Réka Deák
Wellbeing has been outsourced to apps, perks and benefits programmes for a decade, and engagement scores have kept falling. The boards now asking for productivity, retention and resilience are discovering that none of these arrive without a deliberate operating model for how people sustain energy at work. The real question is no longer whether to invest in wellbeing, but how to make it a measurable feature of how the organisation runs.
Réka Deák helps senior leaders turn wellbeing from a benefits line into a measurable operating capability inside large organisations.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Réka Deák
- She brings a fifteen-year transformation consulting track record at KPMG, PA Consulting, The Hackett Group, Implement and Novartis, then applies it to wellbeing as a system rather than a programme.
- She built the model now used inside her own consultancy Wellbeing Designers, and tests it at scale in her current role as Head of People Resilience and Inclusion at Zurich Insurance Group.
- She is one of a small number of practitioners who can speak in the same room to CFOs, CHROs and operating leaders, because the substrate of her argument is measurement, not mindfulness.
- Her recognition as LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership Development and her advisory work with The Josh Bersin Company give her cross-industry credibility that goes beyond a single sector or function.
Biography highlights
- Founder and CEO, Wellbeing Designers.
- Head of People Resilience and Inclusion, Zurich Insurance Group.
- Former Affiliate Senior Advisor, The Josh Bersin Company.
- Fifteen years of transformation consulting across KPMG, PA Consulting Group, The Hackett Group, Implement Consulting Group, and Novartis as Global Leadership Development Engagement Lead.
- LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership Development; Wisdom Weaver in the ICF Thought Leadership Institute’s Future of Wellbeing series.
- Brain-Based Coach (NeuroLeadership Institute), ACC-certified coach (International Coach Federation), MSc Corporate Finance and MSc Education from Corvinus University of Budapest.
- Creator and host of the Wellbeing Designers podcast.
Biography
Most wellbeing initiatives sit at the wrong layer of the organisation. They live inside benefits, communications or HR, with a budget that competes against other line items and a vocabulary that does not connect to the operating conversation. The result is a decade of programmes that improve perception scores and barely move retention, productivity or burnout.
Réka Deák works the layer underneath that. After fifteen years inside transformation consulting at KPMG, PA Consulting Group, The Hackett Group, Implement Consulting Group and a global leadership development role at Novartis, she founded Wellbeing Designers to treat wellbeing the way serious organisations treat change: as a system with a measurement model, a culture intervention, and a leadership behaviour standard. She is now Head of People Resilience and Inclusion at Zurich Insurance Group, running the same logic at enterprise scale.
Her advisory work with The Josh Bersin Company put her in front of HR leaders across industries who recognised that the wellbeing question had outgrown its toolkit. Her recognition as a LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership Development and her selection as a Wisdom Weaver in the ICF Thought Leadership Institute’s Future of Wellbeing series reflect the same shift. Boards are now asking wellbeing leaders to defend their work in business terms, and there are few people who can do it credibly.
What she gives senior audiences is the bridge that most wellbeing keynotes refuse to build. She is comfortable with the science, the practice, and the operating reality of running a function. She speaks to people whose KPIs include retention, productivity and engagement, and gives them a way to talk about wellbeing that does not embarrass them in front of their CFO.
Key speaking topics
- Wellbeing culture as a measurable operating capability
- Human-centric leadership at scale
- Sustainable performance and human sustainability
- Wellbeing measurement, indices and strategy
- Wellbeing inside large-organisation transformation
- Inclusive wellbeing and DEIB
- The emerging role of the senior wellbeing leader
Ideal for
- CHROs, Chief People Officers, and Heads of Wellbeing building or defending a wellbeing function
- CEOs and boards reframing wellbeing as a retention and productivity question
- Transformation, culture and DEIB leaders integrating wellbeing into change programmes
- Senior HR audiences at industry summits on the future of work
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of wellbeing culture that survives a CFO conversation
- A view of what separates a wellbeing programme from a wellbeing operating system
- A reference model for measuring wellbeing alongside engagement, retention and productivity
- A clearer brief for the senior wellbeing role inside large organisations
- Practical next moves for embedding wellbeing into existing leadership and change agendas
Talks
Frames why a decade of wellness programmes has failed to shift the underlying numbers, and what a systemic operating model looks like instead.
Key takeaways:
- Why perks and apps cannot deliver wellbeing outcomes at organisational scale
- The four layers of a wellbeing culture: strategy, measurement, leadership, environment
- How to convert a wellbeing initiative into a function with a defensible business case
Translates wellbeing into the metrics senior leadership already uses, and locates it inside the existing performance conversation.
Key takeaways:
- The case for a wellbeing index alongside engagement and productivity metrics
- How wellbeing data should change leadership decision-making
- What the next generation of HR analytics needs to track
A practical session for senior leaders on the behaviours that produce sustained performance in their teams rather than burnout cycles.
Key takeaways:
- The leadership behaviours that move wellbeing data
- How to manage team energy as a strategic variable
- Why human sustainability is becoming a board-level expectation
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Asia Pacific | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| South America | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| United Kingdom | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US East Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |