John Patterson

John Patterson is co-founder and CEO of Influential U® and co-author, with Kirkland Tibbels, of "HIGH TQ: Why It Matters More Than Expertise," the first book to name, define and teach Transactional Intelligence® (TQ) as a third intelligence alongside IQ and EQ.

Patterson's career has been defined by a single preoccupation: what conditions produce high performance and how to build them deliberately. Before co-founding Influential U, he designed enterprise curriculum for a $5 billion organization of 40,000 people — from C-suite leadership development to frontline orientation — then spent more than two decades as a master trainer and regional director running a train-the-trainer program and leading programs in leadership, communication and performance for tens of thousands of people across multiple countries.

Since 2009, Patterson has built and run the full delivery infrastructure of Influential U®: a custom-designed learning management system, course architecture, accountability structures, a podcast series, weekly coaching sessions, a practitioner video library and a faculty and consultant certification program. He has taken the work to corporate stages and executive boardrooms across more than 20 countries and works privately with the executives and teams who want to go deeper.

As a speaker, Patterson addresses audiences of executive leaders, L&D and HR professionals, sales organizations and senior teams on the intersection of human exchange, high performance and organizational intelligence. He explains what happens in the layer beneath every consequential conversation and how to navigate it deliberately rather than be ruled by unseen forces.