Peckham Spring Speaker Series with Forbes Futurist, Heather McGowan

"CLEAR ON PURPOSE: Vision into Performance"

In today's complex workplace, success demands meaningful connection across divides. This transformative keynote reveals how purpose drives extraordinary performance - navigating uncertainty with challenging conversations can transform diverse perspectives into innovation. By asking the right questions that genuinely fuel creativity and providing leadership that inspires hope through measurable actions connected to a larger mission, we create powerful alignment.

The approach bridges various generational experiences within multigenerational teams, fostering cohesion despite inherent differences. Drawing from Heather's book The Empathy Advantage, attendees discover how purpose becomes their most powerful performance driver—increasing engagement, reducing turnover, and unleashing collective potential. By aligning human capability with shared vision, organizations don't merely respond to change—they lead it.

There will be an interactive Q&A session after the speech.

This event is a hybrid-event. We are opening our doors to the public and offering the option to log on to join the LIVE stream.

If planning to attend in person, the event will be at Peckham Inc. | 3510 Capital City Blvd. | Lansing, MI 48906

ABOUT HEATHER:

Top-Ranked Futurist & Bestselling Author

One of Forbes’ Top Futurists and a globally sought-after keynote speaker, Heather E. McGowan helps leaders and organizations navigate rapid change by unlocking their greatest asset: their people. A future-of-work strategist, she has advised top companies like Google, Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, and FedEx, transforming how they adapt and innovate.

As a 2x bestselling author, Heather’s insights have been featured in The New York Times, and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman calls her an “oasis” on the future of work. Her latest book, The Empathy Advantage, was named a Top 10 Business Book of 2023.

Heather’s powerful, data-driven approach helps organizations turn adaptability, curiosity, and empathy into strategic advantages—ensuring they don’t just respond to change, but lead it.

Heather McGowan Bio:

One of Forbes' Top Futurists, Heather E. McGowan is a sought-after future-of-work strategist, keynote speaker, and 2x bestselling author. She equips leaders and organizations to navigate relentless change by activating their most critical resource: their people. By teaching audiences to ask better questions, she enables them to adapt at the speed of possibility to Solve Tomorrow's Problems™.

Heather’s audiences range from startups and government organizations to publicly traded Fortune 500 companies, including Google, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, Mastercard, FedEx, AT&T, and Kaiser Permanente. Whether she's engaging in intimate conversations with senior executives or delivering keynotes to thousands, she transforms perspectives through data-driven insights, powerful visual frameworks, and practical optimism. Her approach helps organizations turn their distinctly human capabilities—adaptability, empathy, and curiosity—into strategic advantages in times of rapid change.

Heather's approach to innovation was shaped by her early career as an industrial designer. At Safety 1st, she helped transform the company known for its "Baby on Board" sign in to a comprehensive baby safety products' leader, developing multiple top-selling products. Her success continued at Wilson Sporting Goods', where she designed award-winning tennis footwear. Her innovative work extended to medical devices, where she designed surgical equipment controls, and sustainable consumer goods, creating a groundbreaking recyclable razor system that remains in production two decades later.

This hands-on experience taught her that true innovation isn't just about finding solutions—it's about asking better questions to Solve Tomorrow’s Problems. After earning her MBA from Babson College, Heather expanded into socially responsive investing and later led RISD's Center for Design and Business, helping organizations integrate user-centric design thinking into business strategy.

As Strategic Architect at Philadelphia University (now Jefferson University), Heather created an award-winning, interdisciplinary college focused on innovation. Her achievements included integrating 18 existing programs into a new core curriculum and creating an immersive design thinking-based program. The curriculum won the Core 77 top National Design Award for Education.

Heather’s emergence as a global thought leader began with a viral LinkedIn series on the future of work—reaching 100,000 readers in 24 hours—which sparked speaking invitations worldwide. Often quoted in The New York Times, Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Thomas Friedman referred to Heather as an “oasis” for her insights into the future of work. Her bestselling books include The Adaptation Advantage, which became an accidental guide to the pandemic, and The Empathy Advantage, named a Top 10 Business Book of 2023.

Heather holds a BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design, an MBA from Babson College focused on Entrepreneurship, and was recently awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design for her contributions to innovating education.

Personal experiences, like mobilizing 7,000 strangers to find a life-saving bone marrow donor for her brother, fuel Heather's unwavering optimism and core belief: humans are wired to help each other achieve extraordinary things. This drives her mission: to help leaders Solve Tomorrow's Problems™ by teaching them to ask better questions today.

Host or Publisher Peckham Youth Services