Spring Speakers Series

Heather McGowan

The Peckham Community Partnership Foundation Fall Speaker Series welcomes Heather McGowan, Forbes’ Top Futurist and 2X Best-Selling Author, for the "Clear on Purpose – Vision into Performance" session.

About Heather:
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™. 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.

As 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.

About the Session:
“Clear on Purpose: Vision into Performance” 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

The session, “Clear on Purpose – Vision into Performance” is a transformational discussion emphasizing how having a clear sense of purpose can drive high performance in the workplace. It emphasizes the importance of meaningful connections, navigating uncertainty through challenging conversations, and turning diverse perspectives into innovation. The session will explore how asking the right questions sparks creativity, how leadership can inspire hope through measurable actions, and how purpose creates alignment within multigenerational teams. Based on Heather’s book The Empathy Advantage, this discussion highlights how purpose boosts engagement, reduces turnover, and maximizes collective potential—helping organizations not just adapt to change, but lead it.