About Laurel
Laurel Donnellan is a leadership strategist, keynote speaker, and founder of Compassionate Leaders Circle (CLC), where she has spent nearly three decades helping leaders perform with purpose, lead with love, and coach with courage.
A graduate of Cornell University's College of Business (BS) and Columbia University (MA in Organizational Psychology), Laurel combines academic rigor with practical, business-tested insight. Her guiding conviction — that compassion and business performance are mutually reinforcing, not competing, priorities — has shaped CLC's signature learning labs (Purpose Lab, Lead Lab, Coach Lab, and Train to Transform), which deliver measurable shifts in leadership behavior, engagement, and culture for companies, nonprofits, and higher education institutions worldwide.
Laurel delivers high-impact keynotes for executives and people leaders on compassionate leadership, building culture from the inside out, and driving performance through people-first strategy. Audiences leave with tools they can use immediately to elevate careers, improve retention, and align purpose with performance. Her approach — Strategic, Soulful, and Scientific — grounds every talk in current research while keeping the human experience at the center.
Before founding CLC, Laurel worked in hospitality as a co-founder of an international hotel group, where she reduced employee turnover by 75% and helped lead the company to a $150M exit. That early grounding in service and culture continues to inform her work today.
Laurel writes about compassionate leadership for Forbes.com, hosts the Compassionate Leaders Circle Podcast, and founded the annual CLC Awards to celebrate leaders redefining what it means to lead with humanity. She is a frequent guest on podcasts discussing career and leadership development, a sought-after panel moderator and panelist, and a passionate advocate for educational equality, reflected in CLC's K-12 programming.
Her mission: help individuals find and do remarkable work, and help organizations build the remarkable cultures that make it possible.
Three Signature Talks
The Compassion Edge: Leadership That Outperforms
Laurel's three talks challenge the outdated assumption that hard results require hard edges. In today’s complex systems, sustainable outperformance belongs to leaders who can align build trust, and elevate others under pressure.These talks demonstrate that purpose, love, and compassion are not cultural add-ons — they are performance multipliers. These talks can be delivered live or online and be customized to your needs.Â
Talk 1:
Perform with Purpose
Purpose is a Performance Strategy
Metrics without meaning drive short-term output and long-term erosion. Laurel Donnellan shows how elite organizations convert purpose into performance — and how aligning personal and organizational values is linked to ROI. When purpose is embedded into decision-making, performance becomes disciplined, resilient, and scalable. Purpose is a strategic and competitive advantage.Â
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Talk 2:Â
Lead with Love
Learn the 3 Essential Skills of Compassionate LeadershipÂ
Trust and belonging are a balance-sheet issue. Laurel reframes “love” as the executive discipline of respect, admiration, and kindness. Leaders who combine love with accountability outperform those who rely on authority alone. This talk equips leaders to build cultures where love accelerates cultural cohesion and execution. Participants with leave knowing three simple but powerful skills they can take back to work and put into practice.Â
Talk 3:
Coach with Courage
Conversations That Boost Profits
Avoided conversations are the hidden cost center of enterprise leadership. Laurel demonstrates how courageous and compassionate coaching — clear standards, direct feedback, unwavering belief — unlocks potential and expands capacity at every level. When executives master high-stakes conversations, performance compounds instead of stalls.
Speaking Engagements
Publications and Media
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