Impressive keynote speakers discuss their insight into the need to Accelerate Action

International Women's Day (IWD) provides a great opportunity to engage impactful speakers to share their insight into gender equality topics. Talented speakers can really enhance an IWD event through inspiring and engaging audiences with their lived experiences.

One such talented speaker is Culture Optimization Expert and Performance Coach, Natalie Johnson.

Here, Natalie discusses her thoughts on the International Women's Day theme of Accelerate Action.

Accelerating action for women's leadership

As part of Speakers Associates' IWD 2025 campaign, Natalie emphasizes the importance of accelerating action for women's leadership. Natalie highlights that women are key culture drivers in organizations, excelling in relationship-building and understanding human dynamics. Despite these strengths, women still hold only a small percentage of CEO positions globally. 

Natalie proposes three ways to accelerate action:

• Being an ally by advocating for talented women leaders.
• Mentoring or sponsoring women to grow their leadership skills.
• Actively listening to women's experiences and challenges in the workplace.

Speeding up progress towards a goal

"To Accelerate Action means to speed up progress towards a goal. It's the push to go beyond just talking or thinking about something and actually doing it, and maybe even doing it faster than usual..I'm here to share with you my thoughts on why we need to Accelerate Action for women's leadership all over the globe," says Natalie.

Driving culture in companies

"Women are the culture drivers in organizations. Workplace culture is defined as the way we relate to each other it's all about relationships, and women tend to be better at the relationship part of being great leaders. They have a better understanding of the human dynamic. They get how powerful relationships are at work. Women inherently understand the importance of relationships and yet here in the US only about 8% of CEO positions are held by women. In the UK, it's similar with only 9% of CEOs being women today," continues Natalie.

Helping women thrive in leadership

"To celebrate International Women's Day, I want to help Accelerate Action in getting more women in leadership roles. Let's use this day as the push to go beyond just thinking and talking about women in leadership and let's instead just do it. We could all play a part in creating more equality and leadership, and helping women not just get leadership roles but thrive in them. The way to Accelerate Action is to create cultures where women can thrive and grow professionally...you can help Accelerate Action on your own teams," comments Natalie.

"First, be an ally. If you know of an amazing woman who is a great leader, or even has the potential for becoming a great leader, advocate for her. Use your voice to challenge sexist remarks, behaviors and policies. Start conversations that highlight women and leadership and what you appreciate about them. If you are a leader, be a mentor or a sponsor to a woman to help expose her to opportunities and experiences to grow her leadership. Finally, listen to women when they share experiences and challenges validate their feelings an perspectives without dismissing or minimizing. Be empathetic to the fact that women are not always treated equally and often don't have the same leadership opportunities that men do. Today is the day to Accelerate Action for women in leadership," adds Natalie.

Inspired by Natalie's thinking on how to Accelerate Action? 

Natalie's speaking topics include:

• Intentional Culture: From the Inside Out: 
  Workplace culture is a common topic among organizational leaders, with good reason. Recent research suggests culture is ten times more important than compensation in determining whether valuable employees will stay or leave. But culture is a complex concept to understand – and even more complex to change.
   
• Dare to Lead™:
  Based on the research of Brene Brown and led by a facilitator trained directly by Dr. Brown, Dare to Lead™ is a training session focused on brave work, tough conversations and whole hearts. In particular, it focuses on the development of the four skillsets of courage: rumbling with vulnerability, living into your values, BRAVING Trust, and learning to rise.
   
• Coaching for Leaders (can be customized for healthcare leaders): Coaching is an essential tool in a leader’s toolbox, but the skillsets of coaching are not widely known or practiced. Further, many leaders have been taught to be the “expert”, a mindset which can often impede the learning and growth of their team members. To be most effective in leading teams, leaders must know when and how to act as coach rather than expert.
   
• Above the Line - Effective Thinking for Today's Workplace Challenges:
  Our thinking either sparks empowered emotions, productive behaviors and desirable outcomes - or it keeps us stuck. In today’s uncertain, complex, and demanding workplace, mindset matters more than ever.
   
• Call to Connection - Cultivating Quality Relationships with Diverse Personalities: Our relationships with colleagues in the workplace offer some of life’s greatest opportunities – and challenges. Particularly when we are navigating a variety of personalities, it’s important to know how to work through differences and cultivate connection, which is the key to team success.
   
• Creating a Culture of Accountability:
  Lack of accountability is one of the most frequent frustration triggers for employees and one of the biggest culprits of underperformance and friction in organizational teams. While most people want to be a part of teams where accountability is the norm, many oversimplify the idea or are unsure of how to enact it.
   
• Courageous Communication - The Inner Game:
  Traditional efforts to help improve their communication skills focus on models or strategies that, while valuable, overlook one key factor: the internal work that is often necessary to improve the way we communicate with others. Developing an impactful communication style requires that we attend to important elements of our “inner operating system” such as thoughts, feelings, values, and decision-making models.
   
• Courageous communication - Clear is Kind:
  Especially when we are faced with a difficult conversation, we often find ourselves avoiding, sugar-coating, clumsily landing the message, or reacting defensively. This session helps participants identify and overcome these challenges so they can become more confident and comfortable giving and receiving feedback with candor, kindness, and conviction.
   
• Energy Management - Your Key to Ideal Work and Life Integration:
  The research is clear that wellbeing, work performance, and organizational outcomes suffer in the long term unless leaders develop the ability to balance the demands of the modern work world through better management of their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy. This rich, interactive, and inspiring training helps leaders understand that self-care is not a luxury, but rather an absolute necessity for showing up as the best versions of themselves at work and at home.
   
• Your Emotional Impact: 
  The importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace has become a significant topic for forward thinking organizations. If a person doesn’t have a high level of emotional intelligence, their IQ or work ethic will only take them so far.
   
• Mastering Mental Focus - Training for Today's Attention Economy: 
  Smart phones, stressors, to-do lists, interruptions, and distractions deplete our mental and emotional energy all day long, leaving us feeling overwhelmed and “crazy busy”. Today’s world requires skillsets and practices around mental attention that help us sift through the stimuli, create clarity, and stay present.
   
• Stress: It’s Your Superpower: 
  Work and life today are busier and more emotionally demanding than ever. Although stress is a predominant factor in all our lives, research has revealed that the traditional way of viewing stress isn’t helpful and actually contributes to burnout. The science suggests we can use our stress to foster performance, better connect with those that matter, and even extend our life.

A highly sought-after keynote speaker

Natalie Johnson is a true luminary in the world of business transformation and organizational excellence. A consultant and performance coach with over 30 years of experience working with employers globally, Natalie is the Co-founder and Chief Visionary of ViDL Work, a consulting firm that supports organizations so they can function at full capacity. Natalie’s work focuses on increasing energy, creating team connections, and developing courageous leaders. She creates inspiration and extraordinary experiences for her audiences all over the world. She has a background in human performance, specifically performance psychology, exercise physiology, performance nutrition, and human resilience. Natalie is an industry-recognized Health Coach, Performance Coach, Sports Nutritionist, and Performance Trainer. Natalie has worked with numerous large, global organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Deloitte, the United States Airforce, the Department of Defense, Nike, Pepsi, NASA, and many more.   

Natalie is a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator and a sought-after keynote speaker and trainer. She has received a variety of awards including Champion of Healthcare, Healthcare Hero, Business Leader Woman Extraordinaire, Health Program Innovation Award, Corporate Wellness Leadership Award, and most recently Enterprising Women of the Year Award. Throughout her career, Natalie has been honored with numerous accolades, including the prestigious Enterprising Women of the Year Award, Champion of Healthcare, and Business Leader Woman Extraordinaire. She has dedicated her career to helping people and organizations worldwide unlock their full potential.  

Natalie is known for her engaging and high-energy personality, her approachable style, and her ability to help people align behaviors with what’s most important to them. Outside of work, Natalie enjoys spending time with her two active teenage boys and her husband, a law enforcement officer.

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