundreds of workshops and training sessions in both English and French.
Through his work, he’s helped managers and teams increase their reach to hundreds of thousands of people and trained thousands more to break down barriers to connection. Denis holds multiple certifications in accessibility, including the prestigious Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), a designation shared by fewer than 600 experts worldwide. As one of Canada’s top voices on inclusive leadership, he equips busy professionals with practical tools to lead and communicate inclusively, ensuring their messages reach the 40% of people often excluded by technology or design.
Over the years, Denis has collaborated with industry leaders such as American Airlines, AT&T, Cirque du Soleil, Deque Systems, Desjardins, Hydro-Québec, Netflix, Salesforce, Victoria’s Secret, and dozens of government organizations in North America, helping them embed inclusion into their strategies and practices. Whether guiding organizations through accessibility challenges or inspiring audiences to lead with empathy, Denis brings a wealth of experience and passion to every engagement.
Credentials
- 25 yrs of professional focus on digital inclusion of people with disabilities & the elderly
- 20 yrs training over 25,000 people on inclusive communication and accessibility
- 15 yrs as a leading global accessibility and disability inclusion management consultant
- #1 Amazon International BestSelling Author, “The Inclusive Speaker” (2023)
- CPWA designation – International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP)
- 2022-2025 National Director, Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS)
- 2020-2021 Chapter President, Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS)
- 2017-2019 Chapter Director, Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS)
- W3C invited expert involved with developing international accessibility guidelines
- Co-author, Quebec Government’s mandatory digital accessibility standards
- Regularly speaking at local, national and international conferences for over 20 years
Professional designations
Certified Virtual Presenter - eSpeakers
Certified Virtual Presenter Qualification (eSpeakers)
Denis is a Certified Virtual Presenter, confirming that he has developed the tools, the environment, and the skills needed to perform a high- quality remote presentation via live video. If you’re going to invest your valuable time, resources, and effort in a virtual speaker – for yourself, your team, or your client – you might as well ensure that this speaker will successfully deliver their message remotely, with as much impact as possible. This certification guarantees Denis can deliver on such a promise.
Certified Web Accessibility Specialist - IAAP
Certified Web Accessibility Specialist (IAAP – WAS)
Denis is a Certified Web Accessibility Specialist, attesting that he has internationally-recognized expertise when it comes to evaluating and auditing the degree of accessibility of existing content or objects according to published technical standards and guidelines, as well as the skillsets required to provide detailed remediation recommendations to cross-functional teams and organizations. This certification means that Denis knows and uses the relevant techniques and technologies, to help his clients achieve their goals for digital inclusion and accessibility compliance with various international standards and laws.
Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies - IAAP
Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (IAAP – CPACC)
Denis is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies, a designation that represents broad, cross-disciplinary conceptual knowledge about disabilities, accessibility, universal design, and accessibility-related standards, laws, and management strategies. This certification means that Denis has internationally-recognized expertise relevant to domains such as the web and other digital technologies and any domain in which thoughtful design, policy, and management can improve disability access.
Certified Professional in Web Accessibility - IAAP
Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (IAAP – CPWA)
This designation is earned by individuals who successfully pass both the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) and the Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS) exams. It means that Denis has internationally-recognized expertise relating to a broad, cross-disciplinary conceptual knowledge about disabilities, accessibility, universal design, and accessibility-related standards, laws, and management strategies, along with the technical expertise and hands-on experience to work with organizations on strategizing, writing, remediating, or identifying accessibility issues in code.
Did you know?
According to the Center for Retail Research, a firm based in Norwich, England that provides research and analysis about the retail industry, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a longer-term trend toward accessing all sorts of services online. Today, one in five dollars is spent online, which is more than twice the proportion of only a decade ago. What might that online shift might look like for a significant proportion of the population who have disabilities?