Dr. Christiane Schroeter: How Small Steps Build Confidence, Leadership and Lasting Change

Christiane Schroeter

The Small Steps Doctor. Confidence and leadership, built one rep at a time.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter helps leaders do the hardest part of change... actually start. Her work closes the gap between knowing what to do and doing it, so professionals lead with clarity and confidence when the stakes are high.

She came to the US from Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, earned her Ph.D. in Health Economics, and built her entire career in her second language. Today she is a Professor of Marketing, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she has taught and advised more than 10,000 students and professionals over 20+ years. She has spoken on stages across five countries and been featured in Business Insider, SheKnows, and HigherEdJobs.

Her TEDx talk, How Small Steps Create Big Change, introduces her Petite Practice® framework... a simple, repeatable system built on small actions that compound into lasting momentum. As a behavioral economist, she can prove it. Her research on how small changes ripple through an entire system includes a Journal of Health Economics paper cited more than 300 times, so small steps are not a slogan she borrowed. The framework anchors her keynotes, her teaching, and her book, Petite Practice®: Small, Steady Steps to a Life of Momentum and Real Change (2026).

Christiane also hosts the Happy Healthy Hustle podcast, ranked in the Top 1% globally. On stage and on the mic, she brings research, real leadership experience, and practices audiences can use the same day.