About Valerie Young

Valerie Young is an expert on “Outside the Job Box Careers” and the founder and Dreamer in Residence at ChangingCourse.com, a company designed to provide resources, tools, perspective, and inspiration to help discover and follow your dreams of a more fulfilling life, working at what you love. 

Following the sudden death of her mother Barbara in 1993, Valerie left her corporate job and 90-mile-a-day commute to pursue her own dream of launching Changing Course. She is an internationally known workshop leader and public speaker. Her insight and humor have made her a popular guest speaker at such diverse organizations as Intel, Daimler Chrysler, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CIGNA, American Women in Radio and Television, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Women’s Jewelry Association, Society of Women Engineers, National Association of Bank Women, National Association of Insurance Women, Women in Federal Law Enforcement, Association of Women in Science, Women Rainmaker’s Roundtable (law firm partners), Connecticut Bar Association, Zonta, Professional Secretaries International and American Society for Training and Development.

Valerie's career change tips have been cited in such publications as Kiplinger’s, Inc., The Wall Street Journal, USA Weekend magazine, Entrepreneur, Woman’s Day, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, Self, Glamour (UK), Cosmopolitan, The Executive Female, The Globe and Mail, The Edmonton Sun, The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Oregonian, The Ventura County Star, and The Dallas Morning News.  She has been a guest on People Are Talking (ABC), the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s The Current, Chicago’s WMAQ, and The Wall Street Journal’s nationally-syndicated program “Work & Family.” She joins Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Natasha Josefowitz and others as a contributing author to Not As Far As You Think: The Realities of Working Women and contributing editor to Finding Your True Calling.

In addition, Valerie has delivered her How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are on the Impostor Syndrome program at numerous colleges and universities including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, California Institute of Technology, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Boston University School of Medicine, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Northern Arizona University, University of Houston, University of Kentucky, University of Missouri, University of Illinois, University of Kansas, University of Colorado, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas, University of Iowa, University of Connecticut, University of Washington, and Texas A&M.

Before founding Changing Course, Valerie was a cubicle dweller in the strategic marketing department of a Fortune 500 company. She earned her Bachelor Arts form the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as her doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst where her research focused on understanding and eliminating the psychological barriers preventing women from achieving their full potential.

"To love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything else be more fun?"
~ Katharine Graham

"Whenever we dream out loud, we’re criticized for being foolish by people who really have no idea how special we are.”
~ Barbara Sher
Author of I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was

"The big break for me was deciding that this is my life."
~ Jon Stewart