Shasta Nelson

Shasta Nelson is a friendship expert, keynote speaker, and author who helps organizations build the workplace connection and belonging that drive trust, retention, and performance.

Nelson has spent 15 years researching what makes relationships thrive — as Chief Friendship Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Connection, author of three books on relationships and belonging (with a fourth arriving in 2027), a two-time TEDx speaker with nearly one million views, and a speaker with 500+ keynotes. For the past six years, she's used a diagnostic tool with organizations to actually measure relationship health — not intuition, data.

Her research has identified three behaviors that bond any two people — positivity, consistency, and vulnerability — and she translates the science behind them into frameworks that determine whether teams trust each other, cultures thrive, and conferences create real connection.

Organizations invite Nelson to speak when they want to:

• Accelerate trust on teams so leaders collaborate faster and navigate change with resilience

• Strengthen culture, engagement, and retention

• Equip leaders and employees with practical relationship skills that improve belonging and performance

• Transform conferences from passive events into connection experiences

Her clients include global companies, healthcare systems, associations, and leadership teams working to strengthen trust and culture.

Because it’s time to trust the data: when relationships get stronger, everything else works better.