Donald Thompson

Award-winning CEO. Multi-exit entrepreneur. People leader. Platform builder. The person you call when the mandate is to grow faster, enhance the culture, and drive business results. Donald Thompson has built and scaled multiple companies to acquisition, led post-merger integration, and now builds repeatable performance systems as Managing Director of the Workplace Options Center for Organizational Effectiveness.

Donald ties leadership to bottom line results, creating a culture you can run, measure, and improve. He builds teams that are fast, focused, and resilient, then ties their habits to business objectives: greater revenue, stronger margins, higher customer loyalty, and lower turnover. He turns engagement into everyday practice with clear roles, manager standards, and a smart rhythm of goals and feedback, so people do their best work and the business moves quicker. In the AI era, his approach blends innovation and human-centered leadership: practical, repeatable, and ready for implementation today.

Credentials? EY Entrepreneur Of The Year, Forbes Next 1000, leadership recognized as 3x Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies. Donald is a trusted executive advisor to CEOs and growth operators, hosts the High Octane Leadership podcast, is the author of Underestimated: A CEO’s Unlikely Path to Success and co-author of The Inclusive Leadership Handbook. His next book, Meaningful Work: How Psychological Safety and Employee Engagement Drive Business Results, will be published in 2026.

Why do executives turn to Donald? He doesn’t do business-as-usual. In the tech age, he keeps humans in the loop and results in focus, which turns big ideas into everyday habits. Donald collapses the distance between inspiration and execution by leading with clarity and purpose, resulting in smarter organizations and leadership ready to tackle tomorrow’s greatest challenges.