Past Speaking Engagements
Speaking Options
What could your organization accomplish with a workplace culture that duly equips and rightly supports team members to take worthwhile risks and perform to their potential? A lot — including more innovation, higher employee engagement and increased productivity. In this presentation, speaker and coach Candace Doby shows leaders how to create a Courage-Ready Culture™ where everyone can contribute and own their brilliance.
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Follow the courage process its team members go through to prepare themselves to own their brilliance at work.
- Identify key opportunities within that process to deliberately engage and support their teams in taking worthwhile risks.
- Apply key strategies to those opportunities that, when repeated, start to create a culture where employees are ready, willing and able to courageously speak up, step up and show up.
It takes a lot of courage to thrive in a world where you are challenged, questioned, and/or dealing with daily microaggressions as a person of color. In this talk, Candace shares stories of DEI + belonging through the lens of courage. She offers advice about how to conjure your courage to more fully embody your own brilliance — to lay claim to your uniqueness, skills, and experiences — to support the creation of space for DEI+Belonging initiatives to take root in organizations. This talk is ideal for corporate ERGs as well as youth (schools/colleges/organizations) and is ideal for Black History Month, too.
An organization’s ability to reach its highest level of excellence comes down to one thing: its people — courageously owning their brilliance, in both typical and transitional times. But how do you get them to speak up with divergent ideas, show up with authenticity and step up with confidence when failure and judgment loom as potential outcomes? In this leadership development presentation, speaker and coach Candace Doby blends storytelling and research to take participants through a process for how to manage fear, activate personal courage and take worthwhile risks — so they can unleash their potential and make a greater impact on their organization.- Identify three key components in the development of courage that will eliminate the frustrating feeling of not knowing where to start when facing a new challenge.
- Convert those components into a process that prepares them to evaluate risks from insight, instead of insecurity.
- Leverage that process when opportunities arise for them to step outside of their comfort zone and demonstrate their brilliance.
About Candace
Candace Doby has been examining the definition, elements and obstacles of courage on her own for a decade. Through that process, she developed her own courage to travel abroad, an action she had long considered … scary. From her first trip abroad to Indonesia to her 19th global trip to Malaysia, Candace has continuously sharpened the tools necessary to manage fear. As a speaker, Candace combines personal storytelling with life lessons and a dynamic presence to inspire the audience to act courageously.
Candace is the author of “If Courage Could Talk”, published in 2020. She has served as an editing fellow for Travel Noire, the popular digital platform and resource for black travelers. She currently volunteers with Girls Going Global, a non-profit organization that empowers girls of color through travel and cultural exchange. Her 2017 presentation at NAFSA (Association of International Educator’s Conference – Region VII) garnered rave reviews and was nominated for the national conference.
Candace received BA/MA degrees in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the university, she ran track, worked at the school paper, and served as a resident advisor. She had a 15-year marketing career and has worked for some of the best advertising agencies in the country. Her most recent work in this arena was as a Field Marketing Manager for Chipotle Mexican Grill. Her book, If Courage Could Talk, has been picked up by a national publisher and the 2nd edition of it will be available as a book and journal in 2022.
What would it look like to be a person of color in the US and flourish? To be safe and to thrive in our workplaces, in our communities. To thrive in our own bodies and minds, without the constant need to contort and conform? To move beyond the relentless pressures placed on us. This is a moment to push what we’ve been told is possible, to deepen our analysis and imagination of what justice, equity, and liberation can look like. To invest even more deeply in each other. This workshop will create space for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to be in conversation about racial equity, the pressures of dominant cultural norms, tools for resiliency, and building collective power.
We’ll name different types of power that operate in the workplace and explore exactly what white dominant culture is, and how it impacts organizational culture, relationships, policies, and processes. We’ll look at what behaviors and practices reinforce dominant culture and share ways we can work to mitigate it.
In this talk, we’ll talk about White Dominant organizational culture, the problem with expectations of constant resilience from BIPOC, and rest as a pathway to healing.
Are we treating ourselves with enough joy, tenderness, and peace? What practices are we engendering and developing in the community to support a love ethic and claim joy? In this talk, we’ll look at a framework for lifelong learning, pleasure, and Joy as resistance.
“Desiree’s teaching and mentorship have radically enhanced our leadership, focus and vision for our work at Be Nourished. Her wisdom and skillful presence has touched every layer of our business, imbuing each with a renewed depth of focus on equity and inclusion. Desiree leads with the kind of love that is fierce, true, and holds you to your wisest self. She embodies the kind of leadership that holds space for growth and depth of change. Working with Desiree will solidify your vision for a new world so you can stay in process with that vision for a lifetime.” – Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant, Co-Creators of Body Trust®
“Desiree Adaway is a powerful doula for this lifelong process of inquiry and praxis. She takes participants down a sometimes painful and always revelatory path towards a deeper and more personal understanding of freedom, inclusion, access, race, and equity.” –, Tucson, AZ
“Desiree Adaway is a gifted coach and mentor. 
“Desiree brings compassionate rigor. She tells the truth about what she sees. Desiree challenges us to think deeply about what real equity looks like, and in the process, we live into our values and amplify our impact.” – Danielle Keiser, Exec. Dir. and Founder, Menstrual Health Hub
Whether you’re in sales, customer service, or the CEO of a company – you’ll walk away from this talk feeling ready to communicate and lead with confidence and a new perspective on self and your stakeholders! While most communication training aims to teach you the tricks of the technical trade: how to craft a great speech, connect with your audience, and properly protect and project your voice (all important goals, for sure) – these are not nearly important as first considering who is doing the speaking. In this engaging interactive presentation, Jennifer helps individuals and teams discover the dis-empowering ways of thinking and being that have been standing in the way of their best self-expression at work. Once revealed, Jennifer works with participants to bring the technical skills of speaking and communication to life in an interactive format that is the hallmark of her keynotes and workshops.
Jennifer Hamady
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