May 21, 2026

This piece is sponsored by Sagency.

Walk into any business event in Sioux Falls and chances are you’ll find Jackie Payne already mid-conversation. She’ll be asking the second or third follow-up question, the kind that tells whoever she’s with that she has been listening to the answer to the first one. That’s just how she operates.

As director of leadership and talent development at Sagency, Payne works with companies on the part of business performance that lives in conversations, relationships and how leaders actually show up. But before you understand what she does professionally, you first have to understand how she moves through the world, one authentic connection at a time.

“My focus is always on the person I’m talking with,” Payne said.

Payne brings more than 25 years of working alongside leaders and teams, bringing a mix of energy, empathy and strategic insight, plus a knack for making the work enjoyable. Before joining Sagency, she served as an enterprise client partner at FranklinCovey, working with organizations nationwide on leadership and behavior change. Her background also includes leadership and business development roles at Augustana University, Midco, Wells Fargo and Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where she earned her bachelor’s degree.

Outside of work, she is deeply involved with her family, faith and the Sioux Falls community.

Payne’s philosophy centers on the difference between simply networking and truly connecting. In a culture built around expanding networks, she believes genuine depth matters far more than the number of connections.

For people who find networking uncomfortable, whether they’re early in their careers or seasoned executives, Payne offers a different starting point.

“You are the expert of you,” she said. “No one knows you better than you. Come into the room with confidence in who you are and the value you bring, but don’t stay there. Get curious about them. What are they working on? What are they excited about? What are they learning? That’s where the real conversation starts.”

At Sagency, Payne helps executives and leadership teams work through the hard, human parts of growing a business. The approach is the same as the one she brings to a hallway conversation: pay attention, ask better questions, stay in the conversation.

Sagency works with companies across the country on leadership development, strategy and organizational health, and executive search. Payne is on the leadership development team. The team builds custom leadership institutes that strengthen a company’s leadership bench, developing both executives and the layer of leaders one or two seats below them. Engagement and retention go up, near-term performance improves, and the long-term future of the business is more secure.

Ask anyone who knows her and the same thing comes up: Payne has a way of connecting with anyone because she genuinely is interested in others. She sees a friend in everyone. She cares what others think, what their interests are and what’s happening in their lives.  She asks questions, finds commonalities and, perhaps most importantly, she remembers what matters to people. People notice.

In a city that runs on relationships, Payne has built hers one conversation at a time. When she’s talking with you, she’s talking with you. That’s why people remember her.

At noon on Tuesday, May 26, Payne will bring a working version of her approach to a room of Sioux Falls professionals as she presents a Business Sense Workshop for the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce.

Her hands-on workshop will offer practical tools to start connecting at a deeper level and is built for professionals at any career stage who want to get more out of every conversation.

Learn more and register here.