Deb Boelkes
Co-Founder, Author, and Keynote Speaker
Read Deb’s personal story about Heartfelt Leadership.
Also see Deb's bio on the Business World Rising web site.
As the Co-Founder and Co-Curator of Heartfelt Leadership, Deb Boelkes is dedicated to identifying, celebrating, paying tribute to, developing, empowering, emboldening, and impassioning heartfelt leaders to inspire and heal a heartfelt-hungry world.
With over 30 years of Fortune 150 and entrepreneurial leadership experience, Deb is not only a role model heartfelt leader herself, she's the ultimate authority on creating best places to work. With a reputation for making big things happen fast, Deb has long been a high-energy builder of high-performance organizations. Throughout her corporate career, she leveraged her strategic vision, sales savvy, and team building skills to build superstar business development and professional services organizations within global technology corporations.
Not one to settle for the status quo, Deb ultimately took on an even bigger challenge: to transform the business world into a more enriching experience for all by helping leaders everywhere build thriving workplaces where employees are passionately engaged and give their personal best each day. In 2009, Deb founded Business Women Rising, a leadership development firm dedicated to accelerating advancement for high potential women to senior leadership. Today, Business World Rising helps organizations the world over create best places to work. Deb delights and inspires audiences of all kinds through her books, inspiring leadership symposiums, and as a rousing keynote speaker.
Prior to embarking on her entrepreneurial ventures, Deb led Worldwide Business Programs at QLogic Corporation. At Arrow Electronics, she directed a Software as a Service line of business. At IBM, Deb founded and directed a national professional services practice. She began her high tech career as a Systems Engineer at AT&T. Deb earned her BS degree in Business Administration and her MBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Rhode Island, where she graduated top in her class.
Deb is the author of four books, including her latest, Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets From Women on Top, which is a sequel to her third book Women on Top: What's Keeping You From Executive Leadership? Her second book is, Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring, which is the sequel to her first book, The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture. Deb's leadership expertise is featured regularly in print media, online magazines, on corporate websites, on podcasts, and on radio and as a keynote speaker.
Deb Boelkes and her husband, Chris, live in Amelia Island, Florida. They have three grown sons.