Kristen Hadeed

Kristen Hadeed believes that authentic, human leadership can change the world.

At 19, with hardly any leadership experience, she started a cleaning business called Student Maid. She never expected it to be her career; it was simply a way to earn money while she was in college. But before she graduated, her company received a contract to clean hundreds of apartments—and it changed her path forever. She hired a team of 60 people to help her, and within days,75% of that team quit. That’s when her obsession with learning how to be a more human leader began.

Over the next 14 years, Hadeed learned a lot by screwing up. But most importantly, she learned how to lead from her heart. Doing so helped her take Student Maid from a small cleaning company to a business known on a global scale for its culture of belonging, its focus on people, and its purpose of building leaders.

Today, she spends her time helping leaders, teams, and organizations around the world embrace their humanity. She has worked in just about every industry, in almost every U.S. state and several other countries, and in hundreds of virtual meeting rooms. Whether she is delivering a keynote talk, multi-day workshop, or facilitating ongoing development, her goal is always the same: to ignite the kind of human leadership that builds trust, belonging, and wildly engaged cultures.

Her work has been featured in news outlets including PBS, FOX, Inc., NBC, TIME, and Forbes. Her book, “Permission To Screw Up,” has sold more than 50,000 copies worldwide. Her first TED Talk has more than three million views on YouTube.