Christina Harbridge-Law is President of EO Silicon Valley and speaker extraordinaire. She has received some of the highest speaker ratings in EO and has a 100% satisfaction rating with every organization she has ever trained.

Inspired to start a company with an innovative idea she had in college, Christina eventually had a strong and beneficial influence on the debt collection industry. Her unique ability was to transform a typically negative, relationship-ending collection agency interaction into a public relationship coup. She and her team would turn the collection call into a positive experience for the debtor and, in the process, produce a higher percentage of return for her creditors. She decided her life’s work would be to change the way Corporate America dealt with debt while figuring out how to turn a collection call into a sales call.

This month, we sat down with this wonderfully odd and quirky EO member leader to learn more.

Q: What is your work philosophy?
A: The human relationship is the true currency. We are in a communication tsunami right now brought about by reality television, YouTube, MySpace and instant messaging. Humans want to know more about the individual than ever before, and so professionalism must be replaced by individualism. The weird, quirky tics we hid in the 1980s are now best presented hanging from our forehead. My work philosophy is to celebrate the human relationship and the humans before the profit. Simon Sinek put it best: "Instead of focusing on the quarters, focus on the legacy."

Q: What is something important you have learned that you would like to share with others?
A: I was once sued for being nice. Yes, for being nice. It was a multi-million dollar, class-action lawsuit that claimed I was beguiling less sophisticated consumers into paying when they otherwise wouldn’t. I won the lawsuit in the end. Folks often ask me how it is that I got ahead. My answer is simple: I am nice and truly like people.  

Q: What makes a great leader?
A: I am fascinated with every human I meet. And I mean every human I meet, unless I am worried about my personal safety. That’s what makes a great leader, someone who genuinely cares about the people they interact with on a daily basis. This is a must for the new relationship economy we are in.

Q: What’s something you would have done differently if you had the chance?
A: I would have learned how to have positive conflict— early and often. I lost some really great people because I let the conflict build up and didn't handle it well. I’m really great at relationship-building conflict now.

Q: What’s something important you’ve learned from your own network throughout the years?
A: I learned the most from bill collectors. My simple, direct, humanizing manner of speaking led debtors to send thank you letters – and the occasional wedding invitation! – along with their payments.

To learn more about Christina and how to book her for one of your chapter events, visit her profile in the EO Speakers Database or see her speak at the 2008 EO New Delhi University.