Minette Norman

As a liberal arts major, Minette joined Autodesk as a technical writer and worked her way up to VP of Engineering Practice. There, she led 3,500 software professionals in the male-dominated tech industry, where she focused on engineering practices while nurturing a collaborative and inclusive culture. Now, she’s sharing the methods she’s developed. In her dynamic presentations and interactive workshops, she helps executives and employees at every level rethink how we communicate, which accomplishments we reward, and who belongs in leadership roles. This is the first step to inspiring a creative work culture that leads to break-out innovation and leveraging unique strengths to achieve breakthrough success.

At her consulting agency, Minette helps leaders build healthy, inclusive organizations where everyone feels like they belong. In her most recent book, The Boldly Inclusive Leader, she provides leaders with actionable strategies and daily practices for cultivating inclusive organizations in which teams can leverage their differences to create a more innovative and productive workplace. Minette shows how being a compassionate leader will transform not just the workplace, but the world. In her first book The Psychological Safety Playbook—an instant #1 Amazon Bestseller in Business Health and Stress, co-written with Karolin Helbig—Minette bridges the gap between academic research and actionable guides, emphasizing that psychological safety is about the human experience.

She was named one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times, and “Business Role Model of the Year” in the Women in IT Awards.