Conference Keynote Speaker

Susan Reilly Salgado is a consultant and speaker whose work focuses on how organizations can leverage a strong and healthy culture to achieve outstanding results. Susan began her work in this field as a doctoral student at NYU, Stern School of Business, back in 1999 when she was studying how culture impacts performance. At that time, she was able to persuade Danny Meyer, the founder of Union Square Hospitality Group (aka USHG; Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, Shake Shack, etc) to let her study his restaurants for her research. Her dissertation resulted in a proprietary model of culture that she uses in her consulting and speaking to this day.

Susan ended up partnering with Danny for 15 years after finishing her Ph.D. – first as director of culture and learning for his restaurants, and then as the founder and managing partner of their consulting firm called Hospitality Quotient. Now she is an independent consultant, applying the same principles to her work with companies across more than 20 different industries, from hospitality, to luxury retail, to hospitals, to financial services, and beyond including companies such as Delta Airlines, Hyatt Hotels, Merrill Lynch, CLEAR, Assa Abloy Security Systems, Chanel, Ford Motor Company, Custom Ink, Pure Insurance, Cedars Sinai Hospital System, Novartis, Coca Cola, and Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry.

Susan’s work has been profiled in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Business Insider. She is a co-founder of the NYC Chapter of Conscious Capitalism, has recorded a TEDx talk, has been a contributor to Inc. magazine, and was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business.

Susan believes that great workplaces make the world a better place, and her mission is to make the world a better place, one workplace at a time.