Ashley Herd

Ashley Herd is a former Chief People Officer, General Counsel, leadership expert, and CEO of Manager Method who has trained more than 250,000 managers through LinkedIn Learning, corporate programs, and live leadership experiences. With a rare combination of legal, HR, and executive leadership experience, Ashley has built her career around one mission: helping organizations create better managers, because better managers build better workplaces.

Before founding Manager Method, Ashley held senior leadership roles leading both HR and Legal teams at some of the world’s most respected organizations, including McKinsey, Yum! Brands, and Modern Luxury. Across these roles, she saw the same challenge repeat itself again and again: high-performing individual contributors were being promoted into management roles with little to no training, support, or practical tools. The result was well-intentioned managers struggling to lead, disengaged teams, and organizations paying the price in performance, culture, and retention.

Rather than accept this as the status quo, Ashley built the system she wished she had. Manager Method was created to give managers what traditional leadership development often fails to provide: practical, proven tools that actually work in the real world. Today, as CEO of Manager Method, Ashley works with organizations of all sizes to equip managers and employees with clear, usable frameworks for decision-making, feedback, performance management, and team leadership. The Manager Method Leadership Platform includes programs ranging from Manager 101 for foundational leadership skills to Manager 201 for advanced strategic leadership, as well as Employee Success programs that help entire teams operate at a higher level.

Ashley is also a top LinkedIn Learning instructor, where her courses have reached hundreds of thousands of professionals around the world. She is the co-host of the popular HR Besties podcast and the creator of the @ managermethod TikTok account, where she shares practical leadership advice with a global audience of more than 400,000 professionals. Her work has earned her recognition as a Top 3 #HRTikTok creator by the Financial Times, and she has been featured in CNN, NPR, and CEO Weekly.

What sets Ashley apart is not just her expertise, but her credibility. She has been in the roles her audiences are navigating. She understands the real pressures facing managers, HR leaders, and executives, and she designs every keynote, training session, and tool around the challenges leaders are actually dealing with today, from performance and accountability to culture, burnout, and the impact of AI on leadership. Her sessions are practical, engaging, and immediately useful, equipping audiences with tools they can apply the very next day.