“Margie’s opening keynote was nothing
short of spectacular! Her message is one
that everyone should hear in their lifetime.”

– Mike Morini, CEO, WorkForce Software

See Margie in Action

View clips from Margie’s speaking events below.

Organizations Inspired by Margie’s Message

Get Ready to Ignite Bold Action

Get Ready to Ignite Bold Action

Hi there!

If you’re looking for someone to engage and empower your audience to think, feel and act with more courage  —you’re in the right place.

While fear is part of human nature, we each have the ability to rise above it. My work helps people reframe risk, reframe discomfort as growth, and lead more boldly —because that’s what drives real change.

I’d love to embolden your audience to take braver action—long after the applause ends.

Popular Keynotes

Lead Bravely

CLOSE THE COURAGE GAP TO AMPLIFY IMPACT – FROM THE INSIDE OUT

No organization can out perform its leaders. So if you want to embolden your leaders to act with more courage, less hesitation, and cultivate cultures that ignite bolder thinking, accelerated innovation and unleash potential at scale –  this keynote will move the needle!

 

Expand to read more

In times of relentless change and rising complexity, hesitation is costly. It’s not enough for leaders to know what to do—they must become the kind of leaders who can do it. That requires more than strategy. It requires courage. Today’s most effective leaders are grounded in purpose, anchored in self-awareness, and equipped to navigate ambiguity while cultivating collective courage across teams and culture. 

In this high-impact keynote, Dr. Margie Warrell delivers a bold recalibration of what’s possible when clarity, courage, and alignment converge. Margie unpacks why the real work of leadership begins where comfort zones end, bridging the gap between inner evolution and outer results. With compelling stories and evidence-based insight, she guides leaders to dismantle the psychological barriers—fear of judgment, risk-aversion, imposter beliefs—that subtly sabotage execution and stall growth and silence candor. This keynote equips leaders to stop operating from insecurity and start leading from conviction—resetting their trajectory for next-level growth and sustained impact.

Key Audience Takeaways

  • The Case for Courage: Understand how fear-based leadership exacts a “timidity tax” and long-term vulnerability—and how scaling courage unlocks stronger performance and sustained advantage.
  • Lead from Values, Not Emotions: Learn how inner alignment drives outer effectiveness, shifting from insecurity alleviation to purpose-powered action.
  • From Groupthink To Generative Thinking: Foster ‘loyal dissent’ and bold thinking that breaks from convention to fuel innovation and resilience.
  • Galvanize Shared Purpose: Craft and communicate a compelling “why” to ignite accountability, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.
  • Scale a Culture of Courage: Apply four principles that build psychological safety, reduce perceived risk, and create the conditions for bold, aligned action at scale.

Why Margie?

While many leadership speakers focus on change, innovation, or growth, Dr. Margie Warrell goes deeper—unpacking the human fears and mindset patterns that quietly undermine all three. Drawing on decades of global experience—including as Senior Partner in C-Suite Advisory at Korn Ferry—she equips leaders to embed courage into how they show up, communicate, build trust and lead change. Whether working with Fortune 500 executives, YPO forums, or Special Operations teams, Margie provides the real-world frameworks that turn bold ideas into bolder results. This keynote delivers more than inspiration—it’s a reset. A proven path for turning insight into action, fear into fuel, and potential into performance.

Ideal For:

Executive teams, senior and mid-level leaders, high-potential programs, and innovation-driven organizations navigating growth, disruption, or transformation. Can be adapted into interactive workshops or multi-day deep dives.

The standing ovation she received reflected how much the audience loved Margie. I strongly recommend Margie for any event that ties into meaningful advancement.

– Rich Wilson, President and CEO, Paul Davis

Take the Chance

HOW TO TAKE THE CHANCES THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING

Most people know what to do, but don’t do what they know. Want your audience to walk away ready to defy their doubt and take bolder action toward a bolder vision for the future – their own and your organizations? This keynote will not disappoint.

Expand to read more

We often know what to do yet we don’t do what we know. Fear is a silent killer of potential, widening the gap between thought and action – stifling initiative, fueling indecision, limiting growth and leaving potential to lay dormant. Everyone misses out. 

At a time when 85% of people cite fear of failure as their #1 barrier to action and 70% of employees are afraid to speak up at work, Margie draws on insights from latest book The Courage Gap to help your audience reclaim their agency, reimagine their future and step bravely into the gap between where they are and where they want to be.  Your audience will leave with real-world strategies to turn their fears into fuel — igniting passion toward a bolder vision and ready to take the chances s needed to make it reality.

Key Audience Takeaways

  • Flip Your Fear: How to turn fear into an ally, and calibrate awkward moments and discomfort as a signpost for growth and cue to speak up and step forward.
  • Take Smart Risks: Recognize the unconscious biases that drive over-caution and learn a simple tool to discern smart risks from reckless ones.
  • Fail Forward: Recalibrate the relationship with failure to ‘mine its gold,’ applying those lessons to reset more quickly and step forward wiser, braver, and better off.
  • Reset and Rescript: Clarify your highest intention to focus on what you want—not what you fear—and rewrite the story that’s been keeping you stressed, stuck and too safe.

Why Margie?

Dr. Margie Warrell has learned a lot about managing fear, defying doubt and taking chances since her childhood in the Aussie bush. Weaving humorous and heartwarming personal stories with academic research to adopt a ‘courage mindset’ in very practical and deeply human ways.

Margie’s Courage Quiz can be integrated live to give audiences an immediate, personal window into their own courage gaps—making this keynote as interactive as it is inspiring.

Ideal For: 

Company-wide events, personal and professional development conferences, all-employee or high-potential gatherings seeking to fuel bold thinking and personal agency. Can be adapted into more interactive programs, 2-hour to full day.

After delivering the closing keynote to our top 1,000 sales leaders, I can tell you that if you’re looking for someone to inspire your people to take action, Margie is the speaker for you! She is also a joy to work with!

– Jason Green, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, National Instruments

Brave the Awkward

THE HEART OF HUMAN CONNECTION IN AN OVERWIRED WORLD

In a world of digital distance, curated communication, and polite avoidance, this keynote empowers people to brave the awkward conversations that build trust, make candor safer, and strengthen belonging—fueling human-centered cultures where authenticity drives connection, agility, and competitive edge.

Expand to read more

In today’s hyper-connected workplace—where curated profiles, Slack replies, and AI-generated messages dominate—something vital is getting lost: our capacity for real human connection.As it becomes easier to polish our image and harder to have honest conversations, we’re seeing a growing gap between surface-level communication and true belonging. The very technologies designed to bring us closer are eroding the awkward but essential interpersonal skills that build trust, foster belonging, and fuel collaboration. We’ve become masters of impression management but novices at genuine vulnerability.

This timely keynote by Dr. Margie Warrell helps audiences confront that gap—and close it. With warmth, insight, and deeply practical tools, Margie invites your people to brave the awkward: to lean into the moments of discomfort that deepen relationships, transform cultures, and unlock human potential. From giving feedback that lands to asking for help when it matters most, Margie teaches the conversational skills and courageous mindsets that strengthen teams, elevate trust, and make space for authenticity in a world that often rewards performance over presence.

Grounded in research and real-world experience across global organizations, Brave the Awkward equips your leaders and teams with a roadmap for building more human-centered workplaces—where people feel safe to be real, to take smart risks, and to connect beyond the screen.

With belonging and engagement at historic lows, this is not a soft skill. It’s a strategic imperative.

Key Audience Takeaways

  • The 3C Model – Clarity, Courage, Connection: A simple model to speak truth with love, navigate sensitive conversations and avoid the costly “timidity tax” of avoidance.
  • From Impression Management to Shared Humanity: Tools to move beyond status anxiety and performative behaviors toward mutual vulnerability and authentic connection.
  • Braving Silence: How to sit in the discomfort of silence to create space for the conversations that matter most—beneath the surface.
  • Disarming Defensiveness: How to amplify authenticity to show up in ways that make others feel safe to lower their guard, trust your intention and connect at the next level.
  • Digital Courage in Virtual Environments: Strategies to use tech to connect—not hide—and bridge the emotional distance of remote and hybrid work.

Why Margie?

Margie’s guiding belief: what comes from the heart, lands on the heart—and courage is the key to building workplaces (and lives) where people can show up fully, connect deeply, and lead with authenticity. A global citizen who has learned how to connect at a heart level across diverse cultures around the world, Margie brings a rare combination of academic depth and lived global perspective to the stage—with warmth, wit, and wisdom.

Ideal For: 

Organizations navigating cultural transformation, leadership conferences, corporate retreats, team development summits, and all events focused on strengthening workplace cultures, communication, or enhancing team performance.

Margie’s authentic style and memorable story-telling captivated and inspired our 400 sales leaders. I highly recommend Margie for any organization wanting to empower their teams to take bold risks and play to win.

– Jessica Qaasim, Head of Industry, Google Marketing Platform

Dare to Grow

HOW TO GROW THROUGH WHAT YOU GO THROUGH

Resilience isn’t built by avoiding hardship—it’s forged through it. If you want your audience to stay grounded under pressure and turn their toughest challenges into catalysts for their greatest growth, this keynote will equip them to build their capacity to thrive, no matter what.

Expand to read more

To thrive amid the complexity and pressures of life today requires a new way of relating to life—not to control it or to avoid its challenges—but to expand and deepen our capacity to handle them better. In this uplifting keynote, Margie shares personal stories of heartache and hardship, setbacks and struggles, that will not only provide a blueprint for ‘growing through what we go through’ but will give your audience the mindset, tool-set and heart-set to navigate change better, emerge from it stronger, and transform their biggest challenges into the source of their highest growth. 

Mixing a powerful blend of theory, practical tools, and heart-expanding wisdom, your audience will walk away not only able to face change and adversity better, but equipped to grow into the best version of themselves because of it.

Key Audience Takeaways

  • Resilience Micro-Habits: Integrate simple, sustainable daily rituals to sustain energy, boost recovery, build self-fullness, and ward off burnout.
  • Rescript Narratives: Tap the power of language to reframe derailed plans into ‘plot twists’ that turn self-doubt into self-belief and reinforce the personal agency to press on when life presses in.
  • Practice ‘Be Before Do’: Why anchoring in the values that define who you want ‘to be’  enables you to operate with self-certainty to bring your bravest self to your biggest challenges.
  • Breathe In Courage: How to reset your anxiety at the ground level, moving from flight/flight mode to think more creatively and respond more calmly – particularly when pressures mount.  
  • Activate Post-Traumatic Growth: Understand how to find purpose in painful situations, find ‘daily victories’ and discover the transformative power of living ‘from cause, not effect.’

Why Margie?

Dr. Margie Warrell doesn’t just teach resilience—she’s lived it. From surviving an armed robbery and rebuilding after personal tragedy to raising four children across multiple global moves while pursuing her ‘vocation’ to empower others to live deeper lives in a superficial world, Margie’s story is one of walking the path of faith over fear, pairing grace and grit, humility and hope. Her ability to bridge head and heart with humility and hard-won wisdom sets her apart.

Ideal For: 

Broad audiences, employee wellbeing initiatives, change-management rollouts, organizations navigating change or cultural transformation. Can also be adapted for faith groups or longer form interactive program

Margie’s collaborative approach, professionalism and energy, on stage and off, combined with her fresh concepts and calm authority have created those ‘ah-ha!’ moments that make better leaders of us all.

– Alison Sibree, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Oracle

Brave Women Rising

HOW TO START BEFORE YOU FEEL READY AND MAKE A BET…ON YOURSELF

Want to empower women to back themselves more and doubt themselves less?This keynote challenges the fears, habits and headwinds that hold women back— emboldening them to make a bet on themselves before they feel 100% ready.

Expand to read more

Of the many reasons women remain underrepresented at most decision-making tables, none are due to a lack of talent, ability, or work ethic. In this deeply affirming keynote, Dr. Margie Warrell shares her personal journey—from battling self-doubt as a girl in the Aussie bush to defying the invisible barriers and biases that still subtly shape women’s careers, all while raising four children and building a global business. 

Margie offers a bold invitation to women who want to do more and be more but too often doubt if they can. She unpacks the subtle but powerful pressures women face to be agreeable, humble, and “likeable”—and how women can (and must) make the ultimate and most important bet… on themselves.  To be clear: this keynote isn’t about “fixing” women—it’s about equipping them to stop selling themselves short, to rise stronger, and to lead with the confidence they admire in others… even when they don’t feel 100% ready.

Key Audience Takeaways

  • Bet on Yourself: Learn how to challenge social expectations, limiting norms, biases and double binds, and own your value without apology and not hide behind humility
  • Turn Imposterhood into Growth: Reframe self-doubt as a sign of growth and lean into stretch moments.
  • Speak with Authority, Authenticity, and Impact: Communicate with conviction and reset your relationship with power to take care while taking charge.
  • Act Before You Feel Ready: Understand why courage precedes confidence—and how bold action builds belief and why you need to risk ‘winging it’ more often
  • Rise Together, Not Alone: Build allyship, uplift other women, and foster cultures that multiply courage and impact.

Why Margie?

Margie’s expertise in women’s leadership draws on her doctoral research, global experience, and personal journey as a mother of four and big sister to seven. For over 20 years, she’s empowered women to grow their influence—leading Live Brave retreats worldwide and co-leading a Korn Ferry initiative to advance women to the C-suite. A Women’s Economic Forum honoree and board member of the Women’s Democracy Network, Margie brings practical wisdom to embolden women of all ages, on every path.

Ideal For: 

Women’s leadership and general women’s empowerment conferences, female student events, ERG’s  and all initiatives aimed to empower women and girls. For longer interactive format programs, Margie expands on this content to deepen community and connection. 

Margie doesn’t just speak — she sparks change!

Margie’s authentic style and memorable story-telling captivated and inspired our 400 sales leaders. I highly recommend Margie for any organization wanting to empower their teams to take bold risks and play to win.

Testimonial Item

Jessica Qaasim, Head of Industry, Google Marketing Platform

Margie’s ability to deliver thought-provoking and empowering program for leaders of all levels is impressive. I've now engaged Margie for many leadership events, always with incredible feedback.

Testimonial Item

Edweena Stratton, VP Employee Success, Salesforce

Absolutely awesome. I’ve never had so much positive feedback from an audience - not one negative comment, not one. Everyone just raved about it and believe me, this was a tough crowd.

Testimonial Item

Robert Gosling, VP of Sales, Oracle

After delivering the closing keynote to our top 1,000 sales leaders, I can tell you that if you’re looking for someone to inspire your people to take action, Margie is the speaker for you! She is also a joy to work with!

Testimonial Item

Jason Green, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, National Instruments

Margie delivered an incredibly powerful opening keynote on Brave Leadership. Fantastic energy and insights plus her content was right on point!!

Testimonial Item

Elizabeth Lie, Managing Director, Aventedge

Margie’s ability to weave anecdotes to refocus, prioritize and build resilience was extremely well received. Her energy and candour was uplifting and making her an excellent choice for any event requiring a motivating, insightful and credible speaker.

Testimonial Item

Karrine Brannigan, Senior Vice President Marketing, Dell

Attendees at our annual conference loved Margie so much they gave her a standing ovation. She was absolutely excellent.

Testimonial Item

Lisa Nguyen, Operations Director, American Psychiatric Nurses Association

Margie’s message to ‘lead with courage’ to bi-partisan Chiefs on Capitol Hill can change the world. Yet, it’s how she delivers it that sets her apart. If she can command the attention of this group, she can bring any audience to their feet!

Larry Burton, Congressional Chief of Staff

Margie was extremely entertaining, inspirational and right in point for our company event. The feedback was universally positive.

Testimonial Item

Tim Orpin, Vice President, Illumina

Margie’s keynote to our Top 100 leaders on creating a culture of courage was dynamic and action focused. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive as we all go forward a little bolder and braver than before!

Testimonial Item

Rachael Powell, Chief Customer Experience Officer, XERO

One word: Phenomenal. Not only was Margie's message tailored perfectly for our audience but her one on one interactions with attendees made the experience even more outstanding.

Testimonial Item

Victoria Lambert, Talent Management, AT&T

Margie’s a dynamo! Her powerful delivery and fresh insights were both inspiring and actionable!

Testimonial Item

Luca Savi, CEO, ITT

If you want to embolden your teams and leaders, Margie is the perfect adrenaline-like shot of inspiration you need.

Testimonial Item

Sarah McKensey, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Johnson & Johnson

Team Offsites, Workshops & Retreats

Margie brings deep experience in working across multiple formats and with all sizes groups, including facilitating team off-sites, ELT/board retreats, workshops, moderating panels and ‘fire-side’ chats with CEO’s and celebrities.

Margie brought an impressive depth of knowledge to her workshop on Courageous Conversations at NASA headquarters. The feedback was outstanding.

Testimonial Item

Kim Haney, Director, Career Management, NASA

Margie’s workshop changed my life and that of my colleagues. I’m quite confident you’ll walk away from her session agreeing that they were some of the best hours you have spent on yourself in a long, long time. A worthwhile investment for all leaders, both emerging and established.

Testimonial Item

Elizabeth Faber, Chief Purpose Officer, Deloitte

Margie is a true expert in her field who immediately captivates an audience. I have engaged her several times for large keynotes, workshops and, most recently, to do a ‘fireside chat’ with our Chairman Mr Bill Marriott. On every occasion she has been wonderfully well received.

Testimonial Item

Keri Day, Chief Audit Officer, Marriott

Margie led us through a 2-day workshop that was absolutely beyond any expectations. My team members (from 8 countries!) were all thrilled by what we achieved. I have no words to thank her enough. Just amazing!

Testimonial Item

Sandra Guazzotti, Oracle Finance

The feedback from our full day program with Margie was overwhelmingly positive. I’ve no hesitation recommending Margie as a terrific investment in team and personal development.

Testimonial Item

Leonie Valentine, Managing Director, Sales & Operations, Google

Margie was an absolutely instrumental part of enlarging the context for our new team. Her facilitation of our leadership gathering inspired us to reach for significant business opportunities, strengthen our collaboration, and embrace the mindset needed to achieve amazing success!

Testimonial Item

Liz Carnabudi, Vice President, BD Medical Technology