Dr. Valerie Young is an internationally-recognized expert on impostor syndrome. She’s brought her humorous yet highly practical approach to impostor feelings to managers and professionals at such diverse organizations as Boeing, Facebook, BP, Intel, Chrysler, Apple, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Emerson, IBM, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ernst & Young, P&G, Raymond James, Motley Fool, McDonalds-Europe, Space Telescope Science Institute, UK College of Policing, Society of Women Engineers, American Association of Chemical Engineers, California Girls State, Women in Trucking, Romance Writers of America, and the Lung Cancer Partnership.
In addition, Valerie is popular speaker on college campuses. She’s addressed tens of thousands of high achieving students and faculty at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and 85 other universities in the US, Canada, and Japan.
Valerie’s advice has been cited in popular and business outlets around the world including Yahoo Financial News, CNN Money, BBC radio, The Wall Street Journal, USA Weekend, Time, O magazine, Entrepreneur, Science, Elle, Redbook, Inc., Woman’s Day, Canadian Life, Glamour (UK), Cosmopolitan, The Chicago Tribune, The Globe and Mail, The Irish Independent, and The Sydney Morning.
Her award-winning book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (Crown) is in five languages.
Valerie earned her doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where her research focused on understanding and eliminating barriers to women’s achievement. While there she was also the founding coordinator of the School of Education’s Social Justice Education program. Today her work recognizes the intersection between impostor syndrome and diversity and inclusion efforts.
Valerie later went on to spend five years in as a manager of strategic marketing at a Fortune 200 company and the director of marketing for a productivity enhancement company.
In addition to her work at ImpostorSyndrome.com, Valerie is founder and Dreamer in Residence at ChangingCourse.com where she’s been showing change seekers how to make a living without a job since 1995.
To date she has trained and licensed over 350 people from 19 countries how to get paid to brainstorm.