Elaine Alec (teɬkənitkʷ) is syilx and secwépemc and a member of the Penticton Indian Band. She is an entrepreneur and systems thinker who has founded and led seven companies over 25 years, building teams, curriculum, and models that hold under pressure.

Elaine works at the intersection of infrastructure, Indigenous governance, and human systems. She focuses on the human readiness required for structural alignment in high-stakes, multi-party environments. Her work strengthens the human and governance conditions required for projects to proceed, hold, and deliver long-term value.

She has led some of the most sensitive and high-stakes engagement processes in the country, including province-wide dialogues with families, survivors, and leadership prior to National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice. This work informed British Columbia’s Path Forward strategy and early investments, translating lived experience into policy, funding, and implementation.

That experience shaped her approach to multi-party alignment, particularly in environments where there is pressure, risk, and competing interests. She brings a systems approach to alignment across capital, Indigenous rights, and jurisdiction, with a focus on establishing the conditions required for decisions to hold.

Elaine currently serves as Practice Partner at Coeuraj, contributing to governance, infrastructure, and capital alignment across complex, multi-party initiatives.

She is the founder of Naqsmist Storytellers Inc. and creator of Cultivating Safe Spaces (CSS), a practical framework that builds the capacity required for leadership, teams, and partners to function effectively under pressure.

Elaine has worked for over two decades across Indigenous governance, politics, land use, community planning, and economic development, bringing lived experience navigating layered jurisdictions and cross-cultural negotiation.

She is the author of Calling My Spirit Back and Coming of Age: Overcoming Trauma to Achieve Self-Determination.