The Women Keynote Speakers Who Earn the Main Stage on Merit
Meeting professionals increasingly want a main stage that reflects the room, and a strong list of the top women keynote speakers makes that easy, as long as every name on it would earn the stage on merit alone.
The best women keynote speakers here span sales, leadership, change, resilience, and human behavior, with a range that holds any executive audience on the strength of their work.
The top women keynote speakers below tell the truth, make it usable, and command the stage; gender is simply not the variable. The speakers below each bring a distinct, hard-won angle.
A note on selection and order: I’ve personally seen every speaker here present; that’s my bar for including anyone. They’re listed alphabetically by last name, not ranked, because this is a curated selection rather than a leaderboard. And yes, I’ve included myself; it would be odd to leave my own name off a list I stand behind.
Colette Carlson
Colette spans sales, leadership, and personal connection, all anchored in human behavior, in which she holds a master’s. Whether the audience is a sales team, a leadership cohort, or a women’s initiative, her throughline is the same: genuine communication is what builds trust and drives results in an automated world. She’s warm and funny without ever sacrificing substance. For almost any executive audience, Colette adapts without diluting.
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Christine Cashen
Christine ranges across humor, productivity, communication, resilience, and team engagement. A self-described “humorista,” she uses stand-up-level comedy to deliver real takeaways, how to work smarter, communicate better, handle difficult people, and beat burnout. She’s the speaker who re-energizes a drained room and still sends them home with something to use. As an opener, a closer, or a post-lunch slot that needs life, she fits almost any program.
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Sylvie di Giusto
Full disclosure, that’s me. I work across sales and leadership through a single lens: human behavior, the invisible signals (my ABCDE Power of Choice framework) that decide whether people trust, follow, and buy. The same framework powers a sales keynote, a leadership keynote, and Forever Human, my talk on staying human as AI advances. A former Fortune 100 executive, I deliver it as the world’s first 3D immersive holographic keynote, and I’ve included myself because it would be odd to leave my name off a list I stand behind.
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Tami Evans
Tami works across engagement, resilience, leadership, and change, with humor as the delivery system. Her message is that levity is a strategy: lightening the workplace measurably lifts connection, productivity, and the capacity to handle change. “The Human Exclamation Point” earns the nickname, but the substance underneath is real. For leadership, culture, or all-hands audiences that need re-energizing without losing the point, Tami delivers.
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Sally Hogshead
Sally’s work spans personal branding, differentiation, sales, and team communication, all built on her science of fascination. She helps individuals and teams identify their distinct advantage and use it so others remember and choose them, backed by original research rather than a pep talk. It applies equally to a sales force, a leadership team, or a room of professionals trying to stand out. For any audience that blends in when it should stand apart, Sally is the wake-up call.
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Carey Lohrenz
Carey covers leadership, high performance, teamwork, resilience, and change, drawn from her experience as one of the first female F-14 Tomcat pilots. She teaches teams to execute with clarity and courage when the stakes and speed are at their highest, and she’s a powerful voice on women in leadership. Her flight-deck stories make abstract ideas suddenly concrete and urgent. For any organization navigating high-stakes change, she brings calm, commanding credibility few can match.
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Allison Massari
Allison speaks across resilience, leadership, change, and the human spirit, and she’s especially sought after in healthcare for her message on compassion and caregiver burnout. A survivor of burns over half her body, she turns her own story into a meditation on healing and the strength to keep leading through pain. Audiences are visibly transformed, not merely informed. For any room carrying a heavy load, or any leader navigating hardship, Allison leaves people changed.
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Meridith Elliott Powell
Meridith bridges sales and leadership, with a specialty in thriving through uncertainty and change. Whether the audience is a sales force or an executive team, she shows them how to stay confident, proactive, and effective when the market is anything but stable. She blends strategy with real grit, so people leave with both a plan and the resolve to use it. For any organization facing change it didn’t choose, she’s a steadying, energizing voice.
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Marilyn Sherman
Marilyn ranges across motivation, leadership, goal-setting, and getting out of the comfort zone, a natural fit for kickoffs and conferences alike. Her “front-row” message moves audiences out of excuses and into ownership of their goals and careers, with infectious energy and a real push toward accountability. She’s as effective opening a sales meeting as closing a leadership summit. For events that need a high-energy lift that still leaves people with something to do, Marilyn fits.
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Terri Sjodin
Terri’s specialty is persuasion and presentation skills, the make-or-break moment in sales, leadership, and any high-stakes pitch. Her multi-year research behind Presentation Ready identifies the dozen mistakes that quietly cost the deal, and how to persuade rather than merely inform. Because it’s research-based, it lands even with experienced audiences who think they’ve heard it all. For any team whose content is strong but whose delivery falls flat, Terri is who fixes it.
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Cassandra worthy
Cassandra works across change, transformation, resilience, and emotional intelligence. Her Change Enthusiasm framework helps people harness the hard emotions of change as fuel rather than fighting them, useful for any organization mid-merger, restructuring, or pivot. With a chemical-engineering background, she makes the emotional surprisingly practical. For teams in the thick of transformation, Cassandra reframes the whole experience, note she’s a sought-after keynoter but holds no formal NSA credential.
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About these credentials. CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) is the National Speakers Association’s earned designation for proven platform competence, held by roughly 17% of NSA members worldwide. CPAE (Council of Peers Award for Excellence) is the NSA Speaker Hall of Fame, the association’s highest honor for professional excellence.
⇢ Learn more: What is a CSP and the CPAE Hall of Fame.
