Biography

Book Brand Leadership Expert Denise Lee Yohn through The Keynote Curators. 

Business Speaker:

Through her expertise and personal approach, Denise has become an in-demand keynote speaker inspiring business leaders around the world to build great brands and exceptional organizations. Her keynote presentations have captivated international audiences at conferences including TEDx, the Consumer Electronics Show, The Art of Marketing, the National Restaurant Show, and Sustainable Brands, among others, and at corporate events for Facebook, Lexus, NFL, and more.

Influential Author:

Denise enjoys challenging readers to think differently about brand leadership. With that goal in mind, she has written several books including the bestseller What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest and the new book FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies.

She is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Forbes and has been a sought-after writer for publications including Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Knowledge@Wharton, ChangeThis, Seeking Alpha, QSR Magazine, among others. News media including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times call on Denise when they want an expert point-of-view on hot business issues.

Brand Expert:

Denise initially cultivated her brand-building approaches through several high-level positions in advertising and client-side marketing. She served as lead strategist at advertising agencies for Burger King, Land Rover, and Unilever and as the marketing leader and analyst for Jack in the Box restaurants and Spiegel catalogs. Denise went on to head Sony Electronic Inc.’s first-ever brand office, where she garnered major corporate awards as the vice president/general manager of brand and strategy. She has served clients as an independent consulting partner since 2004.

For her work with some of the world’s greatest organizations, Denise has won awards from the American Marketing Association (EFFIE). HOW Magazine’s Interactive Design competition, the Financial Communications Society, Sony Corporation, and Sony Electronics Inc.

More About Denise:

When she’s not writing or speaking on brand leadership, Denise serves as the Founder/Director of Faith & Work Journey.  She is also a board member of Cameron House. She has served as an advisory board member of the Millennium Alliance and World Brand Congress, a judge for the Association of Management Consulting Firms Awards, a finalist selection committee member for CONNECT’s Most Innovative New Product Awards, and the brand director for TEDxSanDiego

Outside of her professional roles, Denise counts hiking to Everest Base Camp, dancing with a professional ballet company, and flying a helicopter as some of her greatest life experiences.

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Lead To Greatness

Choose from one of three Denise’s new keynotes:

- READY & RESILIENT: Leadership For Now & Next — how to navigate the way work and business has changed and lead your organization to greatness
- EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE DISRUPTED: The New Rules for Workforce Engagement — how to ensure your workforce is engaged and productive today and ready for tomorrow
- BRAND LEADERSHIP: How to Break Through, Blaze New Trails, and Build a Great Brand — how to achieve brand leadership in today’s competitive markets

THE FUSION FORMULA: Brand + Culture = Results

Forget everything you think you know about workplace culture! You don’t need perks and parties. You need engaged employees who produce the right results and help you build a great brand. Denise shows you how to infuse your culture with your core brand values and align your people with your unique brand identity, so you produce a healthy organization and a valuable brand. Based on her new book, FUSION, Denise shares the secrets behind the world’s greatest organizations and lays out the leadership playbook for achieving the brand-culture fusion you need to power your performance and future-proof your business.

Brand Leadership: How to Build a Rock Star Brand

You know how great brands dominate their fields. You experience it every time you pay a premium for a certain type of jeans, or see a line of people camping out to catch the newest smart phone release. Denise shows you how to achieve rock star brand status. Drawing from case studies, analyses, and interviews with brand leaders from the world’s leading brands, she shows you what great brands do and how to achieve the kind of brand leadership that everyone — from customers to employees to investors — wants a piece of.

IGNITE EXPERIENCE: Fuse Customer Experience and Employee Experience to Drive Your Growth

Customer experience is the new competitive battlefield where customer loyalty is won or lost. And among employees, the war for talent is intensifying. How do you win on both fronts? Denise shows you how to align and integrate your employee and customer experiences—and unleash their combined power to fuel your growth. Learn how to design and deliver employee experiences that fully engage your people and translate into customer experience excellence. Denise lays out the complete game plan you need to win the hearts and minds of customers and employees.

Extraordinary Experiences: How to Win Customers' Hearts and Dollars

How do some companies break through the clutter; compete with bigger, better-resourced competitors; and manage to grow and thrive when so many others fail? They earn customer love and loyalty through extraordinary experiences. Denise gives you the complete blueprint for creatively designing and consistently delivering customer experiences that win over customers for life. Learn how to get the edge that everyone else wants and excel at customer experience.

Workshop: Operationalize Your Values

Take your core values from words on a page to the driving force of your organization with an outcomes-oriented working session led by Denise. Participants engage in powerful exercises and facilitated discussions that enable them to identify the attitudes and actions they need to adopt to live out your core values on a daily basis. They develop a shared understanding of what the values mean, why they’re important, and how to work together to interpret and deliver on them. Ignite the power of your core values to focus, align, and empower your organization.

What Great Salespeople Do

If you’re worried about how the role of sales and selling is changing, you need to know what the best salespeople do to succeed in this new business environment. Denise shows you that great salespeople do what great brands do. She explains how to innovate — not imitate, how to create extraordinary experiences that embody your brand, and how to cultivate strong, emotional connections with customers. You’ll be inspired to engage with clients in new ways that cut out competitors and create long-term business success. Learn why and how the most effective salespeople operate as brand evangelists — and how you can too to win the new sales game.

Brand-Building Isn't Just for the Big Guys

It’s true! You don’t have to be big to be great. Even if you’re an entrepreneur who’s short on time and money, you can build a brand that stands out and has a big impact. Denise shows you what you need to beat the big guys at their own game. She reveals the Minimum Viable Brand (MVB) framework and how to lay the foundation for getting traction in a crowded, cluttered marketplace. Learn the 6 “What’s” that every start-up and small business must answer — and how the most successful entrepreneurs have built powerful, profitable brands.

Workshop: Build a Breakthrough Brand with a Clear Competitive Positioning

A clear, definitive competitive brand positioning is essential to brand building. It defines who you are selling to, what your business scope is, and what you do to create value for your customers. It provides strategic guidance on product development, pricing, messaging, and more. In this hands-on workshop, Denise shows you how to craft a competitive brand positioning, including:

- The most effective way to identify and define your target segment(s)
- How to determine an appropriate competitive frame of reference
- Three strategies to establish meaningful and lasting differentiation
- The sources that achieve brand credibility among today’s savvy customers

Workshop: Scale-Up Your Brand

Are you looking to grow significantly, expand your scope, or hit a new milestone? You need a solid strategic brand platform…and Denise will show you how to develop one. In this one-day, hands-on, fast-paced workshop, you will learn all the tools you need to develop a strong, valuable, sustainable brand strategy that will ignite your growth and help you scale. Set the foundation for your brand to inspire true customer loyalty, improve your profit margin, and increase the longevity of your business.

Testimonials

Not only inspiring but highly actionable.
– Stephanie Gallo, VP Marketing, E&J Gallo
Best speaker of the day...a fresh perspective.
– Mike Fox Director, Global Vertical Marketing, Facebook
World class. Even over Zoom you could see Denise’s expertise and feel her passion for the work of building great brands.
– Cammie Dunaway, CMO, Duolingo
Wow – you were amazing!! Such a practical and powerful message and presentation.
– Verne Harnish, CEO, Gazelles
Denise really took the time to understand our organization and our challenges. Her presentation was insightful and included many actionable tips for our teams.
– Eugenio Caballero, CEO, Sigma Alimentos Mexico
You were our highest rated speaker as people loved the handouts, the stories and the passion with which you spoke.
– Jay Walter, EO, Australia
We wanted someone who could stretch our thinking. The attendees were blown away by her presentation. We were very pleased with the depth of her experience and her ability to easily communicate that to a broad audience base.
– Sabrina Brown, Conference Producer, Canadian Tourism Commission Board of Advisors Annual Retreat
Denise delivered an outstanding presentation to the 1000 participants to the STIMA Congress in Brussels. She translated her vision on what great brands do into ready-to-use tools and made her methodology very actionable. Her clarity, her enthusiasm and her passion made everyone feel like making her or his brand great.
– Jean Cornet, Senior Director Deloitte / President, STIMA Congress

Booksby Denise Lee Yohn

FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies

What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate the Best from the Rest

Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do

Scale-Up Your Brand: How To Set Up Your Brand for Success in 5 Steps

Blog Posts

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Blog Posts

 

Celebrating Thanksgiving: Grateful Hearts, Bold Milestones

🦃 This Thanksgiving, we at The Keynote Curators are reflecting on what truly matters—our community,...

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Five Life-Changing Lessons from Recording 100 Podcast Episodes

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Celebrating International Men’s Day: Fostering Positive Change and Health

On International Men's Day, we celebrate their contributions and tackle the challenges they face through...

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Navigating Romantic Relationship Dynamics (Hidden Secrets!)

Navigating the Balance of Independence and Intimacy in Relationships https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6UMV6IqJXY&list=PLXTlGHk63lLgbS8LN-PENXDzwMdqWAnOm Why does it sometimes feel...

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