Member since March 2026
Courtney Henry is a business and brand strategist, founder of GrowthMinded Strategy, and a firm believer that the smartest path forward is always the most human one.
With nearly two decades of experience, Courtney spent 15+ years in agency leadership at Hill Holliday, Tailwind, and BU's in-house creative agency, building strategies for Bank of America, Disney, the NFL, JPMorgan Chase, Cigna, Liberty Mutual, and Macy's. Today she helps brands gain clarity, sharpen their positioning, and build customer-centric experiences that meet audiences where they are - creating the awareness, credibility, and conversion that actually move businesses forward.
A vocal proponent of AI in marketing, Courtney believes the tools are only as powerful as the human insight behind them. She helps brands and leaders embrace AI strategically - without losing the empathy, voice, and customer understanding that make marketing actually work.
Courtney speaks on the intersection of strategy, customer psychology, and marketing as a mindset - delivering insights that are equal parts rigorous and refreshingly human.
The topics that genuinely light Courtney up are the ones where strategy meets human behavior: why marketing needs to be more human now than ever, how customer research transforms the way businesses think about growth, and the idea that marketing isn't a set of tactics - it's a mindset. She's equally energized by the intersection of AI and human-centered marketing, and by helping audiences see their customers in a completely new way. If you hand her a mic and tell her to talk about anything, she'll start with the customer - because that's where everything in business begins.
A client came to Courtney frustrated. Their marketing wasn't working, and they couldn't figure out why. They were doing everything "right" - a clear offer, consistent content, and steady spend. What Courtney discovered through customer research stopped them cold: they had been marketing to entirely the wrong audience. The messaging, the channels, the creative - all optimized for people who were never going to buy. The cost? Over $50,000 in wasted spend, and countless missed opportunities with the customers who would have loved them.
But here's the thing - they're not an anomaly. Most businesses build their marketing around themselves: their product, their service, their assumptions about who's buying and why. It feels logical. It's also exactly backwards.
Marketing has never been about you. It's always been about your customer - what they need to hear, where they are in their journey, and what it takes to earn their trust. That was true before social media, before search engines, before AI. The brands that figured that out early built loyal followings. The ones that didn't kept spending more money to get less results.
Courtney uses this story to open a bigger conversation with every audience: what would change in your business if you stopped marketing at people and started marketing for them? The answer, she's found, tends to change everything - the message, the channels, the conversion rate, and most importantly, the relationship.
The turning point came at 9pm, one week before Christmas - but it had been building for months. Courtney and her team had been living inside that campaign: 20-hour days, skipping meals, going home only long enough to shower before returning. The work had consumed everything.
That night, a client called in for revisions. She was scheduled for a C-section at 9am the next morning. When Courtney asked who to send updates to in her absence, the client said: "I'll be out by 11. Send it to me first." The junior women in the room went quiet. In that moment, they'd just been shown what success was supposed to look like. Courtney was horrified - and two days later, she took a leave of absence.
She eventually found her way to building GrowthMinded. Nine months in, she'd replaced her corporate income - and unknowingly built the very agency she'd been running from. Clients were happy. Revenue was growing. But she was doing work because clients asked for it, not because it moved the needle - and she knew it. That second wake-up call became her foundation: do less, but better. Build strategy that delivers real results with the least viable input needed. That's the business GrowthMinded is today - and the message she brings to every stage.
Why your best marketing move isn't a tactic - it's a shift in how you think about your customer. Courtney shows audiences how to cut through the noise, get radically clear on who they serve, and build marketing that works because it's genuinely human. Includes a practical framework for bringing AI into your strategy without losing your brand's voice.
Everything you think you know about your audience may be wrong - unless you have the data to prove it. Drawing on dozens of customer research engagements and real-world case studies (including one client who had spent $50K marketing to the wrong audience entirely), Courtney makes an undeniable case for putting customer insight at the center of every business and brand decision.
A client came to Courtney frustrated. Their marketing wasn't working, and they couldn't figure out why. They were doing everything "right" - a clear offer, consistent content, and steady spend. What Courtney discovered through customer research stopped them cold: they had been marketing to entirely the wrong audience. The messaging, the channels, the creative - all optimized for people who were never going to buy. The cost? Over $50,000 in wasted spend, and countless missed opportunities with the customers who would have loved them.
But here's the thing - they're not an anomaly. Most businesses build their marketing around themselves: their product, their service, their assumptions about who's buying and why. It feels logical. It's also exactly backwards.
Marketing has never been about you. It's always been about your customer - what they need to hear, where they are in their journey, and what it takes to earn their trust. That was true before social media, before search engines, before AI. The brands that figured that out early built loyal followings. The ones that didn't kept spending more money to get less results.
Courtney uses this story to open a bigger conversation with every audience: what would change in your business if you stopped marketing at people and started marketing for them? The answer, she's found, tends to change everything - the message, the channels, the conversion rate, and most importantly, the relationship.
The turning point came at 9pm, one week before Christmas - but it had been building for months. Courtney and her team had been living inside that campaign: 20-hour days, skipping meals, going home only long enough to shower before returning. The work had consumed everything.
That night, a client called in for revisions. She was scheduled for a C-section at 9am the next morning. When Courtney asked who to send updates to in her absence, the client said: "I'll be out by 11. Send it to me first." The junior women in the room went quiet. In that moment, they'd just been shown what success was supposed to look like. Courtney was horrified - and two days later, she took a leave of absence.
She eventually found her way to building GrowthMinded. Nine months in, she'd replaced her corporate income - and unknowingly built the very agency she'd been running from. Clients were happy. Revenue was growing. But she was doing work because clients asked for it, not because it moved the needle - and she knew it. That second wake-up call became her foundation: do less, but better. Build strategy that delivers real results with the least viable input needed. That's the business GrowthMinded is today - and the message she brings to every stage.
Why your best marketing move isn't a tactic - it's a shift in how you think about your customer. Courtney shows audiences how to cut through the noise, get radically clear on who they serve, and build marketing that works because it's genuinely human. Includes a practical framework for bringing AI into your strategy without losing your brand's voice.
Everything you think you know about your audience may be wrong - unless you have the data to prove it. Drawing on dozens of customer research engagements and real-world case studies (including one client who had spent $50K marketing to the wrong audience entirely), Courtney makes an undeniable case for putting customer insight at the center of every business and brand decision.