Debra is a highly experienced and award-winning HR leader and world-class motivational speaker.  A  six-time author, and has been named as one of the top 101 global employee engagement influencers and HR Most Influential Thinkers. She’s had a varied career, working for International companies such as Gap Inc., Honeywell, Merlin Entertainments and Reward Gateway.  At each of them Debra has developed and delivered HR strategies in a rebellious way, pushing the boundaries and challenging the status quo to truly drive employee engagement. In 2019 Debra founded her own company as Chief Pay It Forward Officer, where she’s inspiring and helping others to bring out their inner rebel and drive business change. Debra was voted one of the top 60 Most Influential Thinkers 2021 by HR Magazine and has been named two years in a row in the Top 101 Global Employee Engagement Influencers.

Over the course of her career, Debra has been fuelling the employee engagement rebelution through a variety of ways.  These include speaking at events and leading workshops around the world, teaching professional courses and writing.

Books

An accomplished author, Debra has published six best-selling books.  Her latest book, published in 2024 and co-authored with her husband, Ken Corey, was Bad Bosses Ruin Lives: The Building Blocks for Being A Great Boss. The first is about employee communication strategy and best practice (Effective HR Communication: A Framework for Communicating HR Programs with Impact). Following on the second one talks about why and how to be an engagement rebel (Build it: A Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement). Her third book focuses on company values as a strategic and effective business tool (Bringing Your Values Out to Play).  Debra’s  book, Appreciate it! The Playbook for Employee Recognition, talks about driving appreciation through employee recognition.  Her book, See It, Say It, Appreciate It, was published in 2022.

HR Leader and Motivational speaker

Debra is much in demand as an effective inspirational speaker and feedback includes:

“Debra, you’re a legend … Your presentation was zippy, energising, useful and thought provoking.” 2021 online event entitled – Building On It: Using the Engagement Bridge to Reshape Employee Engagement Strategies.

“It was a great pleasure to have Debra as a guest speaker … She is an incredibly inspiring and thoughtful individual with a great ability to engage audiences … Her practical advice was outstanding!”  Dr Stefanos Nachmias – Deputy Head – Department of HRM, Nottingham Trent University

“Debra came to speak at our recent CIPD Branch event … It was a very inspirational speech and it definitely created new ideas within the room.  She left a lasting impression with all delegates involved and recruited more rebels.”  Sterling Hall – Vice Chair/Treasurer Worcester & Hereford CIPD Branch

“Debra has the ability to capture the attention of a room and hold it like no speaker I have seen. Her fun, yet hard hitting approach makes all attendees excited to learn something new” Jonathan Burg – Group SVP Marketing, Reward Gateway.

“Debra Corey is an exceptional and engaging speaker, she’s also a leading expert in her field  … I  would highly recommend Debra as a speaker. She’s great fun, a pleasure to work and extremely passionate.” Georgina Kelly, Managing Director, Summit Events Ltd – Summit Dubai

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