Washington, DC
$15,000 – $30,000
A good cappuccino
Growing up in the Australian bush, Margie Warrell learned early that courage isn’t the absence of fear – it’s what you do despite it. That conviction has carried her through a career spanning senior executive roles at Korn Ferry, BP, and KPMG, a PhD in human development, and six bestselling books, including her latest, The Courage Gap. It has also carried her through a life that tested her to the core: she’s had a gun held to her head, lost a child ten days later, and rebuilt her career three times over on three continents while raising four kids. That combination of lived experience and behavioral science is what sets Margie apart on stage.
As Senior Partner at Korn Ferry and an advisor to boards and C-suites across four continents, she has worked with leaders at organizations like NASA, Google, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, and advised Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill, helping them bridge intellect and emotion, science and soul, to master the unconscious fears that derail decisions and erode trust. Her keynotes don’t just inspire, they equip leaders and teams at every level with the courage to close the gap between what they know and what they do, so that bold thinking, honest conversations, and braver action become the norm, not the exception.
Global Leadership Advisor; Courageous Leadership & High-Stakes Decision Making
In a world flooded with data and opinion, what’s scarce is clarity on what matters and the courage to act on it. Dr. Margie Warrell brings boardroom depth and human insight to help leaders and teams make the brave calls that shape a stronger future
Drawing on decades of experience emboldening people and organizations worldwide, Dr. Margie Warrell brings a rare ability to bridge intellect and emotion, connecting strategy with psychology to equip leaders to navigate today’s complexity with greater clarity, conviction, and courage.
A dynamic keynote speaker with authentic Australian warmth, Dr. Warrell has delivered high-impact presentations for organizations ranging from NASA to Google to US Special Operations. Her message resonates whether she’s advising Fortune 500 executives or business owners: courage is the ultimate differentiator, essential for taking smart risks, bridging divides, accelerating adaptation, and shaping a stronger future.
As a former Senior Partner in C-Suite Advisory at Korn Ferry, Dr. Warrell brings executive-level depth to her speaking, having guided boards and C-suite leaders through critical challenges in leadership, team performance, succession, and cultural transformation. Her research-backed insights provide practical tools to overcome hidden derailers to ensure stronger decision making, accelerated innovation, and critical conversations.
Dr. Warrell’s journey from rural Australian dairy farm to global thought leader brings rare credibility to her work. Having lived and worked across four continents — Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America — she offers a globally grounded perspective on the universal challenges we all face. This rich international experience enables her to cut through complexity, cut straight to the heart of what both limits and unlocks human potential across sectors, cultures, and continents. Her authentic style enables her to connect deeply with audiences at all levels, blending data-driven insights with memorable storytelling that leads to lasting behavioral shifts that move the needle.
Based in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, Dr. Warrell embodies the courage she champions in others, from climbing Kilimanjaro with her four children to crossing the Sahara to, most recently, running her first (New York) marathon. For an unforgettable keynote that emboldens people to take the bold action these times demand – Dr. Warrell delivers.
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We’ve never had more information – or faster tools to process it. Yet at decision making tables across the world, leaders are getting more hesitant, not less. More risk-averse. Less decisive.
The problem isn’t insight. It’s the internal capacity to act on it.
In a world of accelerating AI disruption, relentless complexity, and rising stakes, the ability to make values-anchored, brave decisions – with clarity, conviction, and consistency – isn’t a soft skill. It’s a fundamental leadership capability. And most leaders have never been explicitly taught it.
Drawing on behavioral science, decision-making psychology, and 25 years coaching executives navigating high-stakes choices – and a global life of bold decisions that has tested every principle she teaches – Margie Warrell makes a compelling case that courageous decision-making isn’t a personality trait. It’s a practice. And it can be built.
Leaders leave with a practical behavioral framework for closing the gap between knowing and doing, a sharper understanding of how excess caution quietly derails decisions, and the tools to bring the presence required to make braver choices that better the future. Because the braver path isn’t just a deliberate decision. It’s a profound act of personal agency that casts a vote for who we’re each capable of becoming – and a refusal to let fear set the ceiling.
Your audience will leave able to:
Best for: C-suite and senior leaders, leadership decision-making keynote, brave decision-making speaker, making decisions under uncertainty keynote, courage under pressure keynote, high-stakes decision-making speaker, overcoming risk aversion in leadership, decisive leadership keynote, values-based decision-making speaker, leading through disruption keynote, executive decision-making keynote speaker
Formats: 45-minute keynote / 60-90 minute flagship / half-day leadership deep dive
AI is changing everything about how organizations operate – except what actually makes leadership work. The deeper human intelligence – our capacity to bring our full presence under pressure – is not a soft skill but the defining leadership competency of our era. And it’s the deep inner mastery that secures our greatest outer impact.
As relentless uncertainty pulls leaders to move faster to feel safer, what will shape the future most is something no algorithm can supply: the courage to lead with wisdom over knowledge. The leaders who’ll grow most influential in the decade ahead will be those with the interior depth and discernment to know what to do with it: to perceive beyond what’s spoken, sit with complexity without rushing to false certainty, and to make the mission-grounded call that data alone could never justify.
Drawing on decades helping leaders cultivate the courage to bring that deeper intelligence forward, Dr. Margie Warrell addresses what no AI tool can reach – the fears that distort judgment, the blind spots that erode trust, and the gap between the identity leaders seek to project and how they’re experienced by others. Because the durable leadership edge – judgment, empathy, presence, and the courage to lean into the hard human conversations that matter most – will not soften in importance as AI advances. It compounds.
Leaders and teams leave able to:
Best for: C-suite and senior leaders, HR and people leaders, women’s leadership forums, leadership development conferences, technology and innovation sectors, professional and financial services, healthcare and mission-driven organizations.
Formats: 45-minute keynote / 60-90 minute flagship / half-day leadership deep dive
Thriving through disruption doesn’t require eradicating fear. It requires managing the fear that drives our decisions – and learning to act before circumstances force our hand.
Having navigated significant personal and professional change, including raising a family across multiple cross-cultural relocations while restarting her career, Dr. Margie Warrell knows that resistance to change is never about the change itself. It’s about potential loss – of status, certainty, and security, the very things disruption activates in the brain’s threat-detection system. In that state, people default to preserving the past, waiting for a certainty that’s never coming, and stalling the very momentum their organization needs most.
What separates organizations that adapt and grow from those that languish isn’t strategy or technology. It’s the collective capacity of their people to proactively seek out and embrace change rather than wait for it. As Margie has learned firsthand, what separates those who thrive through change from those who merely survive it isn’t a personality trait. It’s an inner state – the capacity to act on early signals and lean into change at critical moments.
Weaving behavioral science, organizational psychology, and compelling stories that bridge intellect and emotion, Margie addresses what change management frameworks rarely reach: the unconscious, self-protective reactivity that erodes trust, slows adoption, and causes even well-designed transformations to fall short. The difference is learnable. This keynote builds it.
Leaders and teams leave able to:
Best for: Leaders at all levels navigating organizational transformation, mergers, restructures, and strategic pivots. Particularly resonant for HR and people leaders, change champions, high-potential programs, and any audience facing disruption fatigue or low change adoption.
Formats: 45-minute keynote / 60-90 minute flagship/half/full day workshop
After 25 years working with leaders across every sector, Margie Warrell has found one pattern at the root of ineffective leaders, dysfunctional teams, and low-performing cultures: the awkward conversation that nobody had, for fear of what might happen if they did.
That fear has only gotten easier to indulge. In today’s world of digital distance, technology has never offered more ways to avoid the uncomfortable conversations that require the vulnerability we’re wired to resist. We’ve become expert communicators and novice connectors, increasingly cautious, curated, and conflict-averse, hiding behind screens that leave the most important conversations unsaid.
And yet the conversations we avoid are almost always the ones that matter most. The cost compounds silently: eroded trust, low accountability, stalled decisions, diluted feedback, and talent that checks out long before it leaves. Learning how to brave uncomfortable conversations was never just a ‘soft skill’, but today it’s growing increasingly more crucial.
The quality of presence we bring into our hardest conversations holds the power to transform them into ones that deepen human connection rather than damage it. This keynote equips leaders with a strong framework to brave the awkward conversations in ways that strengthen human-centered cultures, where authenticity drives connection and competitive edge.
Leaders at all levels leave able to:
Leaders at all levels leave able to:
Best for: Organizations building candor, trust, and accountability into their culture. Resonates across leadership levels, high-potential programs, women’s leadership forums, and any team where communication has become cautious, curated, or conflict-averse.
Formats: 45-minute keynote / 60-90 minute flagship / half-day workshop with role playing, somatic coaching and applied conversation frameworks
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