Jackie Handy

Jackie Handy – Workforce Culture Specialist & Speaker

Jackie Handy is a popular voice on workplace culture and what it really takes to help organisations stand out from the crowd.

Her 30-year career in senior leadership, learning and development and inclusion, means she understands precisely what people need to thrive at work. She developed The Matter Model® framework to focus on the critical intersection between belonging and purpose. It helps leaders diagnose culture gaps – and shows them how to plug them.

Her insights have been shared in HR Magazine, BBC and in her latest book The Matter Model – How Great Leaders Build Belonging, Strengthen Purpose and Drive Engagement at Work, published by Routledge.

Having her TEDx talk upgraded to the main TED.com platform and being commended for ‘Best Storyteller’ at the UK Speaker Awards, shows you have a speaker who doesn’t just take to the stage; but takes audiences on a journey. One where insight meets humour, and leadership starts being human again.

She has worked alongside numerous companies including Tesco, Google, Merck and Amgen, and her work is fuelling culture shifts and leadership breakthroughs in organisations across the globe. With fresh, relatable content and real talk, Jackie shows how to build connection and performance through focusing on the no-cost everyday moments that matter.

Her work is shaped by her lived experience, professional grit, and deep belief in people. She’s a long-term fundraiser for Dementia UK, a proud long-distance hiker, and fiercely passionate about creating better workplaces for everyone.

JACKIE HANDY SPEAKING TOPICS

Belonging Without Wallpaper

You already care deeply about inclusion.

You know that when people feel they must shrink, mask, edit or protect themselves at work, they cannot fully contribute. And when people do not feel they belong, your business loses honesty, creativity, trust and talent.

This keynote closes the gap between good intentions and everyday impact.

It gives audiences a way to think about belonging that is practical, personal and immediately useful – built through a series of small but powerful human choices.

In this keynote, audiences are invited to look beyond the language of inclusion and into the lived experience of it.

Audiences will leave with a long list of no-cost actions to help people feel safe, valued and understood.

What does it really feel like to belong? And what is the impact when you don’t?

Jackie shares part of her own inclusion story: the moments that shaped her understanding of what it means to be seen, judged, to belong, to adapt, and to find the courage to finally take up space as herself.

This keynote explores why belonging is so much more than what we say. It lives in how we notice, listen, include, challenge and act with one another in the small moments, every day.

AUDIENCES LEAVE WITH

• A fresh way to think about inclusion beyond policies, posters and awareness days
• Practical actions to help others feel seen, heard and valued
• Evidence-based understanding of what belonging really means
• A roadmap to create workplaces where people do not have to leave parts of themselves at the door

Culture 3.0 – Make Work Matter

The way people experience work shapes the way they perform at work.

Leaders are being asked to deliver more, often with less time, greater complexity and a higher emotional load. At the same time, team members want to feel seen, valued, trusted and connected to work that has meaning. Culture can no longer be something organisations talk about; it must be something people can feel, trust and act on every day.

This keynote closes that gap.

Built around Jackie Handy’s international book, The Matter Model: How Great Leaders Build Belonging, Strengthen Purpose and Drive Engagement at Work, this keynote gives leaders a practical way to build robust, resilient teams ready for the change happening now – and the change still to come.

From the book – “The Matter Model® How Great Leaders Build Belonging, Strengthen Purpose and Drive Engagement at Work”

Do I matter here? Does the work I do here matter?

This is not a fluffy talk about “being nice”. It is a commercially relevant keynote about building healthy, human-centred workplaces where people stay, contribute and do their best work.

AUDIENCES LEAVE WITH

• Understanding the critical link between belonging, purpose, engagement and high performance
• Recognising the signs of disconnection within teams before they become harder to repair
• Using The Matter Model® as a diagnostic lens to identify how teams are currently operating
• Practical strategies to build more human-centred team cultures without losing focus on performance