Tania de Jong AM, an Australian soprano, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, stands as a trailblazer in the realms of creativity, innovation, and social impact. With a remarkable portfolio of six businesses and four charities, Tania's journey began when, at 14, she defied discouragement from a friend and embarked on a mission to change the world through the transformative power of voice.
Her TED Talk, 'How Singing Together Changes the Brain,' ignited international interest and positioned her as a global authority on creativity, innovation, and collaboration. Born to a grandmother who invented the foldable umbrella and as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Tania draws inspiration from a lineage steeped in resilience, innovation, and a commitment to diversity and social inclusion.
Tania serves as an agent for change, weaving inspirational storytelling and song into transformative keynotes. Her ability to unleash creative energy, expand mindsets, and foster innovation, diversity, and inclusion is a testament to her dynamic and insightful approach. Tania's unique background spans business, public, creative, and community sectors, enabling her to draw cross-sector themes relevant to both business and government.
For a decade, Tania curated the Creative Innovation Asia Pacific forum, a groundbreaking platform that brought international and national leaders together to navigate a rapidly changing world. Recognized with awards such as Corporate Event of the Year, her ventures, including Creative Universe and Creative Innovation Global, have consistently ranked among the top 20 event organizers globally.
Tania is not just an entrepreneur but also the visionary behind four charities, notably Mind Medicine Australia, contributing to the groundbreaking rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA in 2023 for mental health treatment. Her latest endeavour, the Umbrella Foundation, leverages music, theatre, and art to tell impactful stories and inspire generosity, diversity, and inclusion.
Creativity Australia, another of Tania's initiatives, fosters social inclusion through programs like the With One Voice choir, recognized with the Melbourne Award for Contribution to Community. The Song Room, founded by Tania, has impacted over a million disadvantaged Australian children by providing access to creative learning and well-being since 1999.
Tania, with a Bachelor of Law (Honours) and a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, earned the Order of Australia for her service to the Arts. Recognized as the Ernst and Young Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Tania's accolades include Outstanding Individual Contribution to Australian Culture, a Churchill Fellowship, and the Melbourne Award.
Her influence extends globally, as a keynote speaker and performer at renowned events and conferences, showcasing her ability to captivate audiences in over 40 countries. Tania's passion for social change is exemplified not just in her entrepreneurial pursuits but also through her commitment to philanthropy, creativity, and the transformative power of music and storytelling.
Talking Points
Voices of Innovation - The Power of Positive Human Collisions
Every voice matters. We are all creative.Voices of Innovation - The Power of Positive Human Collisions
What if your organisation could awaken the potential of your people, through the development of a creative and collaborative voice? Your people are an amazing resource of untapped potential, who together have everything that is required to enhance innovation and creativity and solve challenging problems through the power of positive human collisions.
In this presentation, Tania delivers learning methodologies to empower your organisation with the skills to build an inclusive culture where innovation can flourish, and opportunity is found in diversity. Tania also provides tools to assist teams in developing resilience and learning from failure.
Audiences will walk away from this presentation inspired to implement positive human collisions in the workplace and their communities, and the ability to create a pipeline for innovation. They will also gain insights into how creativity boosts performance, inspires leadership and ignites transformation.
Key Learnings
- How to build a collaborative, purpose-driven and innovative culture
- Insights into harnessing diversity and creating opportunity
- Enhanced creative thinking and how to develop agile growth mindsets
- Tools to develop your resilience, performance and leadership
- Integrating feminine power with masculine wisdom
Thinking outside the box: Leading Innovation and Change
This era of globalisation is unleashing a massive wave of technological, economic and sociological change. Innovation is coming from everywhere. Almost anyone can be an entrepreneur. A number of leading authorities have suggested that 40-60% of current middle class jobs could become redundant over the next decade due to artificial intelligence, robotics and other new technologies. We will need to be more creative and innovative than ever before.Thinking outside the box: Leading Innovation and Change
Empowered people and groups are thinking ‘outside the box’ and challenging the established order in new ways never before imaginable - from building new business models and social enterprises to challenging old institutions.
This keynote will provide you and your organisation with tools to help you:
- Develop creative, intuitive, right-brained and agile mindsets and think ‘outside the box’
- Deal with failure and develop resilience
- Build a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that leads to business growth and success
- Prepare for and manage in times of massive uncertainty, disruption and change
- To understand why diversity and inclusion will increase your organisation’s productivity and lead to sustainable growth
- Make a difference to the communities where you operate
Creativity and Innovation - how to harness them in your people and organisation?
- We are all creative - building creative confidence and self-beliefCreativity and Innovation - how to harness them in your people and organisation?
- Dealing with failure and developing resilience
- Using neuroscience and your right brain to super-charge your work and life
- Tools to unlock your individual and organisational creative potential
- How to develop a culture where creativity and innovation can flourish
- Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship within your organisation
From profits to purpose in an era of disruption
Leadership, Creativity, Innovation, Community and InclusionFrom profits to purpose in an era of disruption
Every voice matters. We are all creative. We long for meaning. We want to belong.
Yet we talk more to boxes and screens than to one another. We live behind walls when we desperately need to build bridges of connection and become more inclusive.
What if your organisation could awaken the potential of your people, through the development of a creative and collaborative voice? Your people are an amazing resource of untapped potential, who together have everything that is required to enhance innovation and creativity and solve challenging problems through the power of positive human collisions.
In this presentation, Tania delivers learning methodologies to empower your organisation with the skills to build an inclusive culture where innovation can flourish, and meaning and opportunity is found in diversity. Tania also provides tools to assist teams in developing resilience and learning from failure.
Audiences will walk away from this presentation inspired to bring more meaning into their lives, workplace and communities. They will also gain insights into how creativity, diversity and inclusion boosts performance, inspires leadership and ignites transformation.
Key Learnings
- How to build a collaborative, inclusive and innovative culture
- Insights into harnessing diversity and building communities that care
- Enhanced ‘out of the box’ creative thinking and agile growth mindsets
- Tools to develop your resilience, performance and leadership
- Integrating feminine power with masculine wisdom
- Why doing good really matters
- Case studies to inspire action
We are ONE: Reconnecting to ourselves and our communities in an era of isolation
Loneliness and social isolation is the global epidemic of our times. We are more connected through technology than ever before. Yet many of us feel increasingly separate, anxious, lost and empty. We talk more to boxes and screens than to one another. We live behind walls when we desperately need to build bridges of connection and become more inclusive.We are ONE: Reconnecting to ourselves and our communities in an era of isolation
Diverse people of all ages and backgrounds are yearning for support networks, deeper meaning and connections and a sense of community. In this powerful keynote experience, Tania explores the growing need for human connection in an era of accelerating technology and increasing narcissism. Tania will share the inspirational ‘With ONE Voice’ case study and will provide creative and practical strategies and actions that individuals, organizations and communities can take to bring people together when they need each other most.
In this powerful keynote experience, Tania will provide insights, case studies, stories and solutions to help us reconnect to:
- Our selves and the right side of our brain
- Other people to form caring tribes and communities
- Meaningful work and active citizenship
- Joy, creativity and Intuition
Tania will shift our mindsets and show us a different way to view the world. This powerful talk is important, relevant, inspirational and utterly unforgettable. It will change your life!
Creativity: the strategic tool of the 21st Century
- Why creativity has become our most endangered species, and why it is more important now than ever beforeCreativity: the strategic tool of the 21st Century
- Using neuroscience and your right brain to super-charge your work and life
- Tools to unlock your individual and organisational creative potential
- How creativity leads to improved wellbeing, social inclusion, innovation, leadership, productivity and transformation
- Unleashing the unique creative voices of your team and your organisation
Breath, Mindfulness and the Neuroscience of Singing
Would you like to increase your courage, improve your brain and build your team’s capacity to manage increasing change and complexity?Breath, Mindfulness and the Neuroscience of Singing
This keynote and workshop will teach you tips and tools to:
- Tap into presence and the power of your breath in an accelerating world
- Increase your brain’s neuroplasticity and improve your memory, language and concentration
- Foster a more creative, collaborative and innovative culture
- Build a united team that celebrates its diversity and sings off the same song sheet
Tania de Jong is regarded as one of the leading creative innovation and future-thinking speakers and facilitators globally. Her TED Talk: How Singing Together Changes The Brain has been viewed by tens of thousands of people and she regularly receives standing ovations for her keynote speeches, performances and innovation leadership workshops globally.
The entrepreneurial equation: how to transform your organisation
With a predicted 47% loss of middle class jobs due to robotics and new technologies, we need to invent many great new businesses to provide new jobs, opportunities and grow our economy. Often the best place to innovate and start-up new businesses is within large organisations.The entrepreneurial equation: how to transform your organisation
- Learn how to develop entrepreneurial spirit and skills
- Unlock creativity and find regular sparks of ingenuity
- Learn how to fail fast and experiment
- Build a lasting culture of innovation
With One Voice - building healthy, happy and inclusive communities and cultures
Disruption, caused by new business models associated with the internet, technology and globalisation, will be the greatest threat your organisation will face within the next 5 years. Virtually every business, institution and community is threatened and yet disruption can also provide extraordinary opportunities for sustainable growth.With One Voice - building healthy, happy and inclusive communities and cultures
- Understanding and managing disruption
- Dealing with failure and developing resilience
- Every voice matters. We are all creative.
- Why creativity leads to greater productivity
- Building a culture where creativity and innovation can flourish
- Why diversity and inclusiveness will increase your organisation’s productivity and lead to sustainable growth
- How to create an outperformance culture through increased engagement
- Why doing good really matters and connecting with the community
- Case studies to inspire action
Human Intelligence 2.0: How to manage change in an era of disruption and build a collective future?
It is no ordinary time in the history of civilisation. The world is moving faster than we can think; so we have to change our thinking!Human Intelligence 2.0: How to manage change in an era of disruption and build a collective future?
The transformation upon us means at least three things…Fear, Change and Opportunity.
We face a host of wicked problems, risks and systemic challenges beyond the reach of existing institutions and traditional authority structures. Problems like climate change, increasing mental and chronic illness, scarcity of resources, automation of jobs and Artificial Intelligence, unethical governance and growing inequality require unprecedented collaboration among different organisations, sectors, communities and nations. More than ever before, we need to foster collective leadership, lateral thinking and inspiring initiatives to manage the massive transition ahead.
What if you could fast-track your thinking about change and the future? As the pace of change accelerates, we are increasingly asking individuals and organisations to become more agile. How can organisations develop creative, inclusive, resilient and innovative cultures and develop the agility, empathy, generosity and Human Intelligence 2.0 skills required to manage and prepare for a rapidly changing world and the Fourth Industrial Revolution?
Key Learnings:
- Fast-track your thinking about change and the future
- Human Intelligence 2.0 tools to develop agile growth, mindsets and skills, innovation, resilience,
performance and leadership
- How to develop more right-brained, creative and collaborative thinking to solve wicked collective problems
- Insights into harnessing generosity, diversity and inclusion to build communities that care
- Case studies to inspire action
Being Human in an Age of Machines: The Mental Health Challenge
“Things are getting better and better and worse and worse, faster and faster, simultaneously.” Being Human in an Age of Machines: The Mental Health Challenge
What does it mean to be human in an age of increasing technological acceleration and growing disconnection?
We face a host of wicked problems, risks and systemic challenges beyond the reach of existing institutions and traditional authority structures. Problems like climate change, increasing mental and chronic illness, scarcity of resources, automation of jobs and Artificial Intelligence, unethical governance and growing inequality require unprecedented collaboration among different organisations, sectors, communities and nations. More than ever before, we need to foster collective leadership, lateral thinking, inspiring initiatives and true innovation to manage the massive transition ahead.
Yet we talk more to boxes and screens than one another. Rates of loneliness, social isolation and mental illness are increasing and we are numbing our fear and anxiety through a range of substances. One in five Australians now have a chronic mental illness. One in eight of us, and one in four older people, are on anti-depressants (up 95% in 15 years) and suicide rates are increasing. Climate change adds to technology change and Is causing significant additional anxiety, particularly amongst younger people.
If our emotional state as human beings doesn't change to match the accelerating pace of change we are seeing, is the cost of this going to be ever increasing rates of mental illness?
We have to find new ways of adapting our minds, our emotions and our world view to the accelerating pace of change. The very nature of our consciousness will need to change for mankind to survive and thrive.
Key learnings:
- The current mental health statistics and solutions available
- How to raise our consciousness and build a collective future
- How neuroscience can help us change our brains and reconnect to self and others
- Ways to empower people to find their purpose so that they can unleash their true creative potential
- How to include diverse voices and help people to feel a sense of belonging
- Why psychedelic-assisted therapies could be a potential game-changer
Video
Tania de Jong AM - Showreel
Tania de Jong AM is a trail-blazing social entrepreneur, creative innovation catalyst, global speaker, angelic singer, spiritual journey woman and storyteller. She is one of Australia’s most successful female entrepreneurs and innovators developing 5 businesses and 3 charities over the past 3 decades including Creative Universe, Creativity Australia and With One Voice, Creative Innovation Global, Mind Medicine Australia, Dimension5, MTA Entertainment & Events, Pot-Pourri and The Song Room.One Team One Voice Workshop
Tania de Jong AM is one of Australia’s most successful female entrepreneurs and innovators with 5 businesses and 3 charities under her belt. She is also one of Australia’s leading speakers and has the voice of an angel. Tania has recently been named in the 100 Women of Influence and the 100 Most Influential Entrepreneurs in Australia.How singing together changes the brain: Tania de Jong AM at TEDxMelbourne
Tania de Jong AM makes the case that people singing together can change the brain. Pushing the idea that creativity is the strategic tool of the 21st century, she says how our voices have been silenced and that it's not doing us any good. She explains how singing is a survival mechanism, how it makes our hearts beat together and can help heal strokes and depression. With singing, and the potential she believes it has, Tania dedicates herself to enhancing and promoting ingenuity and founded Creativity Australia and Creative Universe to do so. As a leading Australian soprano and through 'With One Voice', Tania works with disadvantaged communities. In 2008 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the arts and for the establishment and development of arts enrichment programs for schools and communities.Tania brings her own special magic to an event. She combines valuable insights with a fantastic singing voice - a truly unique experience. She electrified the 2018 European Business Forum. ... keep reading Thinkers 50 European Business Forum
Tania’s keynote address was an inspiring call to action on our individual and collective creative capacity. And I never thought I would witness our national team in full and rapturous song together. The experience left us all with a sense of unexpected elation!
This golden-voiced diva gave us all goose bumps. Her message was powerful and her never give up attitude was so inspiring. She has clearly earned her success through hard work and extraordinary talent. Entertaining and brilliant!
Tania de Jong brought warmth, enthusiasm and inspiration to our launch of Constellation - Professional Women’s Speaker Series. We were overwhelmed with the positive feedback on our selection of speaker. Tania managed to transcend our business world with her background as a lawyer, evoked compassion and understanding with her family history and encouraged us to be resilient when our dreams are shattered. She inspired us all to look for the music in our lives, let our dreams soar and our voices sing
Tania’s presentation was one of the most insightful and entertaining talks we had in recent months. The students and the professors thoroughly enjoyed the engaging talk and learnt about the power of creativity, innovation and collaboration. The importance of creativity in large corporations, the need for innovation especially in Australia and the real power of diversity are some of our key learnings we will remember and use. It was our privilege to hear her beautiful voice in the end, a perfect finish to the event. The event was a great success. A big thank you to Tania, on behalf of the students at Melbourne Business School
Your presentation “Creative Leadership - The Key to Success in Uncertain Times” was excellent, evidenced by the number and calibre of questions from the audience. You provided cutting edge public policy thinking for our Trustees. Feedback from the event has been excellent.
It was a fantastic experience to hear your speech at Thinkers 50 in Odense in 2018. You really made it crystal clear to all of us what “purpose” means and how important it is if you want to make a difference. Very impressive.
It is truly inspiring to be in the presence of someone as passionate, creative and confident as Tania de Jong. It’s her passion and outside of the box thinking that is most impressive as she takes those around her on her incredible life journey. Most importantly, it’s her incredible being that made her keynote at our conference exceptional and that’s very hard to find. It was highly interactive, engaging, and pushed people’s boundaries which was great to observe. You are an amazing person Tania so thank you for sharing your greatness with us.
Once again Tania demonstrated how well she can adjust to the needs of different audiences. For our staff conference she successfully focused on our conference themes of innovation, managing change and the importance of effective teams. As usual she managed to fully engage our group and achieved a high level of participation by all. In our post conference feedback sessions the group unanimously scored her segment as outstanding.
Thank you for facilitating our session at our Commonwealth Private Leaders’ Forum. It was wonderful you were able to join us for a focused, deep-dive session on unleashing our potential, and helping us consider different ways to get the best out of our people to build tomorrow’s Bank today. Feedback from the leaders has been really positive, and I know they deeply valued hearing your insights from working with a wide range of different leaders.
Tania de Jong is an inspiration - for her ability to engage with her audiences (even when delivering a keynote remotely); for the transformational power of her message that the ability to positively change the world is within each of us; and for a true generosity of her spirit. She is transcendent!
It was a pleasure to have Tania present her Keynote on Human intelligence 2.0 - How to adapt to change in turbulent times to create a future trajectory at the 7th Annual Women in Leadership Summit for 2021. Her energy and bubbly personality inspired our delegates to get off their feet, interact and engage with one another as she brought forth such an uplifting and invaluable session.
Tania provided the closing key-note at our virtual conference. Despite the challenges of an online format, Tania’s heart-felt presentation captivated and provoked us to think differently.
Tania made the impossible possible in this crazy time. We organised our #MOI2020 Insurance Innovation Day as a digital event instead of our planned live event in beautiful Vienna. Tania created a digital, creative Opening Keynote for us. It was amazing and everybody was so inspired by Tania’s spirit and important messages about creativity, innovation and leadership in a rapidly changing world. Thank you for this experience!
Thanks so much for being our featured guest for our one hour segment. We had great love for it on the text line. People appreciated the storytelling and the beautiful uplifting music. Thanks so much for your generosity of time and spirit.
Tania was a brilliant addition to the 2019 International Consciousness Forum, held in Madison in May 2019. Her presence brought a new dimension of light and sound to this event with her amazing voice and ability to connect personally with so many of the attendees and presenters. Her philanthropic work is truly impactful in making a positive difference in the lives of many.
Tania presented such an inspirational speech and offered opportunity to think further outside the square to motivate change and support innovation. It was a lovely way to start the day and get us all motivated and inspired. I particularly liked the discussions around creativity and innovation.
