Mary Gordon, Founder/President/CEO
Roots of Empathy
Mary Gordon is recognized internationally as an award-winning social entrepreneur, educator, best-selling author, child advocate and parenting expert who has created programs informed by the power of empathy.
In 1981, Ms. Gordon founded Canada’s first and largest Parenting and Family Literacy Centers, for which she received the Order of Canada. In 1996, she created the Roots of Empathy program, after which she named her international children's charity which now offers programs on three continents. In 2005, she created Seeds of Empathy for 3 to 5- year-old children in childcare which is offered in Canada, the U.S. and U.K.
Ms. Gordon speaks and consults to governments, educational organizations, and public institutions, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations and UNICEF. She is often a keynote presenter and panelist, discussing the role of empathy and social entrepreneurship at international conferences such as UBS Global Philanthropy Forum in Germany, Digital-Living-Design (DLD) in Munich, she spoke on the Websummit in Lisbon in November 2024 with an audience of 70,000. In the last couple of years, Ms. Gordon has had a prominent presence at several notable events. At the Civil 20 (C20 India) Working Group on Education and Digital Transformation, she delivered a talk on “Education for Life & Global Citizenship.” She contributed to a policy paper on global education, presented to G20. Mary Gordon presented in Johannesburg, South Africa, on a panel for the MenCare Global Fatherhood Webinar Series - “Revolutionize the way boys are taught about care”. She contributed the story of how Roots of Empathy socialize boys to feel and to care. Mary Gordon spoke at the New Longevity Summit in Balboa, Spain. There she spoke about the importance of developing empathy as it enables strong and lasting relationships which are key to longevity. She is a regular keynote speaker at conferences and has several TEDx talks.
She has been honoured with the Governor General of Canada Award for Innovation, is a recipient of the Order of Ontario, and Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, and is also the recipient of honorary doctorates in Canada and Europe. Additionally, she has been awarded the Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Education and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for Significant Achievement and Remarkable Service.
Ms. Gordon was the keynote speaker to the Department of National Defense / Government of Canada Workforce on Well Being and Mental Health. In the US, she twice presented at The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education – Forum for Children’s Well-Being with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in Washington DC. Ms. Gordon was a keynote speaker in New Zealand for the 73rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the by the Pediatric Society.
During 2025 Mary Gordon participated in a virtual panel on Real-World Impacts of Empathy & Compassion during a conference “Unraveling the Neurobiology of Empathy and Compassion: Implications for Treatments for Brain Disorders and Other Applications “hosted by the NASEM in Washington, DC.
She has presented twice at the World Literacy Summit 2023 and 2025 in Oxford.
Mary Gordon participated four times at the Spirit of Humanity Forum held in Reykjavik, Iceland, as well as twice on The Wellbeing Economy Forum.
Mary Gordon was honored to be chosen as a Thought Leaders at the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory (ARC) International Summit: Attendance, Belonging, and Success in Edinburgh, hosted in September 2024 by the Scottish government. ARC is a global group of Ministers of Education advancing values of equity, excellence, wellbeing, inclusion, sustainability, democracy and human rights for all students within high-quality, professionally run systems.
Ms. Gordon gave the opening keynote address at Hope Restored at a Canadian Trauma Conference, hosted by New Brunswick Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Education. In Helsinki, for the HundrED Innovation Summit, she delivered the opening keynote on the inspiration and impact of Roots of Empathy.
This year Ms. Gordon was a panelist at the virtual conference Character Matters: Values and Resilience in the Digital Age hosted by Children and Screens, Institute of Digital Media and Child Development from New York, USA. Soon after she was a keynote speaker at the Social Brain Lab: Neuroscience Conference on Empathy, organized by Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. In May, CanadaHelps invited Mary to discuss Roots of Empathy work during their yearly in person Fireside Chat.
Ms. Gordon is the recipient of many awards recognizing her contribution to innovation in education and international social entrepreneurship, including being elected as Canada’s first Ashoka Fellow in 2002 and a Global Fellow in Stockholm in 2011. Ms. Gordon is a BMW Responsible Leader for North America. She is an Executive Member of the Ashoka Global Board of Directors in Washington DC.
Roots of Empathy has received acknowledgements and awards recognizing our impact, most notably by HundrED, a global education non-profit based in Finland which, for the eight consecutive year, selected Roots of Empathy as one of the top global impactful and scalable innovations in education. We were honoured to be inducted as a permanent member of the HundrED Hall of Fame for Education Innovation in 2023. In 2025 HundrED has awarded ROE as one of the world’s best school-based wellbeing and mental health programs for their Spotlight on School Wellbeing competition.
Ms. Gordon is featured in international documentaries and has had dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in North America and India. Nelson Mandela invited Mary to work with his organization in South Africa in the late nineties.
Mary Gordon and Roots of Empathy have been quoted in over 1,400 academic journals, and Ms. Gordon has been featured in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Time Magazine, The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Financial Times, The Independent and the Huffington Post, Japan’s NHK, BBC, CBC, and in features on PBS, CNN, and NBC.
She has written many articles, book chapters, children’s books and her book, Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child, is a Canadian bestseller and is available in multiple languages.