Jessica Shortall
MBA
TX, USJessica started her adult life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan and hasn't stopped searching for ways to change the world since, across the non-profit and for-profit landscapes. In the early 2000s, she co-founded and franchised The Campus Kitchens Project, a non-profit organization that is now active in more than 40 communities.
In 2006, Jessica received an MBA with honors from the University of Oxford, as a Skoll Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship. She went on to spend three years in London, providing consulting services to social enterpreneurs. From 2009 to 2014, she was the first Director of Giving and Social Innovation at TOMS Shoes, hired to build out the now-iconic One for One giving mission and strategy.
Today Jessica runs Texas Competes, the statewide coalition of more than 1,300 businesses making the economic case for LGBT rights. She is also an advocate for working parents and for paid leave, and the author of Work. Pump. Repeat: The New Mom's Survival Guide to Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work (Abrams Books, September 2015). The threads through all of this? Entrepreneurship, innovation, smart and sustainable social change, and creative problem-solving with limited resources.
Jessica speaks to large and small groups, from corporations to young graduates, on topics including corporate social innovation, intelligent ways to change the world, the role of women in corporate and civic leadership, working motherhood, and the fast-changing landscape of business activism on a variety of social issues.
Jessica likes to surprise audiences, upending conventional wisdom and inviting them to be inspired with her, instead of by her. But she is not content with inspiration. Her mission is to equip people with the tools to be great at changing the world. She likes to challenge people to look at old problems with fresh eyes, and to reconsider how they can make a difference. She draws on her rich repository of global stories and stories that are at turns funny, surprising, and thought-provoking. Jessica's 2015 TED talk was featured as a TED "Talk of the Day" and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and shared on social media by politicians and changemakers around the world. Her 2017 SXSW keynote on bridging divides in a divided time received not one but two standing ovations.
Jessica's experiences across the corporate, start-up, non-profit, and international worlds give her a unique perspective on leadership, innovation, culture, and personal growth.
Jessica started her adult life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan and hasn't stopped searching for ways to change the world since, across the non-profit and for-profit landscapes. In the early 2000s, she co-founded and franchised The Campus Kitchens Project, a non-profit organization that is now active in more than 40 communities.
In 2006, Jessica received an MBA with honors from the University of Oxford, as a Skoll Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship. She went on to spend three years in London, providing consulting services to social enterpreneurs. From 2009 to 2014, she was the first Director of Giving and Social Innovation at TOMS Shoes, hired to build out the now-iconic One for One giving mission and strategy.
Today Jessica runs Texas Competes, the statewide coalition of more than 1,300 businesses making the economic case for LGBT rights. She is also an advocate for working parents and for paid leave, and the author of Work. Pump. Repeat: The New Mom's Survival Guide to Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work (Abrams Books, September 2015). The threads through all of this? Entrepreneurship, innovation, smart and sustainable social change, and creative problem-solving with limited resources.
Jessica speaks to large and small groups, from corporations to young graduates, on topics including corporate social innovation, intelligent ways to change the world, the role of women in corporate and civic leadership, working motherhood, and the fast-changing landscape of business activism on a variety of social issues.
Jessica likes to surprise audiences, upending conventional wisdom and inviting them to be inspired with her, instead of by her. But she is not content with inspiration. Her mission is to equip people with the tools to be great at changing the world. She likes to challenge people to look at old problems with fresh eyes, and to reconsider how they can make a difference. She draws on her rich repository of global stories and stories that are at turns funny, surprising, and thought-provoking. Jessica's 2015 TED talk was featured as a TED "Talk of the Day" and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and shared on social media by politicians and changemakers around the world. Her 2017 SXSW keynote on bridging divides in a divided time received not one but two standing ovations.
Jessica's experiences across the corporate, start-up, non-profit, and international worlds give her a unique perspective on leadership, innovation, culture, and personal growth.
The Hard Work of Doing Good Well
Everyone wants to change the world, individually and on an organizational level. But when we set out to change the world, are we really doing good...or just feeling good? Drawing on personal and global examples from business and philanthropy, Jessica walks audiences through surprising findings that challenge pre-conceived notions of what it means to truly do good in the world, and offers new ways of looking at societal problems that can spur true innovation and...
Corporate Social Innovation: How Doing Good is Changing Business
Drawing on her experiences with dozens of social enterprises, and as the first Director of Giving for the now-iconic TOMS Shoes, Jessica shares the cutting-edge of business activity and innovation in the world of social impact. Special focus is given to the hard work of finding, structuring, marketing, and evaluating social impact activities that can positively impact brand and bottom line.
The American Case for Paid Maternity Leave
5 Unexpected Lessons on Productivity
Productivity talks often focus on to-do lists and inbox efficiency. Jessica's approach is wildly different. These five life lessons will change the way you think about personal and organizational productivity.
The Business Case for LGBT Rights
Gay and transgender rights are a hot topic in American culture and politics. But what about business? Drawing on her experiences building Texas' first statewide business coalition calling for equal rights for LGBT Texans, Jessica offers surprising and compelling data and stories that show that LGBT issues are economic and business competitiveness issues, and offers a framework for conversations and actions in the business sphere.
Pumping at Work Confidential: Surviving Breastfeeding and Working, for Employees, Managers, and HR
Jessica draws on her own experiences and her forthcoming book, Work. Pump. Repeat. (Abrams Books, September 2015) to share funny, awkward, inspirational, and educational stories of working women juggling breastfeeding and career. This talk is eye-opening and informative for women on this journey, and for managers, HR personnel, and employment lawyers who need to understand this growing segment of the workforce.
The Case for Paid Parental Leave
We need women to work, and we need working women to have babies. So why is America one of the only countries in the world that offers no national paid leave to new working mothers? In this incisive talk, Jessica Shortall makes the impassioned case that the reality of new working motherhood in America is both hidden and horrible: millions of women, every year, are forced back to work within just weeks of giving birth. Her idea worth spreading: the time has come for us to recognize the...
