Get Them Leaning In, Send Them Forward
A Pivot With Courage speaking experience brings energy, honesty, and a fresh perspective to the human side of change.
Real transformation doesn't happen after the applause. It happens in the room, the moment hundreds of people stop checking their phones because someone finally said the thing they'd all been quietly feeling.
That’s what Lisa brings to the stage. Stories that pull people in, ideas that challenge them, and a framework they can put to work Monday morning.
“If your goal is to energize your team, encourage intentional growth
and give people tools they can actually use, she’s a strong choice for a keynote that will resonate long after the event ends.”
Marketing SpecialistWildfire Credit Union
LISA IS TRUSTED BY
See Lisa in Action
WHY THIS, WHY NOW.
Your people didn't use to need this. They do now.
Your organization knows where it needs to go.
Getting there takes people who are ready to move with it.
Lisa's keynotes build that readiness with memorable frameworks audiences can start using before they leave the parking lot.
SIGNATURE
Different moments call for different kinds of change.
SHIFT
DEVELOP
EXCEED
Pivot with Courage: Become who your next chapter requires
The greatest barrier to change isn't change itself. It's our attachment to certainty: the habits, beliefs, and ways of working that made our last chapter successful. But every next chapter requires a new version of us.
Whether we're leading organizational change, navigating uncertainty, or preparing teams for what's ahead, the question is never just, "What do we need to do differently?" It's "Who do we need to become?"
Drawing from a lifetime of choosing adventure over certainty, Lisa Tarkington reveals that courage isn't something we're born with. It's something we choose at every pivot point.
Through her signature framework, Lisa equips audiences to let go of what's holding them back, develop the capabilities required to move forward, and become who their next chapter requires.
Audiences will walk away with:
Recognize the beliefs, habits, and assumptions keeping them tied to what worked before
Identify what their next chapter is asking them to do differently
Move through uncertainty without waiting for every answer to be clear
Approach change as an active participant rather than something happening to them
The Confidence Blueprint: How to be the leader others want to follow
Confidence shapes how we show up, communicate, make decisions, and navigate challenges. But even the most capable individuals and teams can be held back by a lack of self-awareness and communication, self-doubt, indecisiveness, or the pressure to have all the answers. Lisa challenges audiences to look at the leadership habits they’ve carried into their next level and decide which ones still belong there. She does this through her C.O.R.E. blueprint, which gives leaders a way to examine how they communicate, make decisions, build trust, and respond when they don’t have every answer.
Through personal storytelling, relatable workplace and life examples, and evidence-based tools, Lisa empowers her audience to stop chasing external validation and start leading from within.
People at every level will be equipped to lead themselves well, strengthen trust with others, and show up with presence, courage, and consistency in the roles they hold today.
The audience will learn to:
Apply the blueprint to communicate with purpose, build trust, and turn ideas into aligned action that drives results.
Gain a deeper understanding of your own strengths, blind spots, and leadership style and how emotional intelligence shapes your effectiveness.
Use practical tools to move from ideas to aligned action, making confident decisions that create momentum and long-term results.
Operate at Your Best: Step Into the 1%
Many professionals are climbing through their careers holding on too tightly, gripping old habits, outdated expectations, and ways of working that once felt safe. But just like any great adventure, clarity often comes the moment you let go. What if you could chart a clearer, more fulfilling route, one rooted in your strengths, aligned with your values, and paced with purpose?
Lisa Tarkington introduces the Z.O.N.E. Method, a practical framework designed to help individuals break free from burnout, reconnect with their strengths, and spend less time reacting to what’s urgent and more time leading the work only they can lead. Through powerful adventure-inspired stories, leadership insights, and tools you can apply immediately, Lisa teaches audiences how to let go, reclaim energy, set aligned priorities, and take action with clarity and confidence.
The audience will learn to:
How to let go of control in order to step into a new level of greatness
Clarity on their Zone of Genius and what’s draining their time and focus.
A rhythm for execution that feels aligned, sustainable, and powerful
WHO LISA SPEAKS TO
Lisa tailors every keynote to the room she's standing in front of, but the throughline is always the same:
Helping people Pivot With Courage through whatever their industry is asking of them right now.
THE PROOF: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LEADERS LET GO
She stopped proving herself and started leading. A director stepped into an executive seat still leading like a director, heads-down, in the weeds, earning her spot one task at a time. She let go of proving herself through busyness and leveled up into strategic, decisive leadership.
Result: 500% revenue growth in three years.
________
They stopped protecting their turf and started leading as one team. Six strong leaders, six separate silos, communicating around each other instead of with each other. Letting go of the defensiveness and unspoken competition gave way to something new.
Result: A leadership team that actually trusted, aligned, and moved together.
________
He let go of doing it all himself. His instinct under pressure was always to just do it himself, faster, safer, more certain. Letting go meant learning what to hand off, to whom, and trusting it would get done without his hands on it.
Result: A leader operating in strategy instead of the weeds and a team that grew into what he released.
________
She found the voice that was already there. She had the results. What she didn't have was the confidence to be seen as ready for more. Letting go of the self-doubt and owning her voice in rooms she used to stay quiet in, it didn't just earn her a promotion.
Result: It earned her real influence.
MEET
LISA TARKINGTON
300+ speaking engagements | Nearly 1M podcast listeners | 12,000+ leaders impacted
Lisa Tarkington has spent her career learning what it takes to move before the path is perfectly clear.
She built her career across public affairs, commercial leadership, and EH&S before leaving corporate life to build a nonprofit from the ground up. Years later, she stepped away from the organization she founded to start again, this time building a training, speaking, and coaching business.
Those professional pivots sit alongside a few more literal leaps, including bungee-jumping in New Zealand, surfing in Ecuador, and skydiving in Texas. All of it gave Lisa firsthand experience with the moment at the center of her work, when what’s familiar stops being enough and moving forward requires the courage to release your grip on what you know.
Lisa also holds advanced degrees from Michigan State University (go green!), training from UPenn, Co-Active, Applied Positive Psychology, and Mindfulness. She blends adventurous storytelling with practical, research-backed frameworks to drive lasting impact, not just applause.
Lisa has founded three companies and brings more than a decade of corporate leadership experience. Notable partners include the Detroit Lions, Michigan State University, Hemlock Semiconductor, DuPont, and the American Cancer Society.
“I would recommend working with Lisa to anyone!
I could tell from our first initial chat just to get to know each other that she was an expert in her field, and she was able to communicate complex ideas in easily understandable ways. Her C.O.R.E workshop was one of the main highlights of our event!”
Joshua BuckStatewide Leader, FuelMI
Beyond the keynotes
A keynote is often just the beginning.
Many organizations bring Lisa back for workshops, group coaching or 1:1 coaching to turn her frameworks from a shared language into a habit that sticks.
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Ready to give your audience a reason to lean forward instead of checking out?
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