audio close compressed excel CS_logo_icon_solid_yellow_alt Created with Sketch. x x image insta-black menu pdf Print BTN - Shortlist Created with Sketch. Share Asset 1 word
speaker

Margie
Warrell

Live & Lead with Courage

Profile

Margie Warrell is a bestselling author, leadership advisor and global authority building courage for leadership and life.

The titles of Margie’s five bestselling books – Brave, Stop Playing Safe, You’ve Got This! and Find Your Courage – reflect her passion for empowering people to lead braver lives with greater impact.

Recently relocated back to Washington D.C. after a decade in Singapore and Australia, Margie’s diverse international experience coupled with her background in Fortune 500 business, psychology, coaching, and leadership development bring cross-cultural insights to address the complex challenges facing of leaders and organizations today.

Trusted by enterprises such as NASA, Salesforce, Dell, Google, UN Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, and Amazon to lead transformative programs foster more human-centered ‘cultures of courage.’

A member of the advisory board of Forbes School of Business & Technology, Margie has lectured at Columbia, Georgetown, USC, SMU and regularly shares her insights and interviews with leaders in her Forbes ’Courage Works’ column.

Recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice, Margie is a sought-after speaker and media commentator (CNN, CNBC & Bloomberg) whose expertise in human behaviour, workplace and women’s leadership has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Inc. to name a few.

Nominated as Australia’s first Ambassador for Women in Global Business and a Women’s Economic Forum Honouree, Margie’s PhD in human development inform her work with Global Courage in creating more inclusive environments that nurture diversity and advance more women to top tables.

Since her childhood in rural Australia, Margie has developed a passion for adventure travel. Most recently summiting Mt Kilimanjaro with her husband and their four children.

Expertise
Talking Points

The Courage Gap

THE ‘X FACTOR’ TO TAKE THE SMART RISKS FROM WHERE YOU ARE TO WHERE YOU CAN BE

Growing up in rural Australia, Margie learned that ‘Growth and comfort can’t ride the same horse.’ It turns out there’s hard science behind closing the ‘courage gap’ between who we are and who we can be. Margie’s remarkable story of breaking ranks with comfort will help your audience reset their understanding with risk and empower them with practical skills to bring their bravest selves to their boldest vision.

Learning objectives and audience outcomes:
- Why courage is a skill, not a born trait, and how it can be mastered
- Build self-awareness of where your play-it-safe instinct is keeping you small, stuck, and scared
- Learn to rescript what scares you
- How to embody courage, transforming your relationship with discomfort
- Identify fear traps and dismantle ‘courage crushers’
- Adopt a play-to-win mindset to risk more intelligently for faster success
- Embed atomic ‘courage habits’ to tame your inner Chicken Little

Everyone needs courage, making this a ‘must-hear’ message for all audiences.

Lead with Courage

YOU CAN’T LEAD FROM YOUR COMFORT ZONE

No organization can outperform its leaders over time. It’s why the #1 threat is never external but the fear that drives smart employees to play it too safe. Leaders who invite candor and encourage innovation without demonstrating vulnerability, normalizing dissent, and derisking ‘smart failure’ will fall short every time. Margie will embolden your leaders to lead from the inside out, building a ‘culture of courage’ that unlocks collective creativity and discretionary effort across your enterprise.

Learning objectives and audience outcomes:
- Research into a ‘courage mindset’ and why it’s a force multiplier of talent
- Harness ’emotional contagion’ to galvanize employees behind a bold vision with a big “Why”
- What we get wrong about risk that makes us more vulnerable
- Three ways to foster loyal dissent and harness constructive conflict
- How to lead from self-certainty to make more effective decisions amid the unknowns
Identify the invisible ‘timidity tax’ of excess caution in your team/business
- Accelerate learning and incubate innovation by scaling a play-to-win mindset

This program is ideal for leaders at all levels, from emerging to those at the top.

Women Daring

DOUBT YOURSELF LESS, BACK YOURSELF MORE!

Feminine leadership strengths improve decisions. Yet, despite progress, the gender gap persists. Drawing on her doctoral research and decades of experience empowering women across the globe, Margie weaves personal stories as a working mother raising four children while relocating around the world, her doctoral research in women’s leadership, and proven strategies to help women make the difference their difference makes and place the ultimate bet… on themselves!

Learning objectives and audience outcomes:
- Reset your relationship with power; take care while taking charge
- Understand why courage trumps confidence and learn how to behave your way into believing
- Reclaim the power previously given to self-doubt and imposterhood
- Navigate feminine double-binds to manage the backlash effect
- Speak with authority and build executive presence for impact
- Amplify the voice of other women to lift as you climb
- Secure the right sponsors advocating for you when you’re not in the room
- Get off your own back and lower the perfectionist bar that’s holding you back
- Create a plan to immediately step into your courage gap

Can be customised for all women’s groups plus mixed audiences, championing men to lift women!

What Tests You Most, Teaches You Most

TURN EVERY PROBLEM INTO A WIN THAT SERVES YOUR HIGHEST GOOD
No one is immune to life’s hardships and heartaches, yet some people handle them better and emerge better off. This powerful keynote draws on research in positive psychology, well-being, and spiritual traditions to help you reframe how you are viewing your circumstances and processing your biggest problems, expanding your bandwidth to handle them better and turn your biggest challenges into your greatest catalysts for growth and personal transformation. Weaving her own hardships and heartaches – including losing a brother to mental illness and supporting another to adjust to life with paraplegia – Margie will help your audience expand their capacity for life and find the opportunities for growth that our toughest challenges always hold.

Learning objectives and audience outcomes:
- Understand why your stress is all in your head and learn how to short-circuit stressful thinking
- Discover the four pillars to activate post-traumatic growth and can-do optimism
- Apply BE-BEFORE-DO to thrive under pressure and align with your True North
- Establish daily resilience rituals, including taking a sacred pause to turn stressors into cues for courage
- Rescript the stories holding you victim to the past and fueling anxiety
- Learn micro-habits that build capacity to grow through change and use setbacks to bounce forward better off

This program is for broad audiences, from faith groups to business groups.
Media
Feedback
If you are looking for a powerful yet practical message to inspire our team to take action, Margie is the speaker for you! The audience feels the positive and personal message she delivers with credibility as a best-selling author and global leadership authority. She is also a joy to work with! National Instruments

Margie is a true expert in her field who immediately captivates an audience.

Marriott International

Margie facilitated an outstanding program with my Asia Pacific leadership team. She connected immediately and had everyone fully engaged and participating. Even the skeptics in my team were very impressed with her approach and style and we all left inspired to execute action plans to improve their leadership effectiveness. I recommend Margie to any company seeking to up the ante on their leadership capability.

Accenture

Margie's insights and ability to deliver thought-provoking and empowering sessions for leaders of all levels from diverse backgrounds is impressive. I've since engaged Margie for many leadership events, always with incredible feedback.

Salesforce

Margie's keynote on creating a culture of courage was dynamic, passionate and thought provoking. The feedback from our top 100 leaders was overwhelmingly positive. We will all go forward a little bolder and braver than before!

XERO

Margie is a truly sensational speaker. She had our audience hanging off her every word - her thought provoking, engaging and professional presentation style along with her unique ability to be down to earth was truely refreshing and motivating. I would recommend Margie as a keynote speaker anytime.

Optus

I've been meaning to write to thank you very much for your wonderful presentation. The room were highly engaged and the content was relevant to both genders. I know we will be reaping the positive rewards from this event and your words of wisdom for a long time!! I often hear around the office, when someone is delaying doing something, now come on, be courageous Thank you very much for delivering perfectly what we discussed and giving the team the courage and push they needed to be brave.

Senior Marketing Manager, Illumina

Margie sets herself apart with a powerful and inspiring message, paired with her energetic, down-to-earth, and disarming delivery. Inviting her to speak here at the United Nations Foundation helped me bolster my personal vision for a candid, collaborative, and forward-leaning workplace. Margie reminds us about the hidden costs of inaction while offering a refreshing and realistic perspective on how we can challenge ourselves and others to be more courageous, take more risks, and find more success. Feedback from her program was overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic. We would welcome her back any time!

Kathy Calvin, President & CEO, The United Nations Foundation, Washington DC
Let us know

and we'll send all the latest Saxton updates and news direct to your inbox
Thanks, you have been subscribed
View Shortlist