Speaking + Workshops
Your attendees will feel
INSPIRED, ENLIGHTENED & ACTIVATED TO CHANGE THE GAME.
How can empathy transform your leaders, culture, and brand? Let me tell you.
Keynotes + Workshops | Inspirational | Corporate Workshops | TESTIMONIALS
Inspirational keynote speaker.
Best-selling author.
Savvy brand strategist.
Transformative workshop facilitator.
Maria’s unique blend of passion, emotion, humor, and practicality consistently engages and delights her audiences. Event planners love her professionalism, preparedness, and her ability to make their lives easier AND their events memorable.
TEDx Talk: How to Trojan Horse Leaders Into Becoming More Empathetic
If your people want to become stronger leaders, create thriving cultures, and build engaging brands, bring Maria in as a keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, or guest speaker.
All my talks blend proven content and an amazing attendees experience, tailored to your event goals. And all can be customized to fit your industry’s specific challenges and language. We’ll discuss your vision for success and ensure the talk knocks it out of the park!
Maria offers virtual or in-person:
Conference keynotes
Customer presentations
Employee resource group talks
Leadership training programs
Team strategy sessions
Brand workshops
Example Virtual Talk
Popular Keynotes + Workshops by Maria Ross
THE EMPATHY EDGE:
Harnessing the Value of Compassion to Boost Innovation, Engagement, and Performance
Every problem that exists in the business world can be traced back to a single, common origin: LACK OF EMPATHY.
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Sexism. Ageism. Deep-seated, mind-clouding prejudices. Furious customers and failed business launches. Partnerships abandoned out of fear, projects destroyed by misunderstanding. Every problem that exists in the business world can be traced back to a single, common origin: Lack of empathy. When we are unwilling to place ourselves in someone else’s shoes-unwilling to talk, listen, or understand another point of view-we remain paralyzed. Instead of finding solutions, we repeat the same mistakes. This impacts our professional reputation, team’s productivity, customer’s experience and organization’s performance.
It’s time for a new business paradigm. Learn how you can amplify empathy through your work and bring your organization along with you to create a better world. Empathy speaker Maria Ross reveals exactly how empathy makes leaders (and organizations) stronger and more sustainable, how it accelerates revenue and performance, and she offers five concrete ways to flex your empathy muscles for great success.
This is a great fit for hungry audiences clamoring to align their values with their work and heal the world, starting in the workplace. If your audience or team is struggling to do good while still doing WELL financially, this is the program to choose.
YOU WILL DISCOVER:
- Why empathy is a competitive advantage. We’ll walk through the financial and organizational benefits of empathy.
- How to avoid the “empathy veneer.” There are three levels your organization must address to truly act with empathy and walk your talk rather than simply play to good press. You’ll learn the crucial role you can play to kick this into motion.
- How to flex your empathy muscle. DIscover and practice actionable ways you and your organization can strengthen empathy to achieve radical success.
THE EMPATHY DILEMMA:
How Successful Leaders Balance People, Performance, and Personal Boundaries
All across the globe, organizations are becoming more human-centric. They’ve jettisoned old paradigms of success that center on endless overtime and constant employee sacrifice. They’ve tied success to purpose and workforce morale and helped people balance personal and professional needs as their priorities change. They’ve made shifts that are both necessary and positive.
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But now, those striving to be empathetic leaders and colleagues are experiencing the dark side: Taking on extra work, avoiding conflict, spending too much time on personal issues, or simply burning out from trying to balance concern for colleagues with the needs of the business.
How can we remain human-focused and still maintain high performance, set personal boundaries, and avoid burning out, without being treated like villains?
In this timely talk by empathy advocate, TEDx speaker, podcaster, and strategist, Maria Ross, author of The Empathy Edge, you’ll discover how empathy benefits your organization’s performance and why your perception of empathy might be false and leading you astray. You’ll also learn about 5 valuable pillars to being an empathetic and effective leader or colleague and how they will enable you to find success in the new world of work.
TAKEAWAYS:
- DEFINE what empathy means in a work context and clarify confusing terminology. Bust common empathy myths that hold leaders back.
- DISCOVER how empathy helps you do good while doing well financially: Empathy is not just good for the world but it can be a competitive advantage. We’ll walk through the financial & organizational benefits of acting with empathy-and how you can persuade others in the organization to do the right thing.
- EXPLORE what empathy is – and more importantly, what it is NOT
- DISCOVER and PRACTICE the five pillars of effective empathy and how to balance people, performance, and personal boundaries.
THE ROI OF EMPATHY:
How to Create an Empathetic Culture to Boost Innovation, Productivity, and Talent Attraction
Workplace culture has changed, but some organizations are struggling to keep pace — yet wonder why sales or growth is stagnant.
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Join Maria Ross, author of The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success, as she shares evidence and case studies underlining the importance of cultivating empathetic cultures in the business world. You’ll learn how empathy makes organizations stronger, discover what the next generation of talent is demanding in their workplace, and get actionable ways to create a more empathetic culture where your people can thrive.
This discussion will open your eyes to the value of empathetic culture on tangible business results, and help you begin cultivating that culture within your own workplace.
YOU WILL DISCOVER:
- How an empathetic culture leads to a market-conquering brand
- How to build a corporate culture that attracts top talent and boosts engagement
- Actionable ways to flex your empathy muscle as a leader, even if you don’t think this is your strength
- Strategies to create a more empathetic culture
- How to avoid the “empathy veneer” so that you can genuinely walk your talk
CREATING AN EMPATHETIC BRAND IN A DIGITAL WORLD
Today’s savvy customers demand empathy from the brands they choose. In fact, doing business online and social media requires us to be more empathetic than ever before — if we want to keep customers, gain market share, and thrive.
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Most organizations pay plenty of lip-service to “putting the customer first” and operating from a place of compassion, but far fewer actually deliver on this promise. In a world where companies prioritize shareholder returns over employee safety and profit over purpose, many people worry that empathy has abandoned the corporate world for good.
Fortunately, we have the power to turn that tide. Everyone from CEOs to programmers to middle managers can take steps to imbue their company culture, offerings, and customer interactions with genuine empathy.
Frankly, today’s savvy customers are demanding it from the brands they choose.
Especially in the ever-evolving online sphere. In fact, doing business online and in social media demands that we be even more empathetic than ever before if we want to keep customers, gain market share, and thrive.
In this compelling talk, speaker, facilitator, and empathy advocate Maria Ross—author of The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success—will explore the value of compassion as a competitive advantage. Learn how you, as leaders and marketers, can amplify empathy through your work, create a more empathetic experience online, and bring your organizations along with you to create a better world.
With fascinating stories from founders, change-makers, and brands we know and love, Ross reveals exactly how empathy is not just good for humankind, but actually makes brands stronger and more sustainable.
YOU WILL DISCOVER:
- Why empathy is great for business and how it gives you a brand edge over your competitors, resulting in fierce customer loyalty and smash-hit products and services
- How to avoid the “empathy veneer” so the public knows your brand is authentic and genuine, and you are not just cranking out publicity stunts
- Actionable ways to infuse empathy into your marketing, sales, and digital communications with customers, as well as colleagues and community so you can better engage and create a loyal brand tribe
- Ways to align your personal values with your work to achieve unimaginable success
HOW TO “TROJAN HORSE” LEADERS TO EMBRACE EMPATHY
This keynote, based on my popular TEDx talk, presents the business case for skeptics to encourage more empathy to take root and transform people from the outside in. And inspires listeners to smash outdated success paradigms for a more hopeful and connected future.
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Is it right to trick leaders into being more empathetic?
Although we are currently experiencing an empathy deficit in our world, smart leaders and teams have found that compassion, creativity and cash flow co-exist in balanced harmony. Let’s Trojan Horse the skeptics into embracing empathy with actionable steps that transform them from the outside in. How? By showing people that empathy is not just good for society, it’s good for business.
General directives to “be more empathetic” or “be kinder” don’t help anyone, but actionable steps do. How about we start flexing our empathy muscle in the place where we spend the bulk of our time: AT WORK.
This keynote presents the business case to skeptics, encouraging them to embrace empathy and transform from the outside in. It inspires listeners to smash outdated success paradigms for a more hopeful and connected future.
Inspirational Keynotes
REBOOT + REFRAME:
How A Freak Aneurysm Flipped My Entrepreneurial Switch + Reframed My Life
Come hear Maria’s powerful, inspirational, and humorous story as she shares her journey back to strength and success. Her hard-won insights into life balance, work, stress, gratitude, time management, and focus are guaranteed to give you new perspective and insight on your own life and work. Maria’s tale of deep resilience will have you laughing and crying, and the practical lessons she shares will show you how to handle adversity … rather than waiting for a life-threatening crisis to hit.
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Shortly after moving to a new city and starting her own business, Maria Ross was struck down with a brain aneurysm rupture at the age of 35. About 40% of people who experience her type of hemorrhage die as a result, and 4 out of 7 will suffer disabilities. But Maria bounced back better and braver than ever. Doctors dubbed her recovery “miraculous.”
And after months and years of healing, she re-booted her brain and business and COMPLETELY reframed her life.
Since her injury, she’s written many books, traveled extensively, had a son, and built up her thriving business … but not without some powerful lessons learned along the way.
Maria’s experience there was so overwhelmingly supportive, and positive it showed her the power of empathy to heal. And got her thinking about how any business can scale empathy, no matter how bureaucratic, which led to her current work as an empathy advocate who shows progressive, people-centric organizations and leaders how to achieve radical success through empathy.
She turned tragedy to triumph, and used this life-disruption as a spark to fuel a brand new path for her purpose-driven work.
Come hear Maria’s powerful, inspirational, and humorous story as she shares her journey back to strength and success. Her hard-won insights into life balance, work, stress, gratitude, time management, and focus are guaranteed to give you new perspective and insight on your own life priorities. Maria’s tale of deep resilience will have you laughing and crying, and the practical lessons she shares will show you how to appreciate each day … rather than waiting for a life-threatening crisis to hit.
YOU WILL DISCOVER:
- The importance of focus for your brand, business, and sanity
- Why saying “No” can lead to more of the right “Yes”
- A surprising twist on how to view acceptance in business and life
- Why “patience” is not a dirty word for ambitious people
- How humor is essential to make your business, spirit and physical body thrive
Resilience:
Three Keys to Reclaiming Your Identity After Crisis
We will all experience crises at some point in our lives. Death. Divorce. Medical diagnosis. Loss. Hardship. Such adversity can turn our worlds upside down and cause us to lose sight of who we are. But in that breakdown, there are opportunities to reclaim your identity and emerge even stronger on the other side as a result. Maria shares her powerful recovery journey from a near-fatal aneurysm , where her skills and personality changed with a jolt. She was forced to ask what makes us who we truly are? And it’s not often what we think! In your search to redefine or adapt to a New You, enjoy Maria’s three valuable keys to bouncing back and reclaiming your identity.
Corporate Workshops
SLICE Brand StrategY Workshop
As a skilled brand strategist, Maria can facilitate a powerful and efficient brand workshop for your team to align everyone on the same mission, ferret out your secret sauce to share with the world, and build a compelling and clear brand story that attracts your ideal customers.
The core of a power brand is empathy: Who are your ideal customers as people? Whether you sell B2C or B2B, they are still human. Empathetic insights will help you unlock what your perfect-itl customers value, fear, want, need – and who they aspire to be. So you can speak their language, connect, and engage more of them with the value you offer.
If you are looking to simplify your message, create a more meaningful brand story, or more clearly communicate to drive engagement, accelerate revenue, and stand out from the crowd, let’s talk about what we can do for your team.
THE EMPATHY EDGE:
Boost Innovation, Engagement and Performance
Learn how you can amplify empathy through your work and bring your organization along with you to create a better world. Empathy speaker Maria Ross reveals exactly how empathy makes leaders (and organizations) stronger and more sustainable, and offers five concrete ways to flex your empathy muscles for great success. If your team is struggling to do good while still doing WELL financially, this is the workshop to choose.
THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF BRANDING:
How To Avoid Eternal Stagnation
Forgive us: We know not what we do.
Effective branding is within everyone’s grasp, from massive corporations to small businesses to solopreneurs. But we make so many mistakes when we build companies because we are too busy fighting short-term fires to think about a targeted strategy that will reap exponential rewards in the long run.
Discover how to avoid the Seven Deadly Branding Sins that most organizations commit so you can engage, inform, and delight more clients and customers … and keep them coming back for more.
STAND OUT!
3 Keys For Differentiating Your Brand From The Pack
The business world is more challenging today than it was even two years ago, packed with “me-too” competitors and an overwhelming number of marketing options. Prospects are too busy and the market is too crowded for them to figure you out. So how do you stand out? How do you tell your story and convey your value?
Speaker, author, and facilitator Maria Ross will help you get crystal clear about your brand, your story, and your target audience. She’ll show you how to craft an irresistible brand and share it with the right people at the right time, dramatically impacting your bottom line and separating you from the pack.
Organizations Maria Has Worked With
Book Maria
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