Stop Listening. Start Moving: How Yelp Built the Trust to Transform

22 Oct 2026
Oceanside C Ballroom
Breakout Session

Most organizations are asked to transform faster than their culture can absorb. AI is only making the gap wider.

Yelp has spent a decade doing the unglamorous work instead: listening, then visibly moving. Two-thirds of Yelp employees believe action will actually follow a survey, six points above industry, and 84% say company values match how work really happens, 12 points above benchmark. Those aren't just survey wins. They're the reason Yelp could make a fully remote bet, sustain leadership trust through years of change, and now bring employees into its AI strategy rather than announcing it to them.

Yelp's CPO, People Operations lead, and People Analytics lead go behind the scores with Culture Amp's Lead People Scientist. Expect the real mechanics: how Yelp measures AI maturity alongside engagement, how micro-pulses answer questions the annual survey surfaces, and what it takes to make employees believe you'll act.

Speakers
Nicole Rikli
Nicole Rikli, Senior People Analytics Analyst - Yelp
Brad Auernig
Brad Auernig, Sr. Director of People Business Operations - Yelp
Carmen Amara
Carmen Amara, Chief People Officer - Yelp
Erica Pachmann
Erica Pachmann, Lead People Scientist - Culture Amp

Learning Objective 1

Build trust to support transformation. See how Yelp earned the credibility to make a fully remote bet, and apply those principles to support major organizational change.

Learning Objective 2

Turn feedback into visible action. Learn how acting on employee feedback can build confidence that listening will lead to action, and identify ways to close the gap between asking and acting.

Learning Objective 3

Build employee participation into AI adoption. Identify how Yelp is bringing employees into its AI strategy instead of announcing it to them, and apply those practices to your own AI adoption efforts.

Access Level

Conference Pass Exclusive