Helping organizations have honest conversations

Most organizations keep trying to fix their culture. Very few look at their power. Aparna helps leaders and teams do both: name who really decides, share that power on purpose, and build trust that holds.

Let's Chat

Most organizations don't have a culture problem. They have a power problem.

The workplace is in crisis and not for the reasons most conference panels want to discuss.

Burnout, the DEI rollback, quiet quitting, the return-to-office battles: these aren't separate problems. They're symptoms of a single structural failure. Workers have been cut out of the conversation about work itself.

Aparna helps progressive leaders name it - and build something better.

Keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, and leadership retreat designer. She work with HR conferences, philanthropic foundations, and Fortune 1000 leadership teams who are done decorating broken workplaces and ready to build democratic ones.

Aparna has spoken at SXSW and works with HR and People conferences, philanthropic foundations, and ERGs at Fortune 1000 companies. Drawing on fifteen years as a founder, researcher, and organizer, including building a community of 20,000 women of color, she pairs data with candor about what is actually happening inside organizations.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

  • HR and People conferences that want honesty, not another framework

  • Foundation convenings on economic equity, democracy, worker rights, gender justice, or the future of work

  • ERGs ready to turn a lunch-and-learn into a movement

  • Leadership summits and all-hands that need a talk people are still discussing next week

  • Anyone who wants practical tools, not a pep talk

Speaking

LET'S TALK

Dignity Sessions & Activations

The room is full. The people aren't. Only 37% of U.S. employees strongly agree they're treated with respect at work, a record low (Gallup, 2025).

The Dignity Sessions is a live experience, not a lecture. Participants tell us how they actually experience dignity at work at a listening station. We edit those voices into themes and play them back to the room. Then a conversation built on guided somatic practice lets people feel dignity's absence, and its return, together.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

  • HR, People and Culture, and L&D summits

  • Opening and closing sessions that need to land

  • Organizations navigating layoffs, reskilling, or labor force change

  • Teams with low, or very visible, disengagement

  • Leadership groups working through the same behavioral challenges again and again

Best for groups of roughly 30 to 150. The more present the room, the better it works.

Learn more

Retreats & Offsites

Most leadership retreats produce a slide deck and a values poster. Aparna designs and leads the other kind: offsites where a leadership team names the actual power dynamics in the room, surfaces its unwritten rules, gets aligned on what matters, and leaves with written next steps, owners, and timelines. Trust at work is at an all-time low, and it can't be fixed by swapping the language on a culture deck. It gets fixed in policies, processes, and everyday behavior.

That's the work. Data-driven, implementable, and occasionally funny.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

  • Leadership teams at organizations of 50 to 1,000 people

  • Foundations, nonprofits, and mission-driven companies

  • Series A to C startups navigating fast growth

  • Teams in transition: new leadership, a strategy pivot, or a trust breakdown

  • Anyone tired of offsites that produce nothing but a group photo

Book A fit call

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Let’s Talk.

I work closely with every organizer and team before we step into the room together. No plug-and-play talks — every session is built for the specific audience, moment, and room it's going into.

If you're booking for a conference, foundation convening, or leadership retreat — tell me what you're building. I'll respond within 48 hours.

hello@aparnarae.com or use the form.

Seattle, WA | Global

Aparna Rae giving a presentation at a Seattle Business Magazine event, standing in front of a large circular sign that reads 'Daring Women'. She is dressed in a dark outfit, holding papers, and wearing heels. There is a small table with a vase of flo
Aparna Rae, giving a talk at The Collective in Seattle, WA. Image features a woman in a black dress speaking into a microphone in a modern room with large windows, while an audience of four people sits on a white couch and a bench, listening.
Aparna Rae, speaking at Ladies Get Paid in New York seated next to Ruchika Tulshyan Malhotra. Image features a woman in a leopard print dress holds a microphone and speaks, sitting beside another woman in a teal and patterned dress, in a bright indoo
Aparna Rae speaking at the Future for Us Assembly in Seattle WA. Image features speaking at a conference with raised hands from the audience, behind a backdrop with colorful circles and text that reads "Future For Us" and "The Assembly Seattle."
Aparna Rae, speaking at The Riveter in Los Angeles with Arlan Hamilton. Image features a woman in a teal dress speaking into a microphone during an indoor event, with a modern circular light fixture and a plant visible in the background.
A woman speaker on stage at a conference called 'State of Womxn of Color,' with a large audience in front of her, some raising their hands, in a modern indoor space with large windows and a staircase overhead.
Aparna Rae, speaking at a tech conference. Image features a woman in black and white striped off-shoulder dress speaking at a podium with a laptop, microphone, and audience members in a room with large windows.
Aparna speaking at a SXSW event. Image features a woman with curly hair standing at a podium, holding a remote, smiling as she speaks during a presentation or seminar. There is a laptop on the podium and a microphone.