Brooke Deterline is the Founder and CEO of Courageous Leadership, where she and her colleagues use evidence-based tools to help leaders and teams act with ethical courage and ingenuity under pressure. Her methodologies support people in addressing complex challenges together while building cultures of fairness, accountability, and belonging.

Building on her experience as the Founding Corporate Director of the Heroic Imagination Project with psychologist Philip Zimbardo, Brooke integrates evolutionary, social, and cognitive-behavioral psychology with neuroscience to help individuals and organizations access their natural compassion and wisdom. A former journalist, trained mediator, and rape crisis counselor, her work has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Concerned about rising polarization and the fracturing of societal connections, Brooke co-founded Courageous Democracy with colleagues and advisors from across sectors to help people decrease distress, create goodwill, and collaborate effectively across differences. Her talks, including TEDx talks on ethical cultures in business and bridging divides, offer practical strategies for advancing shared humanity and democratic resilience.

Brooke has worked across sectors—from nonprofits and government agencies to Fortune 500 companies—using human-centered, evidence-based approaches. She has supported leaders and teams at organizations such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Salesforce, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Adobe, Microsoft, MIT Sloan, Kaiser Permanente, the Center for Domestic Peace, Columbia Medical Center, the Omidyar Group, Pfizer, sustainability departments in the Cities of Boston, Cambridge, Providence, and New Bedford, the Australian government, and Rotary International.