Speaker Spotlight: Suzanne Jabour

Grief Guide & Educator | TEDx Speaker | Workplace Reintegration Strategist

“Grief is not a personal interruption.
It is a human and organizational reality — one that leaders must be ready for.”
— Suzanne Jabour

AT A GLANCE

Summit Segments:
MainStage Teaching • VIP Deep Dive • Post-Summit Leadership Intensive

Expertise:
Grief in the Workplace • Leadership Communication • Reintegration Planning • Humane High-Performance Cultures

Creator of:
The Conscious & Curious Grief Method™

Works With:
Founders • Executives • HR Leaders • Managers • Consultants • Educators

Known For:
Turning compassion into practical, cost-conscious leadership systems that retain people and protect performance

👤 About Suzanne Jabour

Where Grief, Leadership & Culture Meet

Suzanne Jabour is a certified grief educator, transformational coach, and TEDx speaker who helps organizations become grief-smart — places where people are allowed to be human and high performance is still possible.

After the sudden death of her son in 2020, Suzanne chose a conscious, curious path through grief. Along the way, she uncovered something most leaders never see clearly:

Grief doesn’t just affect feelings — it quietly reshapes capacity, focus, decision-making, and whether people stay.

Drawing on more than 20 years in training and facilitation, Suzanne developed the Conscious & Curious Grief Method™ and a suite of Reintegration Roadmaps that help leaders, managers, and teams:

Talk about grief without fear of “saying the wrong thing”
Design humane, realistic return-to-work plans
Protect culture, trust, and talent during and after loss
Reduce hidden costs like presenteeism, errors, and turnover

Her TEDxSurrey talk, “Grief is Hard… Let’s Do Better,” and her work through Suzanne Jabour Grief Education have made her a sought-after voice for organizations ready to align compassion with business reality.

She holds a BA and BEd and is a certified Grief Educator, Transformational Coach, and Workshop Leader.

✨ Quick Access to Suzanne’s Summit Sessions

🎤 MainStage Session:
How Grief Is Costing You: Retention, Culture & the Human Side of Performance

⭐ VIP Deep Dive (Training):
The Conscious & Curious Grief Method™ — What Every Leader Should Know

🎁 Free Gift:
Grief in the Workplace: A Leadership Conversation Starter eBook

Access your FREE GIFT Here

🧪 Post-Summit Leadership Intensive / Masterclass:
Grief-Smart Leadership: Protecting People, Culture & Costs

Sessions unlock based on ticket level and are available inside your Summit Dashboard.

🎥 Featured Interview

“Grief Is Hard… Let’s Do Better: Why Leaders Can’t Ignore Loss at Work Anymore”

▶️ Watch the Interview:

“When someone is grieving, it’s not their value or potential that’s broken.
It’s the bridge between what they’re carrying and what their workplace knows how to hold.”
— Suzanne Jabour

In this grounded, eye-opening conversation, Suzanne and Cassandra explore:

Suzanne’s personal story of loss — and how it revealed gaps in workplace leadership

Why grief is not just sadness, but disruption to focus, energy, and decision-making

The hidden costs of unsupported grief: turnover, disengagement, presenteeism

Common mistakes well-meaning leaders make when “trying to help”

Simple, humane practices leaders can adopt without becoming therapists

This interview sets the stage for the deeper implementation work inside VIP and Suzanne’s Post-Summit Intensive.

🌟 Why Leaders Choose the VIP Experience

MainStage opens your eyes.

VIP puts tools in your hands.

If you’re a founder, CEO, HR leader, or manager who:

Knows your people are carrying more than they’re saying
Has watched someone fade at work after a loss
Worries about losing great talent due to lack of support
Wants a culture that is compassionate and accountable

…then Suzanne’s VIP training is where leadership changes.

This isn’t about therapy.
It’s about becoming grief-literate decision-makers who know:

How to protect performance without dehumanizing people

What to say (and what not to say)

How to pace reintegration after loss

🌟 VIP Session:

The Conscious & Curious Grief Method™ — What Every Leader Should Know

This deep-dive VIP training guides attendees to:

Understand what grief really is (beyond “stages”)

Recognize how grief affects leadership, communication, and collaboration

Learn psychologically safe language that acknowledges loss without overstepping

Design Reintegration Roadmaps instead of improvising support

Shift from fear to confident, compassionate leadership

VIPs Receive:

✔ Conscious & Curious Grief Method™ Overview
✔ Grief-Smart Leadership Checklist (what helps / what harms)
✔ Manager, peer & HR language scripts
✔ Reintegration Readiness Map
✔ First 90 Days After Loss Conversation Guide
✔ Grief-Smart Meeting & Email Etiquette
✔ Culture & policy reflection prompts
✔ Leader micro-practice library

What You’ll Walk Away With

Instead of vague inspiration, VIP attendees leave with real tools, including:

🔹 Grief-Aware Conversation Framework
A repeatable structure for check-ins, performance conversations, and reintegration.

🔹 Language Library
Phrases that acknowledge grief honestly — without fixing or minimizing.

🔹 Reintegration Roadmap Draft
A 30–90 day pacing map so expectations aren’t guessed.

🔹 The Grief Cost Lens
A way to see how grief impacts retention, risk, and revenue.

🔹 7-Day Culture Audit Plan
Micro-steps to move from silence to support.

These are not temporary insights —
they’re tools you’ll use every time grief enters your organization.

💜 VIP Is For You If You’re Ready To…

⭐ Retain great people even when life falls apart

⭐ Stop feeling helpless or tongue-tied in moments of loss

⭐ Bring real frameworks into your organization immediately

⭐ Protect productivity while honoring humanity

⭐ Build a culture where people don’t choose between healing and work

If that’s you — VIP isn’t optional.
It’s the leadership standard your organization needs.

⚠️ VIP Spots Are Limited

To keep this training high-touch and practical, VIP capacity is limited.

When it fills, it fills.

If grief is already affecting your people — and your bottom line —
upgrade now.

👉 Upgrade to VIP

🎤 MainStage Live Session

Date TBD

How Grief Is Costing You: Retention, Culture & the Human Side of Performance

This high-impact MainStage teaching is included with all Summit passes and is designed for founders, executives, HR leaders, people managers, and consultants who want to understand what grief is really doing inside their organization — whether anyone is talking about it or not.

Suzanne delivers a leadership reframe most workplaces have never been trained to hold:

Grief is not a private glitch in someone’s personal life.
It is an organizational reality that shapes performance, trust, and whether people stay.

Inside teams, grief quietly changes:

Focus and decision-making
Energy and capacity
Communication and collaboration
Confidence and risk tolerance
Loyalty, retention, and culture stability

And when leaders don’t know how to respond, the default becomes silence… and silence is costly.

In this session, you will learn how to:

See the hidden ways grief is costing you money, time, talent, and trust
(even in “high-performing” environments)
Recognize the difference between healthy grief and red-flag situations
so you know when to support, when to refer, and when to adjust expectations
Understand why “business as usual” pushes people away
and why well-meaning leaders accidentally increase isolation and turnover
Start building the first pillars of a grief-aware, humane, high-performance culture
without turning managers into therapists or adding expensive complexity

You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of grief — and a clearer understanding of what your people may be carrying while they try to keep showing up.

This session reframes grief as an organizational reality, not a personal problem.

You’ll learn how grief shapes:

Focus and decision-making

Collaboration and trust

Retention and loyalty

Performance, risk, and innovation

Key Takeaways

✔ Reframe Grief as a Leadership & Culture Issue
Understand why grief belongs in the leadership conversation — not as therapy, but as strategy.

✔ Identify Hidden Business Costs of Unsupported Grief
Learn how presenteeism, errors, disengagement, and turnover quietly stack up.

✔ Spot Common Missteps Leaders Make (Even When They Care)
See what leaders often do that unintentionally isolates grievers — and what to do instead.

✔ Recognize the Early Markers of a Grief-Smart Culture
Walk away knowing what “doing better” actually looks like in real organizations.

If you’re thinking: “We’re professional. We push through.”

This session will show you why that mindset often creates:

Unspoken resentment
Quiet disengagement
Preventable turnover
Cultural fragility
Increased risk during high-stress seasons

And it will show you the alternative:

A culture where people can be human — and performance becomes more sustainable, not less.

🌟 VIP Experience: The Work That Changes Everything

This immersive training turns insight into architecture.

VIP participants will:

Map current grief responses in their organization

Identify policy and language gaps

Apply the Conscious & Curious Grief Method™

Practice real scenarios

Begin building Reintegration Roadmaps

🎁 VIPs Receive: The Grief-Smart Leadership Starter Suite

🔸 Conscious & Curious Grief Method™ Breakdown

🔸 Reintegration Conversation Map

🔸 Grief-Smart Scripts & Phrases

🔸 First 90 Days After Loss Roadmap

🔸 Culture & Policy Audit Checklist

🔸 Leader Micro-Practices Library

👉 Upgrade to VIP to access this session

🎁 Post-Summit Masterclass

Grief-Smart Leadership: Protecting People, Culture & Costs

Live 2-Hour Implementation Workshop

This live, post-summit masterclass is designed for leaders who understand the importance of grief-aware leadership — and are now ready to turn insight into real structure.

Most organizations don’t lack empathy.
They lack shared language, clear expectations, and repeatable systems for what happens after loss.

This workshop is where Suzanne helps you build all three.

Rather than reacting to grief case-by-case, you’ll learn how to respond by design — protecting your people and your organization.

🔥 In This LIVE Implementation Workshop, You Will:

🔸 Map how grief is currently handled in your organization
Both officially (policies, benefits, leave) and unofficially (silence, assumptions, pressure to “be fine”).

🔸 Identify the highest-risk moments leaders miss
Return-to-work conversations, shifting expectations, anniversaries, triggers, and performance check-ins.

🔸 Apply a simple Reintegration Framework to real scenarios
See exactly how to adapt grief-smart leadership to your teams, departments, or clients.

🔸 Draft one Grief-Smart Leadership Action Plan
A focused, realistic plan you can take back to your organization immediately.

🔸 Create a 90-Day Implementation Rhythm
So grief support becomes a sustainable leadership practice — not a one-time reaction.

This is not theory.
This is practical leadership design for real workplaces.

🌟 Who This Masterclass Is Perfect For

This experience is ideal for:

Founders and CEOs building resilient, values-aligned cultures
HR leaders responsible for policy, performance, and retention
Managers leading teams through loss, change, or disruption
Coaches and consultants supporting organizations in transition
Educators and non-profit leaders working in high-stress environments

Whether you lead a small team or an entire organization —
this masterclass gives you tools you can actually use.

⭐ Why This Workshop Matters

Because grief is already present in your organization.

The only question is whether you’re responding to it:

By default — with silence, inconsistency, and risk

Or by design — with clarity, care, and leadership integrity

When you respond by design, you protect:

People

Culture

Reputation

Retention

Revenue

🎯 Seamless Path Into Suzanne’s Deeper Work

This post-summit masterclass introduces the core tools and frameworks Suzanne uses inside her deeper advisory and implementation work, including:

Grief-Smart Leadership Toolkits
Reintegration Roadmap Packages
Group Implementation Labs
Corporate Advisory & Leadership Development Programs

For leaders who want ongoing support, this workshop creates a natural next step without pressure — just alignment.

🧠 What You’ll Walk Away With

By the end of this masterclass, you will have:

✔ A clear picture of how grief is currently impacting your organization
✔ A practical Reintegration Framework you can adapt immediately
✔ A written Grief-Smart Leadership Action Plan
✔ A realistic 90-day rhythm for implementation
✔ Greater confidence leading people through loss without fear or avoidance

You won’t leave wondering what to do next.

You’ll leave with structure, language, and leadership clarity.

This is where awareness becomes action.

This is where compassion becomes leadership architecture.

If Suzanne’s MainStage and VIP work resonated with you,
this masterclass is where it all comes together.

🎁 Free Attendee Gift

Grief in the Workplace: A Leadership Conversation Starter eBook

✔ Understand grief’s real workplace impact

✔ Scripts for better conversations

✔ Insight into unspoken cultural messages

✔ Natural bridge into VIP & Leadership Intensive

👉 Access Your Free Gift