Ones to Watch: Top 10 New Keynote Speakers
These 10 keynote speakers are talking about the topics that our clients are talking about. Our job is to keep track of what you want to know, and then find great speakers who can help you learn, understand and thrive.
These 10 speakers are not new keynote speakers.
Each of these keynote speakers has received a minimum of 4.5 out of 5 for their keynote presentations from clients just like you, and has been honing their craft over years of hard work and attention to what is happening in their world.
We are excited to welcome them to The Sweeney Agency and introduce them to you.
Here are the Top 10 New Keynote Speakers to join The Sweeney Agency in 2024:
Angela Oguntala – Global Authority on Foresight and Innovation
Booked by: IKEA, Hermès, Philips, Sky, Deloitte, The World Economic Forum, The World Trade Organization, Microsoft, Bayer and Swiss Life
Named a Future Innovator by the United Nations, Angela Oguntala is a futurist and global authority on foresight and innovation.
She is a founding partner at Greyspace, a foresight consultancy. Across the globe, she helps organizations understand and innovate for a world in transition.
Over the past decade, Angela has been asked to speak on a wide range of future-facing topics. She has delivered hundreds of keynotes worldwide on themes including: innovating through uncertainty, emerging technology impacts, purpose driven innovation, leadership & organizational foresight, creativity, sustainability, as well as on specific domains from the future of work to futures of healthcare.
Angela leaves audiences with insights, inspiration, and actionable tactics to engage with significant shifts ahead, and to critically question what needs to shift to meet future demands. She is a Salzburg Global Fellow for leaders challenged to shape a better worldand has been featured as an expert on futures thinking on outlets including Sky, TED, and NPR.
Angela is an American who shares her time between the US (Atlanta, Georgia) and Copenhagen, Denmark.
David Allison – Human Values Expert, Bestselling Author, and Founder of The Valuegraphics Project
Booked by: PayPal, Lululemon, and the United Nations Foundation
After decades of helping big brands engage people, David Allison recognized that demographics weren’t working like before. Gender roles were blurred, age has nothing to do with how we behave, and our income doesn’t change what’s in our hearts. Instead, our values drive our behavior and our shared values that engage people and influence outcomes. So he launched the Valuegraphics Project to turn human values into data and create a revolutionary new approach to inspiring action – with the enormous power of shared human values.
Today, after a million surveys in 152 languages, David is the world’s foremost human values expert, and the CEO of a global research firm, with two best-selling books and an international speaking career. Innovative organizations like PayPal, Lululemon, and the United Nations Foundation use David’s data to connect with people in new, more profound ways – by honoring what they value. He coined the term valuegraphics to describe his unique approach to understanding people, which now appears next to demographics in textbooks used on campuses worldwide. Valuegraphics have been featured in Forbes, INC Magazine, and the Harvard Business Review, and his latest book, The Death of Demographics, was hailed by critics as “Convincing, insightful, and … revolutionary.”
He’s developed an entirely new and powerful way to address any issue, and seize any opportunity by leaning deep into a fundamental human truth: we are what we value. His highly engaging and passionate keynote delivery, combined with game-changing insights, make his keynote presentations entirely unique can’t-miss events.
Mandy Gill – Inspiring Speaker on Peak Performance, Resilience & Corporate Wellness
Booked by: Docusign, Adidas, CIBC, Manulife Securities and Reebok
Mandy Gill is a sought-after keynote speaker, helping leaders and their teams thrive through the face of uncertainty in the future of work by strengthening their ability to collaborate, build resilient relationships, and ultimately succeed greater than they ever thought possible.
For over a decade Mandy has studied what separates successful teams from those that simply aren’t. Drawing on her experience of building and scaling one of the world’s most effective behavior change apps, Healthy Habits, Mandy has one of the world’s largest data sets focused on building resilience, modifying behavior, and maximizing positive results. She shares authentic parallels between the principles she uses to succeed while climbing some of the highest peaks in Nepal and around the world, along with running 100km trail marathons.
Mandy builds a compelling case for the uncontrollable environments in extreme adventure, and the ones that people face every day — at work, at home, and in their communities. In addition to having faced some of the most challenging environments in on the planet, Mandy has shared conversations with Lady Gaga and Rihanna while her career took shape in the broadcast world first, before branching off as a business builder, author, and highly respected international media personality. Mandy’s commitment to levelling the playing field and opening doors for women across the globe twice earned her a “Women of Distinction” award by the YWCA.
David Gerard – Magician, Mentalist, and Corporate Entertainer
Booked by: Nvidia, Google, Ebay, Walgreens, JP Morgan & Uber
David Gerard is Silicon Valley’s premier mystery entertainer. Hix mix of mentalism and magic has taken him around the world, garnering standing ovations from the world’s most sophisticated audiences.
David’s background is what truly makes him unique. After a decade working in tech marketing (Google, Discord, and more) David understands the nuances of corporate life and the modern corporate audience. David also recognizes each unique and diverse corporate culture, which allows him to tailor his performance for each group. There is simply no other performer who has the corporate background and stage credentials of David Gerard.
David has performed for hundreds of companies across a variety of industries, and has entertained CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg, Brian Chesky (Airbnb) and Marc Benioff (Salesforce). He also toured with the Broadway show The Illusionists and has consulted on three seasons of America’s Got Talent.
Dr. Paula Stone Williams – Transgender Minister and Gender Equity Advocate
As seen on: TEDWomen, TEDSummit, the New York Times, Red Table Talk, TEDxMileHigh, the Washington Post, NPR, Good Morning America, CNN, ABC News, and PBS
Dr. Paula Stone Williams is an internationally known speaker on gender equity, LGBTQ advocacy and religious tolerance. As a transgender woman, Paula brings a unique perspective to her work on gender equity.
Whether a corporate meeting, women’s conference, company retreat or national gathering, Paula’s unique perspective and story-telling skill delights both men and women as she humbly and effectively advocates for gender equity, LGBTQ rights and appreciation for the differences among us.
Paula has been the CEO of a large religious non-profit, the editor-at-large of a national magazine, host of a national television show and a corporate consultant. With her doctoral thesis on the DiSC Personality Profile, Paula has led hundreds of corporate boards and work teams to become more efficient and productive. Paula has served as an adjunct university professor in the United States and Europe, and is the author of eight books, including She’s My Dad, co-authored with her son, Jonathan.
She has been a keynote speaker for hundreds of conferences, corporations, and universities around the world. Her TED Talks have had over six million views.
Paula lives in Boulder County, Colorado, where she also serves as a pastor with Left Hand Church.
Connor Fields – World Champion and Speaker on Resiliency and Peak Performance
Booked by: Grand Canyon Development Partners, City of Las Vegas, Colorado Mesa University, and Holcim
Through authentic and engaging storytelling, three-time Olympian and two-time World Champion Connor Fields provides real-world strategies for peak performance, inspires resiliency, and motivates audiences toward tremendous success.
Connor Fields is the first American to win Olympic BMX Gold. As one of the world’s all-time greatest BMX racers, Connor has represented the United States 50+ times in 25+ countries. 17 Connor became the youngest rider to ever podium a BMX World Cup.
However, his racing career was not always marked by triumphs. At the 2021 Tokyo Games, Connor went down in one of the worst crashes in Summer Olympic history. Connor sustained multiple injuries – broken ribs, a collapsed lung, torn shoulder and bicep ligaments, brain swelling, and four life-threatening brain hemorrhages.
In his presentations, Connor opens the curtains to a rarely seen experience of winning sport’s most fantastic prize and overcoming extreme adversity. He openly shares his journey of recovery and self-discovery with audiences and the practical applications of hard-won lessons learned.
Laura Gassner Otting – Best-selling Author, Catalyst, and Executive Coach
Booked by: KLM, Harvard University, MGM Grand, JP Morgan Chase, and Eli Lilly
Laura Gassner Otting inspires people to push past the doubt and indecision that keep great ideas in limbo by helping audiences think bigger and accept greater challenges that reach beyond their current, limited scope of belief.
She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and perspective generated by decades of navigating change across the start-up, corporate, nonprofit, political, as well as philanthropic landscapes. Laura dares audiences to find their voice and generate the confidence needed to tackle larger-than-life challenges by helping them to seek new ways of leading, managing, and mentoring others.
Laura has appeared regularly on Good Morning America and the TODAY Show, and her writing has been seen in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, HR Magazine. She is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of three books, including Wonderhell: Why Success Doesn’t Feel Like It Should… and What to Do About It, Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life, and Mission-Drive: Moving from Profit to Purpose. Her books have been translated into five languages.
Alisha De Lorenzo – Human Connection Expert, High Performance Coach, and Positive Disruptor
Booked by: ClassLink, PBS, US Army, Ingredion & YMCA
After decades spearheading groundbreaking initiatives in the education space, Alisha De Lorenzo‘s ascent into the corporate world is nothing short of remarkable. She has emerged as a guiding force in reshaping the way companies cut through the noise, lean into positive disruption, and solve for the disengagement, disconnection, disparities and declining morale plaguing our organizations. Alisha has come to believe that the only way we fight overwhelm and burnout is not lowering our standards or doing less, rather, unleashing a level of aliveness in our people.
An acclaimed international speaker, award winning educator and therapist, Alisha has shared her thought leading insights and frameworks with hundreds of thousands of audience members from the US to Africa. Her work has been featured on PBS, NBC and NJ Spotlight News while her influence has impacted organizations like Mondelez, Wawa and the US Army as well as the NJ Department of Education and many government officials.
Alisha’s profound understanding of the human spirit sets the foundation for companies to unlock innovation, differentiation and growth to drive engagement, productivity and high performance. Stepping into the realm of the extraordinary requires leaders to create cultures where people feel seen, heard and valued and that is the foundation to the aliveness we all seek.
Nikki Greenberg – Futurist Keynote Speaker & AI Thought Leader
Booked by: CBRE, CoreNet Global, Honeywell, Mirvac, and LendLease
Nikki Greenberg stands at the forefront as a world-renowned futurist and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, specializing in the intersection of artificial intelligence, real estate technology, and innovation. Her dynamic and high-energy keynotes delve into the fusion of real space and cyberspace, emphasizing the transformative role of emerging technologies. Nikki’s mission is to not only ignite inspiration about future possibilities but also to provide actionable insights on leveraging these advancements for business growth and success.
As a digital nomad with a versatile career spanning the US, Asia, and Australia, Nikki has excelled in various leadership roles, emphasizing innovation and cutting-edge design.
Nikki’s expertise and influence in PropTech and real estate innovation have been acknowledged through numerous awards, including being named a Top 9 Most Influential Woman in PropTech (2024), Top Real Estate Influencer (2023), and a ULI Global Luminary (2022). As a sought-after speaker, she frequently shares her insights on the tech-enabled future of the industry at prominent global real estate conferences.
Currently based in New York City, this Australian national is celebrated as one of the most influential voices in the realm of AI, real estate technology, and future-focused thinking.
Kim Lear – Generations & Future of Work Expert
Booked by: American Express, Cisco Systems, Deloitte, Disney, General Mills, LinkedIn, Mastercard, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Wells Fargo
Kim Lear is a writer, researcher, and the founder of Inlay Insights. She is known for skillfully weaving eye-opening statistics, insightful stories, and relevant case studies to make presentations come alive. Previously, Kim was the content director at BridgeWorks, a research firm dedicated to generational and millennial trends. Her undergrad research focused on baby boomers and longevity, and her post-grad work centered on millennials and social media trends. She is currently in her ninth year of a longitudinal study on leadership.
Kim was recently named one of today’s best speakers by Meetings and Conventions Magazine, and she appeared as keynote speaker before some of the most renowned companies in the world.
In addition to speaking, Kim was head of research on the book Gen Z @ Work. She has written whitepapers on generational wealth transfer, retirement trends, and Gen Z’s impact on higher education. Kim is the writer of the popular Substack, Kids These Days. She has been featured on NPR and national publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, USA Today, and TIME magazine.
She is a highly sought-after generational expert and serves as an advisor to FORE, an AI startup focused on predictive analytics for attrition. She also volunteers for The 78 Cents Project, an organization dedicated to helping young women develop strong presentation skills.
When not delving into the minutia of human behavior, Kim can be found spending time with her husband and daughters in Minneapolis.