Paula Davis

Speaker Bio

Paula Davis, JD, MAPP, is the Founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, a training and consulting firm that partners with leaders and organizations to help them reduce burnout and build resilience at the team, leader, and organizational levels.

Paula left her law practice after seven years and earned a master’s degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. As part of her post-graduate training, Paula was selected to be part of the University of Pennsylvania faculty teaching and training resilience skills to soldiers as part of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program. The Penn team trained resilience skills to more than 40,000 soldiers and their family members.

Paula is the author of Beating Burnout at Work: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being & Resilience, which is about burnout prevention using a teams-based approach. It is published by the Wharton School Press at the University of Pennsylvania. Beating Burnout at Work has been nominated for best Spring 2021 book by the Next Big Idea Club, which is curated by Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Malcom Gladwell, and Daniel Pink.

Her expertise has been featured in and on The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post and in many other publications. Paula is also a contributor to Forbes, Fast Company and Psychology Today. Paula is a two-time recipient of the distinguished teaching award from the Medical College of Wisconsin

Paula Davis Topics

Preventing Burnout at Work

Resilience at Work

Building Resilient Teams

Building Psychological Safety

Creating Positive Cultures

Book Paula Davis

Burnout is a complex, systemic issue within organizations, but the fix isn’t hard. Framed around her own experience burning out at the end of her law practice, Paula’s insights, tools, and frameworks will give you and your team a plan of action to move forward.

The ability to navigate uncertainty, challenge, and stress at work is a skill set we all must develop. Resilience isn’t about always being tough and always powering through. Paula will dispel the myths about resilience and provide research-based strategies to help you increase yours.

Effective collaboration and innovation require that teams quickly adapt to uncertainty, challenge, and stress. But how do you make a team resilient? Paula will share with you her PRIMED model for building resilient teams and strategies she has used in her own work with teams across industry, including the military.

Psychological safety is trust within your workplace teams or groups. It is also a key component of one of our core workplace needs – belonging. You will learn specific behaviors to operationalize and maintain trust on in-person, virtual, and hybrid teams.

The Great Resignation is real. Paula’s research shows that there are 8 key questions leaders and teams must ask to create a positive culture at work. Paula will share with you what these questions are and specific strategies for how to develop.

Paula Davis

Stories of my life

Book Paula Davis

Testimonials

Words for
Paula Davis

Kelly Jo Goulson, CMO at Advocate Aurora Health

“I wanted to share with you that there has been tremendous positive buzz from my team all day, and they are giving special kudos to our time with you! Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our team and making your remarks spot on for our group. Your decision to leave your law practice and venture into this business is certainly making a difference – it has already made an impact on me.”

Director of Legal Ops. at Google

“Not only was it a packed room for the ‘Building Resilient Teams’ presentation, but the feedback was extraordinary. Many thought it was the best session of the event (out of 80 sessions)! The insights and learnings are incredibly relevant to building and leading teams in today’s environment, and it was humorous and fun as well.”

Frank Edward Myers, US San Diego Health

“I wanted to take a moment to say that your talk was very effective and impactful. I must say I am pretty cynical about such talks, and my former boss was also very cynical, but she could clearly see as you went through your own burnout story how she perfectly displayed all the symptoms you described. It helped her accept her new role and mourn less her old one. You also had taken the time to find out what we do professionally, and your examples were relevant. So thank you for having the respect for your audience to care enough to customize your talk and share your experiences.”

Bestselling Author, Founder of Stress & Resilience Institute

Paula Davis

Paula Davis