Dr. Margie Warrell

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 – turning fear into fuel for transformative growth across teams and culture. Starting with the hardest person we ever have to lead – ourselves.

In this high-impact keynote, Dr. Margie Warrell delivers a bold recalibration of what’s possible when clarity, courage, and conviction 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, 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.

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 her 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 needed to make it reality. After all, it’s the chances we don’t take that ultimately cost us the most.

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.
• Speak bravely: Step into the conversations that count—one minute, one moment, one message at a time.

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, she helps audiences 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.

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.

In this timely keynote, Dr. Margie Warrell cuts through the digital noise to reveal what it truly takes to “brave the awkward” and forge the authentic connections our hearts and workplaces desperately need. From sharing bold ideas that challenge the status quo to asking for help when we’re struggling, these vulnerable moments—however uncomfortable—are precisely where relationships deepen, cultures transform, and breakthroughs happen. Drawing on cutting-edge research and real-world case studies, Dr. Warrell provides practical tools to navigate the courage gap between staying safe in superficial interactions and stepping into the transformative power of genuine human connection.

With belonging and engagement at historic lows, organizations need leaders who can create genuine connection across digital divides. This keynote provides the roadmap for building cultures where people feel safe to be human, take risks, and bring their full selves to work—the foundation of both employee wellbeing and business success.

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.

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 fight/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 programs.

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, ERGs, and all initiatives aimed to empower women and girls. For longer interactive format programs, Margie expands on this content to deepen community and connection.