A steady voice for leaders navigating change.
Dr. Cindy Pace is a global executive advisor, organizational anthropologist, and speaker. She helps leaders understand MegaSHIFTs: the unavoidable systemic, organizational, and societal forces that are rewiring how we work, lead, and create value. She delivers the insights leaders need to adapt confidently to this new reality.
Dr. Cindy Pace is an award-winning global executive advisor, organizational anthropologist, and the Founder and CEO of PaceForward, a global culture and leadership advisory firm. She architects future-ready, high-trust cultures for global institutions through a rigorous methodology grounded in strategic insights, assessments, and executive coaching. Her work focuses on the intersection of leadership effectiveness and human performance, with an emphasis on navigating the systemic forces she defines as MegaSHIFTs.
Cindy, a transformational leader with a legacy of impact, has been awarded the President's Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedicated volunteer service. She has more than 25 years of corporate management experience across the healthcare, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and insurance sectors. Her corporate reputation was cemented during her tenure as Global Chief Inclusion Officer at MetLife. Reporting directly to the CEO and partnering with the executive leadership team, she led employee experience and cultural strategy for 45,000 employees across 40 countries. Her leadership and influential partnership were essential to the organization's recognition as one of Fortune's World's Best Companies and to its receipt of top workplace honors across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. She has been recognized as a Corporate Power Player by PoliticsNY, named among Mogul's Top 100 People Leaders, and received the G100 Iconic Women Creating a Better World award.
As a scholar-practitioner, Cindy applies academic theory to leadership practice. She's a leading expert in organizational culture and employee experience. Cindy is a highly sought-after speaker at prestigious institutions, including Harvard Business School, NYU Stern, Kellogg School of Management, MIT Solve, and Columbia Business School. Her insights have been featured on TED + Brightline and in global media outlets such as the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fortune. Cindy is also a corporate pioneer in using podcasting as a strategic communications tool for leadership and learning. She helps leaders navigate uncertainty through her Webby-honored podcast, Inclusion Begins with Me, and her current series, The SHIFT Forward with Dr. Cindy Pace.
Cindy serves as a lecturer at Columbia University and is a member of the Women's Leadership Board of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. Dividing her time between New York City and Atlanta, the "city of trees," she is a nature lover who finds balance in forest walks, orchid cultivation, and visits to botanical gardens. She's a travel enthusiast who loves visiting museums and enjoying afternoon tea around the world.
Trusted by leaders at leading organizations and Fortune 500 companies including:
Much of Cindy’s work centers on leaders' development in carrying the disproportionate emotional and cultural weight within organizations.
She helps leaders understand that load, name it, and redistribute it more sustainably so leadership remains effective without becoming extractive. She believes leadership should be purposeful, adaptive, and grounded but never performative. Her approach respects complexity, honors ambition, and keeps human well-being central without losing organizational credibility.
For those who are ready to stop feeling like change is happening to you rather than for you, The SHIFT Forward with Dr. Cindy Pace Podcast, offers reflective insights and transformative conversations that shift perspective.
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Cindy works with leaders and organizations seeking clarity during moments of transition.