Melissa Majors
About
About Melissa Majors - Leadership Speaker, Author, Consultant & Coach:
Meet Melissa Majors—a brilliant storyteller who doesn’t just give talks; she takes audiences on a journey. She blends neuroscience, business savvy, human nature, and common sense into stories and tactics that prepare us to thrive in work and life.
Melissa is a leading advisor, coach, and advocate for human-centered leadership. Her expertise is curated from over twenty-five years of leading thriving teams across a variety of industries, including investments, insurance, ed-tech, associations, and business consulting. Her practical experience is enhanced by her formal education, which she gained studying strategy and innovation at Harvard University.
Melissa is the author of two books — Help Them Thrive: Leadership Coaching for Humans Leading Humans and The 7 Simple Habits of Inclusive Leaders.
Melissa is featured in publications such as Forbes Magazine and is loved by audiences at Google, the National Association of Realtors, 7-Eleven, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Catalyst, Lantheus, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and many more. She is endearing, authentic, and fun!
What to expect from Melissa on stage? An endearing and authentic experience filled with mesmerizing stories, audience interaction, smart research, and an enthralled audience who will buzz about her session long after the event has concluded.
Melissa is originally from Columbus, Ohio, so naturally, she’s a die-hard Ohio State Buckeye fan. She now lives in Cedar Hill, Texas, with her husband, Terrance. They have two children, Terrance and Luke, and her “Chief Wellness Officer”, a sheep-a-doodle named Ziggy.
Topics
What Melissa Majors talks about:
Help Them Thrive®: Lead with humanity and cultivate the best in yourself and others
No leader sets out to create a toxic work environment. Yet, many teams still find themselves stuck in cultures that drain energy, kill engagement, and stifle performance. Global workplace studies make it clear that leaders’ biggest problems today are disengagement and declining employee well-being. The solution? Leadership that rehumanizes the workplace.
The good news is that you can fix this. High-performing leaders create thriving cultures by stripping away complexity, embracing humanity, and fostering genuine connections. They make the workplace a place where people want to be—not just a place they have to be.
In this engaging, story-driven session, Melissa Majors unpacks the research, shares real-world examples, and delivers practical strategies to help you eliminate “unintentional toxicity” and build high-performing, happy teams. Her approach is backed by neuroscience, research, and common sense, offering simple yet profound shifts you can implement immediately.
What You’ll Walk Away With:
- A clear case for why rehumanized leadership is the key to solving today’s workplace challenges.
- Specific, actionable leadership tactics to detoxify your culture and boost engagement.
- Access ready-to-use resources (infographics + social media posts) to keep the conversation going.
The 7 Simple Habits of Inclusive Leaders
Inclusive leaders don’t just hope for inclusion in their teams—they build it into everything they do. But what does that actually look like? What specific actions set inclusive leaders and teams apart?
In this powerful and practical session, leadership expert Melissa Majors reveals a simple truth: the best leaders don’t leave inclusion or fairness to chance. Their tactics are simple yet profoundly impact their team’s performance, collaboration, and mindset, creating workplaces where people want to stay and do their best.
Their traits fall into seven categories:
- Business Process – Embedding fairness into everyday systems and decisions
- Collaboration – Making sure every voice is heard and valued
- Mindset – Recognizing the influence of instincts without letting them run the show
- Leading Self & Others – Practicing self-awareness and modeling fairness
- Decisions – Making choices that elevate people, not exclude them
- Values – Living out a commitment to respect and fairness
- Empathy – Understanding experiences beyond their own
Melissa Majors makes these concepts easy to understand and embrace with storytelling, research, and real-world strategies. She shows how our brains (not our intentions) are often the biggest roadblocks to fairness.
One of Melissa’s superpowers is having hard conversations without making the conversation hard. So prepare for a light-hearted yet impactful, engaging experience where you’ll learn from her expertise, yourself, and others.
What You’ll Walk Away With:
- A deeper understanding of concepts like intellectual humility, tactical empathy, GroupThink, and instinctive intelligence.
- Actionable habits and strategies used by fair teams and leaders.
- Access to social posts, job aids, and toolkits to help reinforce fair team habits in your daily work.
In Your Shoes: Walking Through The Stories of Us
Something extraordinary happens when we pause, look someone in the eye, and hear their story—not to respond, but to understand. In those moments, we stop being strangers and start becoming us.
In this heart-opening and interactive keynote, Melissa Majors invites audiences into a shared experience of listening, learning, and connecting through the transformative power of personal storytelling. With warmth, humor, and authenticity, Melissa shares pivotal moments from her own colorful journey—lessons gathered through lived experiences in business, community, and life itself.
But this isn’t just her story—it’s a spark.
Through intentional prompts and guided conversations, audience members are invited to step into one another’s shoes—briefly becoming “storytourists” in the lives of others. These moments of reflection and sharing reveal something profound: when we slow down and listen, we don’t just hear stories. We collect wisdom. We build empathy. We create belonging.
Together, we’ll explore the places where our lives intersect—where wisdom lives, empathy grows, and connection takes root.
This keynote experience will meet you where you are—and inspire you to live an even more fulfilled life, armed with wisdom from each other’s experiences.
Recent Publications
“Thank you again for sharing your time, passion, wisdom and energy with us yesterday. The feedback has been overwhelming! At one point, we had 500 of our 730 employees on that Zoom! We just injected a huge burst of energy and inspiration into our company. Thank you! I am grateful to have learned about you from Chief and to have met you and I look forward to our paths crossing again!”
General Counsel, American AgCredit
