She gave the audience a very clear, concise and easy-to-understand keynote about employee loyalty. Heather has a dynamic approach that easily engages the audience. Her energy and great ideas are inspirational.
Heather R Younger
Build A Culture Where Your Employees Feel Seen, Heard and Valued - Best-Selling Author of “The Art of Caring Leadership”
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Heather R Younger
Biography
Heather R Younger, J.D. is a trusted contributor to leading news outlets, like Forbes, Fast Company, Bloomberg, NBC and ABC and an expert on Caring Leadership® and active listening at work. She is the Founder and CEO of Employee Fanatix, a preeminent employee engagement and workplace culture consulting firm to Fortune 100 companies. Employee Fanatix conducts annual research on workplace culture, relying on employee voices for what is relevant now, to help companies redefine their culture strategy. Heather has personally read over 30,000 employee surveys and facilitated over 100 employee focus groups, including her signature “Art of Active Listening Sessions.”
With over 25 years of successfully managing teams, she has worked in customer experience, sales, and large account management for multi-million dollar accounts within multiple industries such as tech, staffing, healthcare, professional services, the public sector, and the financial sector. She's a renowned keynote speaker, drawing insights from current data and putting into practice what she teaches in her Caring Leadership Transformation Model™.
Heather’s strategies yield tangible business results, including heightened employee engagement, unwavering loyalty, seamless collaboration, and robust connectivity. One of her clients, a leader at a bank, continues to win Top Workplace awards, and the feedback from employees is that they are connecting the dots and making employees feel informed and engaged. Another one of her clients, a leader at an oil and gas company, says employee feedback shows an increased sense of trust about voicing concerns without fear of negative consequences. This all results in better outcomes in our everyday work.
Heather is a former practicing attorney turned award-winning leader in the area of Employee Engagement as recognized by Inspiring Workplaces, is a LinkedIn Learning course partner, 3-time best-selling author, TEDX speaker and host of the popular, Leadership With Heart podcast. She is also an Adjunct Organizational Leadership Professor at University College at Denver University.
Her accolades include being a best-selling author of three books: "The 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty," a Forbes Must-Read List topper for HR professionals, "The Art of Caring Leadership," wherein she shines a spotlight on the radical potential of compassionate leadership, and her latest best-selling book, "The Art of Active Listening," through which she equips individuals with the interpersonal skills required to make others feel seen, heard, and valued.
Heather's personal journey, rooted in her challenging experiences growing up as the only child of an interfaith and interracial marriage and being excluded because of her race, fueled her unwavering determination to ensure that workplaces around the world make both employees and customers alike feel heard, valued and seen.
What Makes Heather Different?
REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE
Heather’s experience leading teams and building organizations is a valuable asset to you because she brings practical know-how and lessons learned that can be directly applied to your situation. Plus, participants love that she has been in their shoes and has practical insights they can use immediately.
DYNAMIC
If your group is a sales team kicking off a new program, a leadership audience looking for fresh perspective, or an all employee event, Heather leverages her unique capacity to navigate complex social dynamics in the workplace and achieve goals together through effective communication.
INSPIRING
She creates opportunities for leaders, teams, and individuals to reframe adversity and empower change, championing positive transformation in workplaces, communities, and the world at large. Heather is unique in her ability to facilitate high level interactions between herself and the audience, which leads to the audience interacting with one another, enhancing their learning and building new relationships.
RELEVANT
Because of Heather’s unique commitment to leveraging current research findings, listening sessions, and employee feedback to close the gap between what employees need and leaders want, her content is fresh, relevant and applicable now.
RELATABLE
Audiences love Heather’s warmth and genuine nature, and she will love them right back. She doesn’t just talk about Caring Leadership®, but she seeks to embody it in every interaction. It’s common practice for Heather to spend time after an event talking with participants, signing books, taking photos, and listening to their hopes and dreams for a workplace where everyone feels heard, valued and understood.
RESULTS FOCUSED
Her strategies yield tangible business results, including heightened employee engagement, unwavering loyalty, seamless collaboration, and robust connectivity.
Heather R Younger
Featured Videos
Current: 2024 Speaker Reel
Time 04:00
More Videos From Heather R Younger
Heather R Younger
Featured Keynote Programs
The Art of Active Listening
The Key to Making Anyone Feel Valued and Engaged
Active listening is the doorway to increased belonging, loyalty, profitability and innovation. It is the difference between thinking we understand what people want and knowing what they want.
For the last 12 years, Heather has reviewed over 25,000 employee engagement surveys as well as facilitated numerous listening sessions. She has distilled that knowledge into actionable insights that equip your people with the interpersonal skills they need to make others feel seen, heard, and valued in every interaction.
In this keynote, Heather introduces a new change model for organizational listening which she illustrates in five steps through an interactive experience. The audience will leave with:
* The understanding of how to practice active listening with those who look to them for guidance
* A listening process that will unlock valuable insights and deliver desired outcomes
* The one success characteristic they need to reach their goals and create win-win scenarios at work
The High-Performance Culture Code
Where Compassion Ignites Engagement and Results
The leaders people remember most aren’t just smart — they care.
They create cultures where people feel seen, heard, and valued. And when leaders lead with care, it doesn’t just feel good — it delivers results.
In this powerful keynote backed by her book, Heather R Younger reveals how compassion, accountability, and a deep commitment to belonging fuel innovation, boost retention, and unlock peak performance. It’s a blueprint for building energized, high-performing teams — even in times of uncertainty and change.
Because here’s what the data shows:
Companies with high engagement and a culture of care outperform competitors by 23% in profitability and 18% in productivity (Gallup)
Perfect for leaders and teams who:
* Want to build an agile workplace that attracts and keeps top talent
* Are navigating change and looking to keep employees engaged and motivated
* Believe well-being is a strategy, not a soft skill
* Want to elevate their presence, emotional intelligence, and ability to inspire
* Know leadership rooted in compassion, resilience, and purpose is the future
The audience will walk away with:
* A High-Performance Culture Roadmap – Practical steps to create an engaged, results-driven workforce
* Proven Strategies to Improve Employee Retention and Productivity – Reduce burnout, turnover, and disengagement
* Tangible Actions to Drive Employee Motivation & Peak Performance – Unlock discretionary effort and build loyalty
* Leadership Presence & Influence – Techniques to communicate with authenticity, empathy, and authority
* The Power of Recognition & Coaching – How small, intentional actions drive long-term commitment and success
This keynote will ignite a culture shift where compassion and high performance are not at odds—but instead, the secret to lasting success - because when people feel cared for, they care more — about their work, their team, and your mission.
The Unshakable Leader
The Leadership Challenge That Turns Individual Growth into Enterprise Success
Self-leadership is the foundation of resilient, high-impact influence. It's what allows people to navigate uncertainty, bounce forward from setbacks, and model the kind of adaptability their teams need now more than ever.
In this transformative keynote based on her book, Heather R Younger empowers leaders to trade perfectionism for progress, fear for flexibility, and burnout for balance — without sacrificing performance. She’ll share actionable strategies to help leaders harness resilience as a competitive edge and unlock their full potential in the face of constant change.
And the results speak for themselves:
90% of top-performing employees demonstrate high emotional resilience (Harvard Business Review)
Organizations that invest in leadership development see 2.4x higher revenue growth and 3x better retention (Deloitte)
Because when leaders lead themselves well — they elevate everyone around them.
Ideal for leaders and team members who:
* Want to develop resilience strategies to fuel agility, adaptability, and sustainable success
* Are navigating rapid change, uncertainty, or high-pressure environments and need a mental framework to thrive
* Struggle with perfectionism and want to shift their mindset to prioritize progress over unattainable ideals
* Are ready to step into greater ownership as a leader, by fostering a growth mindset and self-empowerment
* Want to inspire teams to stay engaged, motivated, and high-performing—despite obstacles
The audience will walk away with:
* The Self-Leadership Framework – A proven model to stay strong, flexible, and focused through change
* Progress Over Perfection – A mindset shift to embrace growth, adaptability, and continuous improvement
* A Self-Empowerment Toolkit – How to take control of your career trajectory and leadership influence
* How to Foster a Culture of Resilience – Inspire teams to become adaptable, solution-oriented, and engaged
* Emotional Agility & Decision-Making Mastery – Strengthen clarity, composure, and effectiveness under pressure
This keynote equips leaders to redefine challenges as opportunities, embrace change without fear, and step fully into their leadership power—turning personal growth into enterprise-wide success.
Heather R Younger
Featured Books
The Art of Self-Leadership: Discover the Power Within You and Learn to Lead Yourself
by Heather R Younger
Learn to take control of your own professional destiny and lead yourself through challenging situations
In The Art of Self-Leadership: Discover the Power Within You and Learn to Lead Yourself, celebrated workplace culture and employee engagement expert Heather R. Younger delivers an exciting and practical discussion of how to develop an entirely new mindset around personal advocacy and self-leadership. You'll learn how to take control of the workplace experience and set expectations up front about relationships.
Younger explains how you can exercise your sphere of control and influence and manage your anxiety and stress with effective techniques. You'll also find:
- Practical talking points and scripts you can use with your manager―and others―at work
- Polls, contemporary studies, interviews, personal anecdotes, and practical advice regarding how to be the change you seek at work
- Strategies for prioritizing self-care, setting realistic goals, and overcoming fear
Perfect for professionals, entrepreneurs, employees, contractors, and anyone else doing their best to navigate the new world of work, The Art of Self-Leadership will also prove invaluable to managers, executives, directors, founders, and other business leaders. No more waiting, no more blaming. Learn to lead yourself today!
The Art of Active Listening
by Heather R Younger
Improve communication, engagement, and culture with active listening.
When employees, colleagues, and customers are not being heard, organizational culture, employee happiness, and overall organizational success will suffer. How well do you listen?
Active listening is the doorway to increased belonging, loyalty, profitability, innovation, and so much more. It is the difference between thinking we understand what people want and knowing what they want. Want to build stronger relationships, avoid misunderstandings, and anticipate problems before they surface at work?
All you have to do is listen.
The Art of Active Listening introduces a five-step framework that shows you how to listen successfully and act upon what you are hearing. Listeners will discover how to:
- Recognize the unsaid.
- Seek to understand.
- Decode.
- Act.
- Close the loop.
Backed by her personal review of more than 30,000 employee and customer surveys and facilitation of hundreds of focus groups, Younger discovered one universal truth: We all want to be heard. We want our voices to matter. We want the work we do to matter.
When we get this right—when we listen to our employees and customers and care about them not just for what they can do but for who they are—they can and will move mountains.
Using the tools provided in this book, you can implement active listening, regardless of whether you're in-person or virtual, that benefits all team members and customers, strengthens overall engagement, improves organizational culture and creates a space for everyone to have a voice.
When those at work feel heard, they will do whatever it takes to achieve outcomes that serve your relationship and your organization.
The Art of Caring Leadership
by Heather R Younger
Employee engagement and loyalty expert Heather Younger teaches us the radical power of caring support in leadership and in the workplace.
Here's the thing: most leaders think of themselves as caring leaders, but not all of them act in alignment with what that means for employees. Leaders may not be able to identify the level of care they are extending to their employees, but all employees intuitively know whether their bosses or managers are caring for them. Heather Younger argues that if you are looking for increased productivity, customer satisfaction, or employee engagement, you need to care for your employees first.
Genuinely caring for people means that you want to see them succeed for themselves, not just for what they can do for you, your team, or your organization. This book incorporates ten sections with breakout stories and interviews that outline the necessary steps to make all employees feel included and cared for, as well as a call to action for all leaders. Younger states that leaders who have the positive power to change the lives of those they lead shouldn't just want to care for them; they should see it as imperative for the success of their employees and their organization.
Heather R Younger
Featured Reviews
Heather R Younger
Featured Articles & Resources
5 Strategies for Leaders to Increase Employee Engagement
Employee engagement has been trending as a hot topic in 2022 as it’s come to a height with the Great Resignation. Leaders all over have struggled with the multitude of...
Scaling Caring Leadership to Fit Your Team Growth
A reader of my book wrote to me and said, “If there is one area where I’d love to have seen a bit more focus (maybe for the next book!) it would be on transitions." They said...
Getting Listening Right in a Virtual World
Whether it was at the height of the pandemic or recently, if you’ve gone through the transition from an in-office environment to now working fully remote - your listening skills...
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