Jacqueline Stavros’ passion is working with others to create purpose and meaningful results for positive change. She is recognized for her creation of SOAR, a positive approach to strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading. She is a management professor and consultant in the College of Business and IT at Lawrence Technological University. She has authored many articles and books, two recent are:  and Learning to SOAR: Creating Strategy that Inspires Innovation and Engagement and Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement. She has worked in 25 countries using Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to affect the lives of thousands or people and hundreds of organizations improve capacity to thrive and increase performance.

Her research is grounded in AI, neuroscience, and positive psychology to help others understand how our conversations influence wellbeing and ability to succeed. She is on a mission to co-create a movement of conversations worth having to recognize each other’s humanity and create organizations and communities that work for everyone. Her work has been featured in Forbes, SmartBrief, Detroit’s Live in the D, People & Strategy, and leadership and training blogs and podcasts. She is a keynote speaker on positive approaches to leadership, strategy, management, conversations, and change.