Hi, I’m HEATHER MCGOWAN.
FROM HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN THINKING TO REIMAGINING EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK, I’VE SPENT MY LIFE IGNITING THE POTENTIAL OF PEOPLE BY ENCOURAGING FOLKS TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS TO SOLVE TOMORROW’S PROBLEMS.
My journey spans partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, 25 successful product launches, and three books on thriving through change. This experience drives my work helping leaders harness human advantage—curiosity, adaptability, and connection—to reshape markets and achieve breakthrough results.
Through my work with audiences worldwide, I equip leaders and teams with the mindset they need not just to see beyond today, but to scale resilient organizations that are ready to shape the future.
My approach is grounded in powerful frameworks that help people transform their thinking, so they can navigate change with hope, optimism, and courage.
TRUSTED BY EXPERTS
Pulitzer Prize–winning NYT columnist Thomas Friedman is just one of keynote speaker Heather McGowan’s outspoken high-profile supporters, frequently quoting her in his books and columns, describing her as “the oasis” when it comes to insights into the future of work.
Research-Backed
Strategies
Heather’s academic work has included roles at Rhode Island School of Design and Jefferson University. Her corporate work spans product design, design and business strategy, and boutique investment banking. Female keynote speaker Heather E McGowan has brought dozens of products to market from consumer products to sporting goods to medical and baby products. After decades of working on both the demand and supply side of the business of human talent, Heather now dedicates her time to speaking and writing about how both need to change to build the future of work that we need now.
Innovative Approach
In a world where we can now hand off routine and predictable tasks to technology, Heather is at the forefront of challenging what it means to be a leader in the future of work. It’s not about lifting up the ‘best’ or most dominant performers, but rather selecting the most collaborative, the most empathetic, and the most fundamentally human among us to lead.
Timely & Urgent
Message
A visionary voice in workplace evolution, Heather consistently anticipates transformative shifts before they reshape our reality. Her 2020 work, The Adaptation Advantage, proved prophetic—written before COVID-19 yet serving as an essential guide to navigate through the global pandemic. Now, The Empathy Advantage (2023) emerges as the definitive leadership guide for navigating the artificial intelligence revolution, offering critical insights for those steering organizations through this unprecedented technological transformation.
FULL BIO
Heather E McGowan is a future-of-work strategist, keynote speaker, executive consultant, lecturer, and author.
Through her wide range of roles and projects, McGowan helps individuals and organizations prepare for the next wave of work transformation.
Heather is best known for her unmatched ability to bring pure and memorable clarity to complex topics, often through her illuminating graphic frameworks and powerful metaphors— all backed by deep and proven research on diversity, equity and inclusion, empowerment, engagement, retention, culture, human resources, leadership, healthcare, technology and education.
Heather performs 50+ keynote events a year all over the world for clients in every industry and sector from the military to the beauty industry to financial services to publicly-traded flagship technology companies and everyone in between. Often quoted in the media, notably in the New York Times, McGowan advises many organizations on adapting to and preparing for change.
Heather’s academic work has included roles at Rhode Island School of Design and Jefferson University, where she was the strategic architect of the first undergraduate college focused exclusively on innovation. Launched a decade ago, the award winning, core undergraduate curriculum designed by Heather is now the foundation for navigating the VUCA world with courses in design and propositional thinking, human behavior, business models and science-systems thinking.
As Mentioned In
Keynote speaker Heather E McGowan is also the co-editor and author of the book Disrupt Together: How Teams Consistently Innovate (Pearson, 2012), The Adaptation Advantage: Let Go and Learn Fast to Thrive in the Future of work (Wiley, 2020), and The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce (Wiley, 2023) and has published articles for Forbes.
McGowan holds a BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design, an MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship and Finance from Babson College, and she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in 2022.