Researcher. Former Executive Recruiter. Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author.
Hey, I’m LGO.
I study how leaders make the calls that matter most: how they build judgment they can trust, see potential others miss, give their people a reason to stay, and keep climbing after the win.
From the corner office to the Oval Office.
For thirty years I’ve advised leaders from the corner office to the Oval Office. For twenty of them I ran a retained executive search firm, which meant I was paid to read what past performance was hiding and to see it before anyone else did. I was good at it. I could never explain how.
That question is what I study now. (I’m currently working on my doctorate, finding out whether the instinct I spent two decades trusting holds up under actual scrutiny.)
- 10,000
- survey responses across 113 countries
- 100
- in-depth executive interviews
- 3M+
- views of her TEDx talk
- 20
- years leading executive search
You may already know me.
From Good Morning America, Access Hollywood, and NBC News; from Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and HR Magazine; or from my talk on why success doesn’t feel the way it should, which has more than three million views on TED.com.
How I got here.
Not a straight line, which is sort of the point.
The early ’90s
Day one of law school
I looked around the room and thought, I’ve made a huge mistake. So I dropped out to join an unknown southern governor’s presidential campaign. I ended up as a White House Presidential Appointee, helping to create the bipartisan-supported national service program, AmeriCorps.
Next
Building my own firm
I became the youngest vice president ever of a nationally respected search firm, but became frustrated when I realized that there was a different and perhaps better way to serve my ideal clients. So I built Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group and did exactly that. (Did I also build that website myself using rudimentary coding in 2002? Yes. Computer sleepaway came at 13 years old only goes so far.)
At the same time
And a family
I built the firm right as I was building a family. In 2015, I sold it to the team that helped me build it, and in 2016 I stepped away, hungry for the next chapter.
Then
An invitation to speak in public
In 2016, I was invited to speak to 2,500 people at TEDxCambridge. My first answer was, “No way. Public speaking is terrifying.” But my kids dared me to do it, and it turned into an unexpected (and surprisingly not terrifying) next decade of exploring and sharing ideas from stage.
Then
Limitless
One of those ideas was about why we disengage with work, why chasing someone else’s definition of success, and how we can get unstuck. It became a Washington Post bestseller and one of Good Morning America’s Favorite Books of the Year.
And then
More stages, bigger media
The talk and the book opened doors. Since then, I’ve spoken to leadership teams, associations, and conferences of every size, and joined Good Morning America as a contributor.
Then
Wonderhell
The success of that, however, left me in a place where I was grappling with the burden of my own potential, something that I learned I shared with many others. In fact, more than 3M have watched me talk about it on TED.com (what a full circle moment). That idea turned into the next book, which debuted at #2 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
Now
Back to school
It turns out that the computer sleepaway camp 13-year-old nerd is still alive and kicking inside of me. So, when we sent our kids off to school, and I went back too (not with them… I’m a mothership, but not a smothership). I’m currently writing my doctoral dissertation, studying the use of intuition in high stakes decisions.
I believe in challenging what we think is possible, because I’ve made a practice of doing it myself.
I walk my talk.
I don’t just study what drives people to exceed expectations. I’ve spent my life putting those ideas into practice.
I’m a sucker for The Big Idea and that larger-than-life goal you just can’t seem to shake.
My favorite thing is seeing the greatness in someone and reflecting it back to them, so they can see it too, sometimes for the first time.
How I work.
Customization isn’t a finishing touch. It’s how the work begins.
I don’t deliver the same keynote with a different company name on the slides. Every talk is co-created with my clients. Together, we identify the challenges their people face, then hand-select the research, stories, and insights that will make the greatest impact. No two audiences are identical. Their keynote shouldn’t be either.
If people are going to act on what I say, the research has to hold up.
People make real decisions about their careers, their teams, and their lives based on what they hear from the stage. I take that responsibility seriously. Every keynote is grounded in research, informed by decades of experience, and designed to give audiences practical insights they can put to work long after the event ends.
I am coffee.
A speaker once told me that conference organizers spend more on the coffee line than on the person on their stage. Meaning: I’m not the star of your show. You are. No diva behavior, no unreasonable riders, just a partner who shows up prepared and invested in your event’s success.
For event partners and press.
High-resolution headshots, a full bio, a short bio, and a stage intro, ready for your program, your promo, and your emcee.
Bring the research to your stage, built around your people.
Every keynote is built with you, for your people and your moment. You’ll hear back the same business day. Bureaus welcome.