The business case for putting people first.
“The data is unambiguous. Companies that invest in their people don’t just feel better to work at — they grow faster, adapt quicker, and outperform their peers on every metric that matters to a CEO.”
Jaime Raul Zepeda has spent 15 years studying what separates high-performing companies from everyone else — not as a theorist, but as an operator inside the data. At Great Place to Work, he worked with the survey methodology and benchmarks behind the Fortune 100 Best Companies list, watching firsthand how people-first cultures translate to measurable business results.
Today, as EVP and Principal Consultant at Best Companies Group, he leads revenue, product, consulting, and media — and works directly with hundreds of organizations running Best Places to Work programs across the country. That gives him a current, ground-level view of what high-performing cultures look like right now, not just in historical benchmarks.
He’s not an HR professional. He’s a revenue and product executive who happens to know more about workplace culture than almost anyone in the room. That combination — business operator meets culture expert — is what makes his work land differently with CEOs.
His frameworks connect employee productivity, innovation velocity, and change readiness directly to top-line growth and bottom-line performance. No soft language. No HR jargon. Just a clear business case for building better.
What CEOs walk away with
People-First Is a P&L Strategy |
Unlocking Productivity at Scale |
Building a Change-Ready Company |
|---|---|---|
| The hard data connecting employee experience to revenue growth, retention costs, and operating margin. Built for CEOs who need the business case, not the inspiration. | Why most productivity initiatives fail — and what the highest-performing companies do differently to get more output, better quality, and deeper engagement from their teams. | In a market that doesn’t stop moving, change readiness is a competitive moat. Jaime shares the cultural conditions that make organizations absorb disruption and accelerate through it |
Innovation From the Inside Out |
The CEO’s Role in Culture |
Custom Executive Workshop |
| The environments where people take smart risks, surface new ideas, and challenge the status quo don’t happen by accident. This session shows CEOs how to build them deliberately. | Culture isn’t set by HR — it’s set by the CEO’s decisions, behaviors, and priorities. A candid, practical session on how leadership shapes the environment that shapes results. | Jaime works directly with CEO and leadership teams to apply these frameworks to their specific business — using real culture data, not generic models. |
Where the expertise comes from
Best Companies Group
Leads revenue, product, consulting, and media — achieving growth, profitability, and a great team experience. Oversees Best Places to Work recognition programs covering thousands of organizations and the employee benchmark research behind them. Advise hundreds of CEOs each year on people-first business strategy.
Great Place to Work
Spent eight years building and scaling GPTW’s business to become a global leader in workplace culture for FORTUNE 500 companies. Worked directly with the survey methodology and benchmark data behind the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies list.
Enterprise Customer Success Regional Leader
Managed enterprise relationships across HR and talent acquisition teams, developing deep expertise in how organizations use data to make people decisions at scale.
HIVE
Built the HR and customer success functions from scratch at a diversity-focused HR tech startup — gaining first-hand perspective on the gap between inclusion aspiration and organizational reality.
What audiences say
“”I’ve sat through a lot of talks about culture. This was the first time someone connected it directly to our growth numbers in a way I couldn’t argue with. Jaime changed how I think about where we invest.””
CEO, Mid-Market SaaS Company, ~400 employees
“After Jaime’s session, our leadership team had a shared language around culture that we’d never had before. Three months later we’re making decisions differently. We look forward to welcoming him back.”
COO, Healthcare Tech Company, ~140 employees
“We were losing good people and couldn’t figure out why. Jaime’s framework helped us see exactly what was driving it, and more importantly, what we could do about it as a leadership team.”
Founder & CEO, Professional Services Firm, ~350 employees
Who is this built for
| CEOs Building for the Long Term | Executive Teams at Inflection Points |
|---|---|
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Founders and chief executives who believe the way they treat their people is inseparable from the results they produce — and want the data and frameworks to build that case internally. |
Leadership teams navigating rapid growth, post-merger integration, or organizational transformation who need their culture to move as fast as their strategy. |
| CEO Peer Groups & Roundtables | Investor-Backed Companies Scaling Fast |
| YPO chapters, Vistage groups, and CEO networks looking for a session that goes beyond inspiration — grounded in data, built for operators, and immediately actionable. | PE and VC-backed companies where culture is breaking under growth pressure — and leadership needs a framework to preserve what made them great while scaling what comes next. |
Formats
Keynote
High-impact talk for conferences, all-hands events, and leadership summits.
Workshop
Half-Day Workshop
Deep-dive session with frameworks, breakouts, and hands-on application for your team.
Advisory
Ongoing engagement for senior teams navigating culture transformation.
Panel
Moderator or panelist for HR Tech, Future of Work, and leadership conferences.
Book Jaime
Let’s talk about what you’re building.
If you’re a CEO thinking seriously about how your people strategy connects to your business performance — this is the right conversation. Reach out and we’ll figure out the best way to work together.
- Based inSan Francisco Bay Area, CA — travels nationally
- Speaking Inquiries: fill out form below (mention if request is time-sensitive)
- Typical Lead Time 6–12 weeks preferred, rush inquiries welcome