You Build The Culture For Everyone Else. Mark Helps You Build It For HR.
Mark Mohammadpour helps People leaders say the things that keep their own teams from burning out while they hold everyone else together.
Trusted by global HR leaders:
“What truly set Mark apart was his ability to translate my broad and big ideas into meaningful action. Mark was an absolute pleasure to work with: professional, responsive, and genuinely invested in our success.”
— Mindi Greenland, CUDE, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Georgia United Credit Union
Built for your room, not translated to it.
You don’t need a speaker who has to be briefed on your world. Mark already knows it. The People team that’s the most overextended group in the building. Making the case for a people-first investment to a skeptical CFO. Building culture in a company that doesn’t always make it easy. And caring for a whole workforce while running on empty yourself.
Mark doesn’t hand HR another framework to roll out. He names what’s actually wearing your team down, in language they recognize, and gives them the words and the business case to lead it.
About Mark
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A former communication executive who led award-winning teams and strategy for global brands like Microsoft, Adobe, and Amazon, and who has naturally lost and kept off 150 pounds over 15 years, Mark Mohammadpour combines Fortune 50 leadership experience with certified health coaching expertise.
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Mark has worked with HR directors, CPOs, and SHRM members who are often the most overextended people in the organization, the ones expected to be the architects of culture while simultaneously managing the fallout when culture breaks down.
He understands the specific challenges HR leaders face: making the ROI case for people-first investment to a skeptical CFO, building culture in organizations that don’t always make it easy, and caring for a workforce while running on empty themselves. His sessions give HR teams the frameworks, language, and business-case data they need to lead with confidence — and lead their teams with sustainability.
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His keynote conversations blend full attendee engagement, actionable insights, and current research. Today, his most requested topics, Leading with Empathy, The Buoyant Leader, and Lead a Culture of Well-being, are built around one belief: healthy employees are your greatest competitive advantage.
Who We Help
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The Goal: Preventing “Caregiver Burnout” within the HR department.
The Result: A resilient HR team that leads by example, reducing company-wide turnover.
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The Goal: Protecting the Employee Value Proposition and ensuring executive alignment.
The Result: Lower recruitment costs and a high-performance culture that attracts top talent.
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The Goal: Delivering valuable professional development.
The Result: Increased member loyalty and high-impact conference programming.
What We Address
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HR leaders whose job is to care for everyone else, with no one caring for them.
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Chapter conferences that struggle to feel fresh year over year.
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HR is a profession that deserves to be spoken to with specificity, not generic leadership fluff.
The CHASE Model™: Create A Culture Operating System
We ensure your cultural shift is permanent. By integrating The CHASE Model™ into your daily workflow, you create a sustainable ‘Culture OS’ that drives retention and performance. This is where your investment pays off: with a team that is not just healthier, but significantly more productive and connected to your mission.
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We begin by looking past the symptoms of burnout and turnover to identify the underlying friction. Using data-driven insights and team pulse surveys, we pinpoint the specific communication gaps and well-being hurdles that are currently preventing your business from "soaring." We don't just address the "what"; we uncover the "why."
Using The CHASE Model™, Mark shows how managers and directors can rebuild their leadership approach around capacity rather than compliance, and why the back-office culture is the product your guests experience at the front desk.
Through research, real stories, and interactive moments, your leaders leave with a practical playbook for building a team that shows up consistently and stays.
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In every high-performing organization, your employees are the heroes of the story. We focus on the human beings behind the titles; the people driving your innovation and serving your clients. By shifting the perspective to see every team member as a vital contributor to a healthy culture, we foster the "Buoyant Leadership" mindset required to navigate high-pressure corporate environments.
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This is where the Keynote Conversation or Offsite Experience takes center stage. We move beyond “passive listening” into “active participation.” Through live simulations, real-time polling, and empathy-based training, your team practices the exact communication and well-being skills they need to implement the very next day.
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Change only sticks when it’s integrated into the workflow. We co-create a written Team Charter and deploy the Team Culture OS™—a customized leadership operating system designed to fit into your existing daily routines. This isn’t a one-and-done event; it’s the blueprint for how your team will communicate, collaborate, and support one another moving forward.
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What gets measured gets managed. We close the loop with a 30/60/90-day accountability plan and post-event "Health Checks." By tracking attendee engagement metrics and following up on specific culture-growth milestones, we ensure your investment yields a tangible return—both in team morale and the bottom-line performance of your "wealthy team."
Keynote Conversation Topics
Lead A Healthy Culture Of Well-Being
How the Best People Teams Model the Culture They Build. You can’t build what you aren’t living. The People team itself must be the first culture that is healthy for the rest of the organization to follow.
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Culture starts where you sit. In Lead a Healthy Culture of Well-Being, HR and People leaders discover how to rebuild the People function as a model of the culture it’s trying to build across the enterprise. Using The CHASE Model™, Mark shows how decisions shape culture. Your People leaders leave with a practical framework to start measuring and sustaining what actually matters.
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69% of executives admit they have no measurement strategy for well-being; for People leaders, that gap starts at home.
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The HR team’s internal culture will become the most powerful evidence for your enterprise-wide strategy.
Energy, psychological safety, and connection will be used as the first metrics HR measures for itself.
The CHASE Model™ will be adapted for HRBP onboarding and culture initiative debriefs.
Leaders will leave with a repeatable framework for tracking team health, starting the same week.
The Buoyant Leader: Healthy Under Pressure
Why the Most Grounded People Leaders Soar. HR leaders are the organization’s emotional infrastructure, managing layoffs and crises often simultaneously. The most effective ones have stopped trying to carry it all alone.
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This session provides a framework for leading through change fatigue and initiative overload. Blending neuroscience and humor, Mark reframes resilience as a deliberate practice, proving that in HR, calm is your most powerful tool for credibility.
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57% of leaders say stress impacts their effectiveness; this applies directly to the HR professionals trying to solve it for others.
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Leaders will build a daily resilience practice to navigate constant organizational change.
Change fatigue will be reframed as a signal to advocate for a sustainable People strategy.
“Calm” will be utilized to build more credible business partnerships.
A steady People function will create the safety required for the rest of the organization to change.
Attendees leave with specific tools to protect their capacity against leadership escalations.
Leading With Empathy
Trust Is the New Productivity Inside the People Team. HR leaders are the architects of empathetic culture, but practicing that empathy with the business leaders you support is where relationships either deepen or stall.
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This session shifts empathy from a “concept to deploy” into a skill to deepen within HR partnerships. Mark shows how understanding the pressure business leaders carry makes HRBPs more trusted and influential at the executive table.
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Employees with empathetic leaders are 5x more likely to stay, meaning the HR leader’s most important lever is how they lead, not what programs they build.
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The HRBP model will be rebuilt on the science of cognitive empathy.
Perspective-taking will be used to strengthen relationships with skeptical or resistant stakeholders.
Empathy skills will be applied to difficult feedback, talent decisions, and organizational redesigns.
Leaders will leave with practical tools to build connections and credibility across business functions immediately.
REWORK: The Future-Ready Leader
The Playbook for Healthy, High-Trust Leadership: Starting with the People Team. HR leaders build well-being programs for everyone else, then go home completely spent. REWORK is for the people who take care of everyone else and need someone to take care of them.
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In REWORK: The Future-Ready Leader, HR and People leaders discover how to apply the same operating principles they recommend to the rest of the organization to themselves and their teams. Using The CHASE Model™, Mark shows how the most effective People functions have rebuilt their internal culture around capacity instead of constant output — and why leading from depletion is the most common barrier to the culture change they’re trying to drive. Through research, real stories, and interactive moments, your People leaders leave with a new playbook for modeling the culture they’re building across the enterprise.
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HR managers show some of the highest stress rates globally; the irony of burning out while designing wellness programs is where the real conversation begins.
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The People function will redefine high performance beyond the number of initiatives launched.
Leaders will apply The CHASE Model™ to ensure that the internal HR culture aligns with the external enterprise goals.
Attendees will treat team capacity as the prerequisite for strategy, not a reward for it.
The team will leave with a shared framework to lead culture change without burning out.
Work In Sunlight
Rekindling Belonging and Purpose in HR and People Teams. You chose this work because you believed in healthy organizations, but policy enforcement and headcount reductions can make that belief get quiet. This keynote turns the volume back up.
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This interactive conversation helps HR teams reconnect to the humans they serve. Mark shows that when the People team builds belonging for itself first, the culture work they lead for the enterprise becomes more authentic and durable.
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Strong belonging makes employees 56% more productive; the People team that models this first gains the most credibility to build it enterprise-wide.
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Purpose will be rediscovered as a daily practice for the HR function.
Belonging will be established as the foundation for sustaining culture work through pressure.
Motivation will be reimagined as a collective team effort rather than an individual burden.
Teams will build Daily Sunlight Habits to keep the connection alive through high-volume demands.
Every attendee leaves with a Sunlight Map™ to sustain a sense of belonging within the People team.
Upgrade To The Three-Point Impact
Most keynotes are forgotten by Monday. The Three-Point Impact makes sure yours isn’t. A keynote + facilitated team session + follow-up coaching, so your people remember, apply, and repeat what they learned.
“If your company is experiencing a challenge with turnover, managing a hybrid culture, or employee engagement, or is just ready to commit to an organizational well-being strategy, talk to Mark. He’s been in your employees’ shoes and can help your organization or agency chart a better path forward.”
— Rebecca Martin, Chief People & Impact Officer, Beehive Strategic Communication
Let’s give your HR audience the keynote they’ve been waiting for.
Click on the button below or email Mark at mark@chasingthesunpdx.com, and we’ll respond within 1 business day.
Frequently asked questions:
How can HR leaders reduce “Resenteeism” and “Quiet Quitting” in the workplace?
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Addressing “Quiet Quitting” requires moving beyond surface-level perks toward Employee Efficacy and Psychological Safety. Mark Mohammadpour helps HR teams implement a Communication Charter that defines clear boundaries and improves team health. By giving employees a sense of agency and a “North Star” mission, organizations can move staff to active engagement, significantly lowering the risk of turnover.
What is the most effective way for HR to support managers during a “Trust & Clarity Reset”?
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To support stressed managers, HR must provide Actionable Implementation Tools, not just theoretical training. Mark Mohammadpour’s Phase 2 Implementation workshops involve managers in co-creating their own team’s “Rules of Engagement.” This creates immediate clarity, reduces the administrative friction that leads to manager burnout, and restores trust between leadership and the frontline.
How can HR protect the “Caregivers,” preventing burnout within the HR department itself?
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HR burnout is a critical risk to organizational stability. Mark Mohammadpour uses Empathy-Based Influence to help HR teams build their own internal resilience. By applying the 3-Point Impact framework specifically to the People Ops team, HR leaders can set sustainable boundaries, prioritize their own well-being, and lead the organization from a place of strength rather than depletion.
Why should HR associations prioritize “Strategic Empathy” in their conference programming?
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HR associations provide the most value when they equip their members with tools to navigate the Talent War. By featuring a speaker focused on Strategic Empathy and Culture Alignment, associations offer "sticky" content that solves the industry's most pressing challenge: retention. This positions the association as a vital partner in its members' professional survival and helps drive event ROI through high-rated sessions.