Ioni Papadakis

Ioni Papadakis is a Greek-Canadian millennial business owner and founder of 9 Elephants Consulting. She leverages her +10 years of experience in developing people from diverse cultural backgrounds to coach online entrepreneurs to start, build and grow their businesses.

A self-proclaimed "people-potential enabler", Ioni is on a mission to empower newcomers or young expatriate entrepreneurs and future business owners to turn their invisible potential into actionable purpose through the transformative power of self-leadership.

At the tender age of 17, she left home, moved countries on her own and started a new life from scratch. Very soon she accumulated over 50k in debt and became almost homeless. While struggling with depression, she came across the concept of emotional intelligence. She became obsessed with studying leadership and coaching which led her to read over 90 business and self-development books in just one year.

From her own journey of overcoming depression, avoidance, and professional discrimination, Ioni knows the importance of committed perseverance and self-leadership. She believes that every human, expatriate or not, has incredible potential and by mastering self-leadership, aligning our values with actions, and leveraging the power of community we can transform our invisible potential into actionable purpose and create a positive ripple effect in our communities.

Join Ioni to unlock your inner leader, achieve your business goals, take up space and be part of a more empowered future.

Hire Ioni to speak to/about"

-Perseverance, self-leadership, community, coaching

-Starting a new business, building an online business

-Managing people and teams, leadership

-Future entrepreneurs, new start-ups, online business owners, millennials Gen Z

-Expatriates, newcomers, immigrants, culturally diverse communities

-Social media, online marketing, online sales, digital business




Notable moments

2011 - Accumulates over 50k in student and bank debt, becomes almost homeless.

2012 - Starts as a frontline Customer Care employee working weekends and 4 p.m. to midnight shifts.

2017 - Eliminates all financial debts, and becomes completely debt-free.

2018 - Attains the position of national Customer Care Manager, overseeing the performance of over 100 personnel and leadership of 14 direct reports.

2019 - Embarks on an entrepreneurial journey and oversees two rental properties, achieving a six-figure income.

2020 - Achieves a 19% year-over-year (YoY) sales growth in the position of National Sales Manager, making her one of the company's youngest female sales leaders

2020 - Presents a 60-second idea for TEDxMontrealWomen (not a TEDx talk)

2023 - Wins “Woman of Impact” Award at the Annual Montreal Vendors Business Awards

Present - Operates 9 Elephants Consulting, with a dedicated full-time staff member, providing business services to entrepreneurs across 14 diverse industries in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia.