About Thaler
While working at a public affairs firm, Thaler’s boss introduced her to a client saying, “This is Thaler. She’s great at getting feature stories.” Thaler remembers thinking, “Don’t we all do that here?”
It soon became clear that Thaler was uniquely delivering prized results for clients: she had a special talent for securing coveted magazine covers and long features – including the cover of TIME and the New York Times Magazine, 7 pages in O Magazine, and features on CBS Nightly News.
Given just a few short hours with a client, Thaler had the keen ability to discover a discrete, compelling story encapsulating the overarching narrative of their work. She has always been an insightful listener with an exceptional ability to find the throughline connecting a client’s impact, strategy, and vision.
Today, Thaler is recognized by both the BBC and the Smithsonian Institution as one of the world’s leading experts in organizational narrative, leadership storytelling, and persuasive communication.
As the CEO of Thaler Pekar & Partners, Thaler works with smart leaders to build and sustain cultures of excellent communication.
For 20 years, she and her team have advised leaders across sectors — including Johnson & Johnson, Saks Fifth Avenue, Food Banks Canada, and The Atlantic Philanthropies — on strengthening alignment, trust, and influence. Thaler Pekar & Partners has worked in 34 countries on five continents.
From narrative analysis to award-winning multiplatform visual storytelling, institutional oral history and story collection, to executive coaching — Thaler Pekar & Partners guides clients in speaking, listening, and story. Thaler has developed and trademarked four methodologies to strengthen clients’ impact through powerful and pragmatic tools — Engagement Equation®; Heart, Head & Hand®; Invitational Incline®; and Narrative Garden®. These trademarks equip leaders in engaging audiences, increasing sales, and heightening visibility.
Thaler’s career began by combining her academic interest in communication with her passion for social change. Along the way, she has served as the public affairs director for a large Federally Qualified Community Health Center; as the communications director for The Children’s Health Fund; as the communications lead for a large Ford Foundation project on religious pluralism; and as a founding producer of State of Belief on Air America Radio.
Her approach combines pragmatic and results-driven communications methodologies with a rigorous foundation in academia and oral history, and her initial, extensive experience in advocacy and public affairs.
Thaler’s influential work on the ethics of working with story, participatory narrative, and story elicitation is featured in seven books. She is a visiting professor at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School Executive Masters in Communications Management.
Thaler is a longtime resident of Hoboken, NJ and a more recent resident of Unadilla, NY. She serves as Vice Chair of the Hoboken Historic Preservation Commission and is a board member of the Hoboken Historical Museum. Thaler always crosses the street to walk on the sunny side.
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