Melissa Majors
Inclusion programmes have lost the room. Senior leaders still believe in the principle, but the language has become politicised, the training has become performative, and the people doing the daily work of managing teams are no longer sure what they are supposed to do differently on Monday morning. The gap is no longer one of intent. It is one of practice.
Melissa Majors helps organisations turn inclusion from a contested corporate programme into a set of everyday leadership habits that managers can actually use.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Melissa Majors
- She gives managers a behavioural model, not a values statement. The seven habits in her book are written for the team-lead who has fifteen minutes between meetings, not for the chief diversity officer.
- She speaks from operator credibility, having rebuilt the education function at Ellucian for more than half a million clients and partners and run global education at Meeting Professionals International.
- She makes inclusion commercially legible. The argument she lands with senior buyers is innovation, retention and team output, which keeps the conversation alive when political appetite for DEI has cooled.
- She brings packaged IP, in’klooded for strategic planning and Community Keynotes for surfacing ideas, that clients can put to work after the keynote rather than translating principles into practice on their own.
Biography highlights
- Author, The 7 Simple Habits of Inclusive Leaders; also author of Help Them Thrive: Leadership Coaching for Humans Leading Humans.
- Former Director, Global Education Services, Ellucian; former Director of Global Education, Meeting Professionals International.
- Career across Nationwide Insurance, Wells Fargo and HD Vest Financial Services before moving into education and consulting.
- Founder of Melissa Majors Consulting; creator of the in’klooded inclusive strategic planning methodology and Community Keynotes.
- Advanced study in strategy and innovation at Harvard University; guest lecturer in leadership and inclusion at San Diego State University.
- Featured contributor and subject in Forbes, Smart Meetings, PCMA Convene and The Meeting Professional.
Biography
Most inclusion programmes were built for a different political climate. They assumed senior sponsorship would hold, that the language would be uncontested, and that managers would translate principles into practice. None of that is reliable now. The work that survives is the work that turns inclusion into something a busy manager can do, repeatedly, without thinking of it as a programme at all.
That is the territory Melissa Majors has spent more than two decades inside. She ran global education at Meeting Professionals International and rebuilt the education services function at Ellucian, where she was responsible for more than 500,000 clients and partners. Before that, her career sat inside Nationwide Insurance, Wells Fargo and HD Vest Financial Services. The pattern is consistent: large, regulated, performance-measured organisations where culture work has to justify itself in operating terms.
Her book The 7 Simple Habits of Inclusive Leaders is the spine of her speaking work. It reframes inclusion as a set of repeatable behaviours, including how decisions get made, how empathy is applied tactically, and how dissent is invited rather than tolerated. The companion methodologies, in’klooded for strategic planning and Community Keynotes for idea generation, give clients something to use after the room clears.
She has been featured in Forbes, Smart Meetings, PCMA Convene and The Meeting Professional, and lectures on leadership and inclusion at San Diego State University. The work she is booked for is straightforward: take inclusion off the values poster and put it back into the operating practice of managing a team.
Key speaking topics
- Inclusive leadership as everyday management practice
- Behavioural habits of high-performing inclusive teams
- Women’s leadership and progression
- Manager effectiveness and team performance
- Psychological safety and team trust
- Talent retention through inclusion
- Tactical empathy in leadership
Ideal for
- CHROs, heads of DEI and heads of L&D rebuilding inclusion programmes for a more contested environment
- People-leader populations: front-line managers, mid-level leaders and newly promoted team leads
- Women’s leadership networks and ERGs inside large organisations
- Member associations and professional bodies addressing the meetings, events and education sectors
Audience outcomes
- A behavioural model managers can apply in the next team meeting, not after the next training cycle
- Language for inclusion that holds up commercially when sponsorship has cooled
- A clearer read on where current inclusion efforts are stalling and which habits would shift them
- Practical mechanisms for surfacing dissent and quieter voices inside decision-making
Talks
The flagship talk, drawn from her book, on the behavioural habits that separate inclusive teams from inclusive statements.
Key takeaways:
- The seven habits framework as a daily management practice
- How inclusive behaviour drives measurable team performance and retention
- Where most inclusion programmes break down at the manager layer
A talk on the specific structural and behavioural changes that move women into and through senior leadership.
Key takeaways:
- The points in the career pipeline where progression stalls and why
- What sponsors, not mentors, actually do
- Manager behaviours that compound or close the gap
A talk built for senior operators who cannot add another initiative to their week.
Key takeaways:
- The smallest behavioural changes with the highest leadership return
- How to lead inclusively without adding process
- A short list of habits that travel across teams and functions