Dr. Valerie Young is widely regarded as the leading expert on impostor syndrome. Her award-winning book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, published by Crown Business/Random House is now available in six languages.
She’s delivered her solution-oriented program at such diverse organizations as Google, Boeing, Intel, Regeneron, Facebook, IBM, Dell, Rakuten, Blizzard Entertainment, YUM! Brands, Microsoft, P&G, Deloitte, BP, McDonald’s (Europe), Liberty Mutual, Chrysler, Merck, Raymond James (Canada), NASA, the National Cancer Institute, Space Telescope Science Institute, US Consulate General Vancouver, the Conference Board, Silicon Valley Forum Tech Women, Association of Russian Women Managers, Society of Women Engineers, Association of Chemical Engineers, UK College of Policing, American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, American Society for Microbiology, Women in Manufacturing, Women in Commercial Real Estate, and the International Association of Venue Managers.
In addition, Valerie has spoken to students, faculty, and staff at over 100 colleges and universities in the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, and Europe including MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, and Oxford.
Valerie’s career-related tips have been cited in dozens of business and popular media outlets around the world including Time, Newsweek, USA Weekend magazine, BBC radio, Yahoo Finance, Science, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Globe & Mail. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Mail, The Irish Independent, O magazine, Psychology Today, and many more. And she was one of 10 speakers TED selected to deliver a talk at TED headquarters.
Valerie is no stranger to the business or entrepreneurial worlds. She was in management at a Fortune 200 company before leaving to launch her own career advice company in 1995. Before selling ChangingCourse.com in 2020, she trained over 350 career coaches from 19 countries how to help change seekers find unique ways to make a living without a job.
Valerie earned her doctoral degree in education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she studied internal barriers to women’s occupational achievement. Although her research subjects consisted of a racially diverse group of professional women, much of Valerie’s original findings have proved directly applicable to anyone with impostor feelings. While at the university, Valerie was the founding coordinator of the Social Justice Education program which pioneered what is now popularly known as diversity training.
