Michael D. Levitt
Burnout is not a wellness problem. It is a retention, productivity, and risk problem that compounds quietly until a senior person resigns, a team fractures, or a culture survey turns red. Most organisations only address it once the cost has already been paid.
Michael D. Levitt is a workplace culture and burnout specialist who helps executives reduce attrition, restore performance, and build cultures that hold up under pressure.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Michael D. Levitt
- He brings both sides of the table: a senior finance and operations background overseeing budgets above USD 2 billion, plus formal CBT and NLP therapist credentials. Few burnout voices have both.
- His work is grounded in a documented personal collapse and recovery, the 369 days that produced his book of the same name. It gives executives permission to talk about pressure without performing resilience.
- He is recognised by Thinkers360 in the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders across Culture, HR, Management, Change Management, and Health and Wellness, with Top 20 standing on Culture.
- He writes regularly for CEOWORLD Magazine and Thrive Global, so the frameworks audiences hear on stage are road-tested in print with senior business readers.
- He frames burnout as an operating risk, not a wellbeing topic, which lands with CHROs, CFOs, and operators who need a business case before they fund a culture intervention.
Biography highlights
- Founder and Chief Burnout Officer, Breakfast Leadership Network (San Diego and Toronto).
- Host, Breakfast Leadership Show, recognised by Thinkers360 as a Top 20 Global Thought Leadership podcast.
- Author of Burnout Proof, 369 Days: How To Survive A Year of Worst-Case Scenarios, and Pre-Emptive Strike Leadership.
- Opinion columnist at CEOWORLD Magazine; contributor at Thrive Global.
- Certified NLP and CBT therapist.
- Former CFO and CIO with budget responsibility across healthcare and corporate sectors exceeding USD 2 billion.
Biography
Burnout shows up on the P and L before it shows up in an engagement survey. It surfaces as turnover, missed targets, sick days, quiet quitting, and the slow disengagement of senior people who used to carry the room. Levitt’s work starts from that operating reality.
His own story is the through-line. Across 369 days during the financial crisis he had a heart attack, lost his job, had his car repossessed, and lost his home. He wrote 369 Days about that period, and Burnout Proof about what he learned afterwards. Both books frame burnout as a cascade rather than a single event, which is how most leaders actually experience it.
The credentials matter because they bracket the work. On one side, a finance and operations career as a CFO and CIO with oversight of budgets over USD 2 billion, including healthcare leadership roles. On the other, formal training as a CBT and NLP therapist. The Breakfast Leadership Network sits between those two, advising organisations on culture, retention, and burnout prevention.
The recognition is consistent. Thinkers360 places him in the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders on Culture, HR, Management, Change Management, and Health and Wellness, with Top 20 status on Culture. He hosts the Breakfast Leadership Show, named a Top 20 Global Thought Leadership podcast, and writes regularly for CEOWORLD Magazine and Thrive Global on the same set of questions a buyer is wrestling with: how to keep people, how to spot the signals early, and how to build a workplace that does not quietly cost you your best operators.
Key speaking topics
- Burnout prevention and recovery
- Workplace culture and retention
- Employee wellbeing as an operating discipline
- Boundaries and remote work performance
- Leadership under sustained pressure
- Talent retention and the cost of attrition
Ideal for
- CHROs and people leaders looking to reduce voluntary attrition and stabilise culture during sustained change.
- CEOs and COOs who want a credible business framing of burnout rather than a wellness add-on.
- Healthcare, financial services, and professional services audiences where pressure is structural and the cost of senior departures is high.
- Leadership teams introducing or relaunching hybrid and remote operating models.
Audience outcomes
- A clear read on the early operating signals of burnout, before they become resignations.
- Specific tactics for building boundaries into how teams work, not just how individuals cope.
- A retention argument senior leaders can take into a budget conversation.
- Permission and language for executives to discuss pressure honestly without it reading as weakness.
- A practical model for connecting culture, wellbeing, and performance in the same operating cadence.
Talks
A first-person account of the 369-day cascade, translated into a leader’s playbook for spotting and stopping the same pattern in their own organisations.
Key takeaways:
- The early operating signals of burnout in senior teams, named and observable.
- How personal collapse and organisational collapse share the same warning signs.
- Specific interventions a leader can run without waiting for an HR programme.
A practical session on building a culture that retains senior talent, framed around the cost of attrition rather than the language of engagement.
Key takeaways:
- The structural choices that drive retention, separated from perks and slogans.
- How to read culture data the way an operator reads a P and L.
- What to fix first when a culture has started to slip.
A working session for hybrid and remote teams on protecting output without losing the flexibility that made the model work in the first place.
Key takeaways:
- The boundary failures that quietly destroy remote productivity.
- How leaders model the behaviour they want their teams to adopt.
- A simple operating cadence for hybrid teams that holds up over time.