LEILANI M. BROWN, CEO

Leilani M. Brown is the Founder and CEO of Giant Steps, LLC, a consulting firm supporting leaders and institutions at the intersection of strategy, culture, career, and education. She also hosts Giant Steps with Leilani Brown (formerly Your First Job), a podcast that explores the pivotal decisions and reinventions that shape meaningful work and lives.

Before founding Giant Steps, Leilani was an award-winning executive at Stride, Starr Insurance Companies, The Economist Group, MetLife, and American International Group. A global keynote speaker on governance, career, workforce, and culture, she is the author of three books: From Campus to Career: 25 Tips for Your First Professional Year, Your Next Giant Steps: 25 Practical Tips for Job Search Success, and Your Next Giant Reset: A Career Comeback Plan. From Campus to Career is a celebrated guide for interns, new graduates, and young professionals. Her thought leadership on workforce development, equity, and inclusion has appeared in Newsweek, Fortune, EdTech Digest, Authority Magazine, and Scary Mommy.

Leilani serves as Vice Chair for Middlebury College, her alma mater, and is a board member of the Charleston Literary Festival. For more than 15 years, she has held significant board leadership roles across nonprofit, education, and arts and culture organizations, including Chair of the Board of the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Board Secretary for the Executive Leadership Council, along with additional governance and committee leadership roles.

She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and an M.P.A. from New York University, and she earned a Directorship Certification® from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).