Denise Lee Yohn

Marketing & brand-building expert Denise Lee Yohn has become an in-demand conference keynote speaker inspiring business leaders around the world to build great brands and exceptional organizations.

Her speaking 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.

Blending a unique perspective, over twenty-five years of experience with world-class brands including Sony and Frito-Lay, and a talent for energizing audiences, Denise is a leading authority on building great brands and exceptional organizations.

As author of the bestselling book What Great Brands Do and her most recent book FUSION, she cracks the code on how to achieve brand leadership. In today's fast-changing marketplace, leaders need To :

• Build Healthy and Top-Performing Organizational Cultures
• Engage Their Workforces to Be Ready & Resilient
• Strengthen Their Brand Differentiation and Competitive Advantage

Denise Lee Yohn will show you how. She delivers fresh ideas and clear-cut tools to build a breakthrough brand. She inspires and teaches business leaders to realize the full potential of their organizations.

Denise Lee Yohn Speaking Presentations:

Future-Proof Your Business: Human-Centered Leadership in the Age of AI +

In this timely and thought-provoking keynote, Denise shows business leaders how to future-proof their organizations by investing in what AI can’t replace: human insight, empathy, and connection. Drawing on recent workforce trends—including major layoffs in HR—Denise outlines three essential shifts:

• integrating employee and customer experience
• co-creating culture and people strategies across departments
• cultivating empathy organization-wide

This isn’t about resisting technology—it’s about pairing it with a people strategy that drives performance and resilience. Perfect for leaders who want to thrive in the age of AI with their people, not in spite of them. --

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 & 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 Customer Experiences: How to Win Customers' Hearts & 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. --

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: 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. --

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. --