EMPOWERMENT
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Women are uniquely qualified to lead, engage, and thrive in the organizations of tomorrow. Connecting them to inherent power is your opportunity.
EMPOWERMENT
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Women are uniquely qualified to lead, engage, and thrive in the organizations of tomorrow. Connecting them to inherent power is your opportunity.
Female Empowerment Keynote Speaker Heather E McGowan helps audiences realize how uniquely qualified they are for the challenges we now face. Women have been out-earning men in university degrees since 1982, collectively resulting in over 10 million more degrees earned by females than males. As McGowan identified in her most recent book on leadership and female empowerment, The Empathy Advantage, empathy is a key attribute of successful leadership and empowerment. A recent study of over 300,000 people from 57 countries found women consistently score higher than men in cognitive empathy: the ability to understand someone else’s emotions and adopt their perspective to appreciate how something made them feel that way.
As an empowerment keynote speaker, McGowan identifies and articulates four required shifts (mindset, culture, approach, behavior) for leaders so they can better lead the empowered workforce. These shifts are a fundamental rethinking of the leadership profile from a domineering and unquestioned leader to a humble, caring, and empathetic guide. This foundational redefinition of leadership and empowerment moves from one routed in male energy (dominance) to one much more aligned with female instincts (nurturing).
If you seek a keynote speaker that can guide your people to female empowerment by helping them identify and connect to their own intrinsic confidence and power, Heather E. McGowan is the empowerment speaker for you.
Audience Takeaways:
Comprehensive understanding of the evolution of women in the workplace.
Compelling vision of the power of nurturing leaders.
Persuasive portrait of the strategic advantage of empathy
Four shifts in leadership necessary to harness the collective potential of female empowerment
SAMPLE TOPICS + OUTCOMES
All keynote addresses are bespoke to the audience and the below topics are offered to help clients generate ideas.
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TOPIC: TEAMWORK & LEADERSHIP
Despite disruptions like technology shifts and social changes, businesses today have a unique opportunity to tap into measurable advantages when it comes to engagement, innovation, and profitability—and it all begins with TRUST.
Just as humanity's greatest achievements arose from collective effort, cohesive teams innovate faster, adapt more effectively, maintain higher engagement, experience lower turnover, and consistently outperform their peers.
In this powerful presentation drawn from her two most recent books The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage, Heather shares proven tools audiences can use to activate their natural collaborative strengths so they can achieve extraordinary results, gain a competitive advantage, and drive sustainable growth.
The audience will leave with:Tips to intentionally build trust, belonging, and a shared sense of purpose
Practical strategies to build cohesive, high-performing teams
Tools for maintaining focus and cohesion during rapid change
Leadership mindset shifts to establish authentic relationships and trust
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TOPIC: AI & LEADERSHIP
Think you can't remember phone numbers like you used to? You're not alone. As we hand off more tasks to technology, some of our more-human capabilities will naturally fade. Yet while automation may lead to atrophy in some areas, augmentation opens doors to entirely new human capabilities—if we are intentional. The key isn’t only using AI to replace what we currently do by automating it, but transforming work as we know it.
In this eye-opening presentation, Heather cuts through the AI hype to demonstrate why thriving alongside AI isn't about having the right answers. Instead, it's about asking better questions, framing new challenges, and treating AI as our partner—enhancing our capabilities and expanding our cognitive horizons.
The audience will leave with:A clear understanding of what to automate vs. augment—and why it matters
Practical ways to learn from AI as a collaborative partner
Fresh insights on how to build on uniquely human advantages in an AI world
Necessary leadership shifts to drive optimal human performance
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TOPIC: LEADERSHIP & CULTURE
Remember when being a leader meant having all the answers? Today's most successful leaders are asking better questions. In a world of unprecedented opportunity, they’re not the most certain, but the most curious. According to research, this shift in profile—from know-it-alls to learn-it-alls—means we may be overlooking the very leaders we need right now.
In this paradigm-shifting talk, Heather reveals why the future belongs to forward-thinking leaders who can navigate relentless change by activating their team’s innate potential to learn, adapt, and grow.
Drawing on her bestselling books The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage, along with compelling research and real-world examples, she demonstrates how exceptional performance depends on empowering rather than managing, building trust rather than enforcing processes, and harnessing collective intelligence for breakthrough results.
The audience will leave with:Practical tools for activating their team’s collective potential
Clear methods for building high-trust environments where curiosity is encouraged
Frameworks for transforming management into performance enablement
Real examples of how curious leaders unlock performance
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TOPIC: CULTURE & LEADERSHIP
In an era of unprecedented social division, our professional success hinges not on discussing politics at work, but on mastering the tools of constructive dialogue—active listening, intellectual humility, and genuine curiosity—to create environments where diverse perspectives transform friction into fuel for innovation.
The ability to bridge divides through emotional intelligence and skilled communication may be our most valuable professional competency in today's interconnected world. When organizational purpose aligns with human potential, extraordinary things happen.
In this inspirational keynote drawn from Heather’s most recent book, The Empathy Advantage, Heather reveals how purpose can become your organization’s most powerful performance driver.
Through compelling research and real-world examples, she demonstrates how a shared vision can create the trust, belonging, and motivation needed to transform individual potential into collective impact—through increasing engagement, reducing turnover, and unleashing performance.
By getting clear on purpose, we don't just adapt to change—we shape the future.
The audience will be able to:Foster brave dialogue that transforms differences into innovation
Link individual roles to organizational purpose through clear vision
Transform purpose into measurable actions and celebrated outcomes
Make necessary leadership shifts to build shared vision
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TOPIC: TEAMWORK & LEADERSHIP
Despite disruptions like technology shifts and social changes, businesses today have a unique opportunity to tap into measurable advantages when it comes to engagement, innovation, and profitability—and it all begins with TRUST.
Just as humanity's greatest achievements arose from collective effort, cohesive teams innovate faster, adapt more effectively, maintain higher engagement, experience lower turnover, and consistently outperform their peers.
In this powerful presentation drawn from her two most recent books The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage, Heather shares proven tools audiences can use to activate their natural collaborative strengths so they can achieve extraordinary results, gain a competitive advantage, and drive sustainable growth.
The audience will leave with:Tips to intentionally build trust, belonging, and a shared sense of purpose
Practical strategies to build cohesive, high-performing teams
Tools for maintaining focus and cohesion during rapid change
Leadership mindset shifts to establish authentic relationships and trust
HEATHER E MCGOWAN IS THE MOST TRUSTED GUIDE FOR THE
ORGANIZATIONS OF TOMORROW: