Even Oprah recognized Courtney Ferrell as an inspired change agent in the world of imagination, creativity and innovation in business. Courtney has built a successful career provoking organizations and individuals to think and behave differently. She has worked as a creative consultant and thinking partner to the top executives of companies like Mattel, Disney, Colgate-Palmolive, NBC, Nike, The Discovery Channel, General Electric, Mary Kay and McGraw Hill. Her witty sense of humor, her drink-from-a-fire-hose energy, and her anything goes change methods have garnered her feature articles in Fast Company, O Magazine, INC magazine, Triathlete Magazine and Style. She’s been a visiting professor of Innovation  at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, The University of Richmond E Claiborne Robins School of Business, The Lyle School of Engineering and Design at Southern Methodist University and The Kaos Pilots University in Aarhus, Denmark.

Courtney can be found standing at the busy intersection of ideas, energy and people. Her latest idea, Girl Up, empowers young women to take full advantage of their gifts, their independence, and their possibilities in order to create an extraordinary life for themselves. In the past decade, she has worked with thousands of young women as a speaker, teacher, coach, dorm mother and mentor. Her mission is to provide girls with actions and language that will help them put common (and uncommon) sense into practice and become the most sought after person around without compromising who they are.

Courtney spent seven years living on a high school dorm with her husband, their children and 45 freshman boys. In her free time, she coaches cross country, dreams up social experiments, and writes children’s books. A storyteller at heart, Ferrell is never far from her pen or an audience.