Press Room
Author
Keynote Speaker
Industry Trailblazer
Catalyst for Change
Manja Horner is a leadership strategist, speaker, and founder of Boost, where she helps skilled trades and construction companies strengthen leadership, communication, employee systems and training that actually works.
Coming from a family business in restoration construction, Manja understands the realities of job sites, crews, and growing pains firsthand. She pairs that lived experience with a background in training design and years of advising small and mid-sized businesses on leadership development, onboarding, and knowledge transfer.
Manja is the author of Pass the Torch in the Trades, where she tackles the skilled labour crisis, retiring expertise, and the leadership crisis costing companies time, money, and good people. Her work is practical, direct, and rooted in real-world application—focused on helping leaders communicate clearly, develop their people, and build workplaces that retain talent.
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Successfully Ambiguous Podcast
Accelerating Upskilling: Learning Faster, Working Smarter with Manja Horner
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Beyond the Build Podcast
Passing the Torch in Trades Before It Burns Out with Manja Horner
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The Open Concept Podcast
Is the Future of Trades in Good Hands?
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America's Work Force Union Podcast
with Manja Horner, Boost
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Congruent Podcast
When Being Strong and Capable Becomes Your Prison: Learning to Soften Without Losing Your Edge
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Titans of the Trades
Preserving Tribal Knowledge in Construction for the Next Generation
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People First Podcast
Creating Effective Learning Experiences in an Evolving Industry
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Rebuild the Construction Mindset
Tackling the Skilled Trades Shortage with Manja Horner
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Beyond Books Solutions
REDUCE Employee Turnover with Manja Horner
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21st Century Entrepreneurship Podcast
Manja Horner: Can Better Onboarding Solve the Skilled Trades Crisis?
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Leveraging Thought Leadership Podcast
Thought Leadership and Adult Learning | Manja Horner
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Into The Wild Podcast
The Secrets to Successful Course Creation with Manja Horner
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Women Thrive Podcast
How to turn your expertise into a passive income stream with Manja Horner
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AEC Business Podcast
Building Skills in Construction: Manja Horner on Effective Learning Strategies
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Service Business Mastery Podcast
Unlock Employee Retention Secrets with Manja Horner
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Speaking Your Brand Podcast
Boost Learning and Engagement in Your Presentations and Programs with Manja Horner
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Hourly to Exit Podcast
How to Create Learning Experiences that Transform with Manja Horner
Book Manja to speak at your next event
Manja Horner is a keynote speaker and workforce strategist focused exclusively on the construction and skilled trades industry across North America.
Having grown up in family-run contracting businesses and spent more than a decade designing learning and leadership systems for trades organizations, she understands both the field and the office — and how the two must work together.
Her talks focus on the challenges leaders are actually facing right now: retaining great people, preparing the next generation of leadership, fixing broken onboarding, and capturing hard-earned institutional knowledge before it walks out the door.
Manja is known for her no-fluff, practical approach. She equips union leaders, contractors, and association members with clear, implementable strategies to modernize leadership, strengthen workplace culture, document and transfer tribal knowledge, and build training systems that reduce costly turnover.
Her presentations are direct, relevant, and immediately actionable — giving construction leaders the structure and tools they need to grow their organizations without losing the values and strengths that built them in the first place.
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Why the leadership pipeline is breaking with retirees leaving workplaces and what organizations must do to build supervisors who can communicate, coach, and keep a new generation of great workers engaged.
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How decades of undocumented knowledge, inconsistent processes, and poor onboarding are costing companies millions — and the practical shifts that turn things around.
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We're all recruiting from the shrinking talent pool. We give practical suggestions on how to become the sought after employer of choice that makes recruiting and retaining top workers much easier.
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Practical, real-world communication strategies that help teams reduce conflict, work better together, and keep their best people.