Highly-Interactive Keynotes with Practical Takeaways
for Courageous Leaders and Innovative, High-Performing Teams
Karin Hurt is the CEO of Let’s Grow Leaders, a global leadership development firm known for practical, human-centered programs that stick. An award-winning author and international keynote speaker, Karin helps leaders build courageous, collaborative cultures—where people speak up, connect deeply, and lead with confidence through change.
A former Verizon Wireless executive and Inc. 100 Great Leadership speaker, she brings decades of leadership experience to her work with clients such as Amazon, Marriott, and Honeywell Aerospace. She translates that experience to practical takeaways from the keynote stage.
Karin’s keynotes are interactive, high-energy, and deeply practical. She engages audiences with active participation and conversation, making every session feel personal and actionable. For association conferences and company events, Karin can curate video soundbites from association members, executives, or employees to highlight relevant insights and best practices aligned with her key messages.
She’s the author of five books, including Courageous Cultures and Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict, and her “Asking For a Friend” show and blog are known around the globe for practical advice.
Whether she’s speaking to executives or frontline teams, Karin equips leaders with the tools and courage to navigate conflict, foster trust, and build habits for lasting impact.
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How the Magic Happens: A Glimpse Inside Karin Hurt’s Inspiring, Interactive Keynotes
Want to see what it’s like when your audience is fully engaged, actively learning, and walking away with tools they’ll use the very next day? Here are a few quick examples to show you how I customize the keynote to be perfect for your conference or company event.
Your audience won’t just sit and listen—they’ll jump into interactive activities that make the ideas stick. Plus, everyone will leave with a mini personal experiment they can try back at work to turn those new insights into lasting habits.
–Erin Glarner
Director, Industry Relations, American Soybean Association
Tailored to Your Audience: Custom Insights and Best Practices
For an extra dose of industry (or company) specific wisdom, I’ll work with you before your conference or company offsite event to gather best-practice video soundbites from a few respected attendees. I’ll weave those best practices into the keynote, so your audience gains even more confidence and practical inspiration to apply what they’re learning.
–Jean Cantey Segal
Chief Learning Officer/EVP, FCCS
The “Diaper Genie” Effect in Organizations
Memorable Stories and Metaphors: The “Diaper Genie” Effect
David and I have been traveling the world stuffing all brands of “diaper genies” into airplane overhead compartments for nearly a decade. (“Don’t worry, it’s clean,” we always assure the surprised flight attendant).
We’re big believers that with workplace conflict, if you can’t smell it, you can’t solve it. And while these stink-containing contraptions are a great invention for parents and babies, metaphorical genies can derail our influence and impact, destroying trust.
I’ll leave your team with the courage and confidence to have the conversation they might rather avoid.
Interactive Leadership Keynotes Based on Our Books
These leadership keynotes are perfect for:
- Companies that want higher profits and more engagement and innovation from their teams
- Leaders working to build more innovative, high-engagement cultures
- Managers struggling to get their teams to think more creatively and solve problems on their own
- Teams looking to take their performance to the next level
- Anyone looking for more remarkable, practical, usable ideas
These keynote programs are perfect for:
- Anyone looking to communicate with more confidence for better influence and impact
- People looking for practical tools and techniques to navigate difficult conversations
- Teams who’ve been through a lot, and are ready to talk about it, take a breath, and prepare for a brighter, bolder future.
- Organizations working to foster deeper trust and collaboration
Human-Centered Leadership Speakers for Courageous Cultures
Managerial Courage and Workplace Innovation Keynotes
Photo Credit: Oscar and Associates
Courageous Cultures: How to Help Your Team Solve Problems Faster, and Surface Remarkable Ideas
Based on ground-breaking new research in innovation and problem-solving, you’ll learn what leaders like you are doing to build more creative and solutions-oriented teams. Teams who don’t just bring you more ideas, but practical, ideas you can use to make work, work better.
You’ll explore the root causes of FOSU (fear of speaking up) and ways to turn your team’s fears and frustration into practical innovation. You’ll learn: easy-to-use tools and techniques to empower solutions-thinking and customer-focused problem solving; how to respond to wacky ideas without crushing your team’s hearts and spirits; and techniques to encourage courage and deeper dialogue up, down, and sideways.
Courageous Careers: Practical Ways to Build Your Influence and Stand Out
Practical ways to grow your confidence, elevate your influence, and create impact—before you have formal authority.
Future leaders face a unique challenge: you’re expected to contribute at a high level, influence outcomes, and show initiative—often without positional power. It can be tempting to stay quiet, wait your turn, or avoid the difficult conversations.
You might hold back from sharing an idea because you’re not the “final decision maker,” or skip giving feedback because you’re worried about how it will be received.
But when you stay silent, you miss opportunities to build trust, demonstrate leadership, and drive results that matter. And the longer you wait to lead courageously, the harder it becomes to shift perception.
Influential leadership isn’t reserved for those with a title.
It’s built day by day—by speaking up, asking better questions, building connections, and navigating workplace conflict with confidence and integrity.
Whether you’re an emerging leader or an individual contributor looking to amplify your impact, this session will equip you with the courage, tools, and phrases to lead now—not someday.
Start Reading Courageous Cultures now, for free!
Human-Centered Leadership Speakers for Powerful Phrases
Communication and Collaboration Keynotes
Collaborate! Be the Teammate Everyone Wants to Work With
Missed deadlines. Misunderstandings. Meetings that solve nothing. These aren’t just frustrations—they’re momentum killers. Collaborate! turns them into opportunities for faster progress and better results.
Too often, collaboration gets talked about in big-picture terms—“communicate better,” “build trust,” “break down silos.” Inspiring? Sure. Actionable? Not really. Collaboration isn’t an abstract idea—it’s a set of repeatable habits backed by tools and best practices you can learn.
In this practical, highly experiential keynote, you’ll discover the proven habits of highly collaborative teams and the tools to put them into practice right away.
Imagine a team that doesn’t just want to work well together— they know how. That’s what happens when collaboration stops being an idea and starts being a habit.
Can We Talk for Real? Practical Tools & Techniques for Courageous Conversations
We all have them—those conversations you’d rather avoid. The tough feedback you’ve been putting off. The disagreement that keeps simmering. The request you need to make, but don’t want to hear “no.” Whether it’s with a colleague, a direct report, or your boss, these moments can leave you tense, overthinking every word, and bracing for impact.
Avoiding these conversations doesn’t make the problem go away—it usually makes it worse. And most “just be confident” advice won’t help when you’re sitting across from someone, emotions are high, and the stakes feel personal. You need specific techniques, practical tools, and powerful phrases you can count on to start strong, stay calm, and steer the conversation toward a productive outcome.
You’ll leave this interactive keynote with a game plan—complete with powerful phrases and practical tools—so the next time a conversation makes you want to run the other way, you’ll know exactly what to say and how to say it.