Phyl Terry

Founder and CEO

Phyl Terry, Founder and CEO of Collaborative Gain, Inc., launched the company’s flagship leadership program – The Councils – in 2002 with a fellow group of Internet pioneers from Amazon, Google, and others. Thousands of leaders from the Internet world have come together in the last 15 years to learn the art of asking for help and to support each other to build better, more customer-centric products, services, and companies (see their testimonials).

Phil has also spent close to three decades as a pioneer and leader in customer experience. As CEO of Creative Good (from 1999 to 2014), Phil and the team ran hundreds of consulting projects helping companies like Apple, Facebook, and the New York Times build digital experiences that delight customers. Phil also co-authored Customers Included, the book widely praised  for its practical and passionate focus on building better businesses, and is currently writing his second book on the art of asking for help, which will be published by the Harvard Business School Press (see his previous HBR article and TEDx talk.

As a speaker, Phil has given hundreds of keynotes and featured talks at events like the Harvard Business School Distinguished Speaker Series, National Retail Federation conferences, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, TEDx and for private corporations such as Apple, American Express, eBay, Fidelity, Google, Intuit, Walmart, and many others. See a list of companies and conferences where he’s spoken (and some testimonials and a 3 minute video about his talk). He’s been profiled and quoted extensively in publications like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and named by Fast Company as one of the Fast Company 100 – 100 leaders shaping the 21st century.

In his spare time he founded and runs two innovative nonprofits that are changing the customer experience for art and literature – Slow Art Day and Reading Odyssey.