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Event Details

    January 15th, 2026 Chapter Meeting - The Shoes Leaders Wear: What HR Must Know to Shape the Future Workplace

    Date: January 15, 2026, 11:30am – 1:00pm
    Location:
    Holiday Inn Christiansburg and Live Online Zoom
    Price:
    Free for Members
    Event Type:
    Hybrid Meeting
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    The Shoes Leaders Wear: What HR Must Know to Shape the Future Workplace

    Karen Hanks

    Register Now

    In today’s rapidly changing workplace, HR professionals carry some of the heaviest leadership
    responsibilities—shaping culture, guiding talent, supporting managers, and walking with
    employees through challenge and change. In this inspiring and humorous keynote based on her
    new book In Her Shoes, Karen L. Hanks explores what it truly means to walk the leadership
    walk in HR. Using powerful shoe metaphors, real-world leadership stories, and the unique
    challenges of working in rural communities like the New River Valley, she reframes HR as the
    “architects of legacy” within every organization.


    Participants will discover how to navigate the “pebbles in their shoes”—those persistent issues
    that drain time, energy, and morale—and how to build SYSTEMS that Save Yourself Time,
    Energy, and Money. This session blends practical insights with motivational storytelling to help
    HR professionals strengthen resilience, lead with integrity, and leave lasting footprints inside
    their organizations.


    Perfect for HR leaders seeking SHRM certification credit and renewed purpose in their work.

     

     

    Karen Hanks is the author of the newly released book In Her Shoes….Walking the Leadership
    Walk— a heartfelt, humorous, and deeply insightful look at leadership, life transitions, and the
    shoes we wear along the way.


    But long before becoming an author, Karen was — and is — a respected corporate executive,
    strategist, and servant leader and a current member of the Warm Hearth Board of Directors and
    Board of Trustees. Karen has mentored teams, led strategic initiatives, and guided organizations
    through seasons of challenge and change — all while keeping her sense of humor, and maybe a
    red high heel, close by. She has held C-Suite roles with companies to include Cargill, GE,
    ConAgra Foods, Burlington Northern Sante Fe and CSX Railroads and other Fortune 50
    companies as well as start-up companies.


    Her leadership is not about titles or trophies — it’s about trust, empathy, and a deep belief in
    walking beside people, not ahead of them.


    Her new book captures those values beautifully — blending real-life leadership lessons with the
    metaphor of shoes: how they fit, when they don’t, and what happens when we finally find the
    pair that lets us move forward with purpose.