Dan Pontefract

Hi, I'm Dan!

It’s great to meet you. Thanks for dropping by. Who am I?

I am a leadership and corporate culture strategist. I help leaders become better leaders. I help teams and organizations actually work more collaboratively—without the friction.

For 20 years, I held senior roles at SAP, TELUS, and Business Objects, leading corporate culture change, leadership development, and employee experience. I worked with some great people and learned a lot.

Ever since, I have helped organizations worldwide, including the likes of Salesforce, Amgen, Virgin Media O2, State of Tennessee, Nestlé, Canada Post, Autodesk, Manulife, Nutrien, City of Toronto, BMO, BDO, D2L, among many others. I’ve also learned a lot through my many engagements.

I live by a purpose statement:

“We’re not here to see through each other; we’re here to see each other through.”

It helps me navigate work, life, and everything in between.

I am a multiple award-winning author of five leadership books: WORK-LIFE BLOOM, LEAD. CARE. WIN., OPEN TO THINK, THE PURPOSE EFFECT and FLAT ARMY.

I’m a renowned leadership keynote speaker, having presented at four different TED events. I deliver roughly 40–50 keynotes per year.

(You can download my speaker/facilitator overview document here.)

In addition to keynotes, I facilitate workshops as well as small or large consulting engagements. (You can view my full line of services over here.)

I write for Forbes, Harvard Business Review, among other outlets. I am also an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business. You can download my short or long bio.

I also host the popular Leadership NOW program; interviews in audio, video, and Forbes column formats. I’m always in pursuit of what makes leadership and corporate culture better… now.

Feel free to drop me an email if you’d like to engage.

And do sign up for my PONTEFRACTIONS Newsletter while you are here. Thanks for visiting!

Dan’s Distinctions

Dan is honoured to be on the Thinkers50 Radar list. HR Weekly listed him as one of its 100 Most Influential People in HR. PeopleHum listed Dan on the Top 200 Thought Leaders to Follow, Engagedly named him to their Top 100 HR Influencers list and Inc. Magazine listed him as one of the top 100 leadership speakers. He has earned over 25 professional, leadership, and author awards over his career.

Award–Winning Books

Buy Dan’s books on:

Meet Dan (two minutes)

Working with Dan

Testimonials

Dan Pontefract’s keynote on the importance of workplace culture in employee engagement was excellent. Dan used his vast leadership experience to provide our conference attendees with practical strategies to build teams that are engaged and committed. His relatable, real-life examples were thought provoking, memorable and very personal, creating a connection to the audience. I would highly recommend Dan as an entertaining keynote speaker who delivers content that is relevant and actionable.

Michelle Hillyard, Director SCU
We are so proud to have had you at our event. Your talk was a big hit. It moved us. We can’t thank you enough.

Malin Björnell, Salesforce
Dan challenged us to have clarity of purpose, both as individuals and as an organization. He related inspiring stories drawing on his experience in business, technology and academia. As he said, ‘There is no ownership without belonging.’

Christian Pantel, D2L
Fantastic engaging talk for our global partner summit. Thank you so much, Dan!

Barb Kinnard, CEO Response Biomedical Corp
Dan not only brought his presentation to life with his charisma, but also content, style and presentation finesse. Our members were especially interested in his thought provoking and top of mind topic on the future of work and how we’re going to be leading the next generation of leaders.

Cheryl Goodwin, CPA
Dan is a conference organizer’s ideal speaker. Not only did he inspire and energize our group, but he also masterfully adapted his content so it resonated with the audience and our conference theme. As a bonus, Dan is able to nimbly navigate to adjust to a reduced time slot when other speakers went over time without sacrificing the impact of his session.

Director and General Counsel
Dan accomplished what we set out to do, which was not only to be inspirational, but also to leave everyone with tools and food for thought / self-reflection to improve their personal and professional lives.

Hermann Handa, FCT

Meet Dan Pontefract