Dan Pontefract
Leadership and Work Culture Expert | Bestselling Author of Flat Army and The Purpose Effect
Your people are your most valuable asset, and if you want them to excel―and your profits to soar — you need to abandon your traditional management style and adopt a collaborative, open leadership approach — one that engages and empowers your staff. Dan Pontefract, bestselling author of Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization, The Purpose Effect, and Open to Think, shares leadership tools that push the boundaries of organizational change to create workplace cultures that shine.
Dan is currently the founder and CEO of The Pontefract Group, a firm that improves the state of leadership and organizational culture. Prior to this, Dan spent 10 years at TELUS as their Chief Envisioner at the TELUS Transformation Office, a future-of-work consulting group that helps organizations enhance their corporate cultures and collaboration practices. He was also previously the Head of Learning & Collaboration at TELUS where he was responsible for the overarching learning, collaboration, and leadership development strategy for the company.
While at Telus, Dan championed the introduction of the TELUS Leadership Philosophy (TLP), an open and collaborative-based leadership framework for all 40,000+ TELUS team members. In parallel to these actions, he drove a philosophical and cultural shift in the way TELUS views and experiences learning called “Learning 2.0”; the shift to a social, informal and formal learning and collaboration model bringing TELUS to the forefront of connected learning and leading. He further championed the use and deployment of collaborative technologies to complement both the learning and leadership frameworks. Between 2008 and 2014, employee engagement at TELUS soared from 53% to 85%.
Dan received the “Vanguard Award” from Chief Learning Officer (CLO) magazine, and is a two-time winner of the “Leader of the Year” award from Corporate University Best in Class Awards. He was also named the “Learning Leader of the Year” for his work at Telus by SkillSoft, and CLO magazine bestowed him the “Learning in Practice Innovation Award” as well. He is also the recipient of the Brandon-Hall “Gold Award in Strategy & Governance,” and in 2014, his team became a nine-time winner of the prestigious “ATD BEST” award.
A renowned speaker, Dan has delivered over 100 external keynotes and presentations since 2009, including a TEDx Talk.