Keynote Speakers
Our keynotes are more than speeches—they're rallying calls for excellence. They are inspired by the spirit of grit, determination, and innovation of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Paralympics, FIFA World Cup, and our hometown sports heroes, which define top-tier performance.
Like elite athletes, our keynotes push boundaries, embrace new techniques, and lead with resilience. Get ready to be energized, challenged, and inspired to elevate your game. Above all else, go for gold!
Lace'em Up: Compete, Connect, Create
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Success doesn’t happen by accident—it’s earned through discomfort, discipline, and a relentless drive to be your best. U of O's Women’s Soccer Head Coach Tracy Joyner knows this firsthand. One of only a handful of NCAA soccer coaches to rise from junior college to a Division I Power 4 program, Tracy built her career by defying expectations, leaning into the hard, and doing the work—lace by lace.
In this energizing and deeply personal 75-minute keynote, Tracy shares how her journey—from professional athlete to nationally recognized coach and leader—offers valuable lessons for marketing and business development professionals striving for excellence in their own fields. She explores the mindset behind building best-in-class teams, developing confidence through consistency, and building a high-trust, high-performing culture that thrives even when faced with adversity.
For AEC professionals who operate in fast-paced, competitive environments, Tracy’s message will resonate: know what motivates you, embrace authenticity, and lead with intention. Whether you're leading teams or just beginning to find your voice in the industry, Tracy’s insights apply at every stage of a career. Her stories of resilience, hard work, and personal growth offer a playbook for navigating challenges, building confidence, and striving for your personal best. Through engaging visuals and stories of adversity, triumph, and team culture, Tracy offers a fresh, inspiring take on leadership and self-development that will stick long after the final slide.
Tracy Joyner
Tracy Joyner is the new Head Coach of U of O’s Women’s Soccer. Her objective: revitalize and rebuild a program that has seen only three winning seasons in 25 years. She is one of only a handful of NCAA soccer coaches to rise from the junior college level to lead a Division I Power 4 program. A multiple Coach of the Year honoree including Big West Coach of the Year in 2023, with two Masters Degrees in Coaching and Athletic Administration and Counseling with a Specialization in Sport Psychology, she is known for building best-in-class teams, taking programs to the next level, and cultivating high-performing, values-driven cultures. She is also one of the few American women to earn the prestigious UEFA A Coaching License—a journey chronicled in the documentary Coach, which highlights the barriers she overcame to pursue top-tier coaching certification in a system that wasn’t built for her.
Off the pitch, Tracy is a passionate advocate for equity, personal growth, and embracing adversity as a path to excellence. She balances coaching, parenting a toddler and a long-distance marriage to her husband, an assistant men’s basketball coach at the University of Michigan to her story of grit, resilience, and purpose, offering powerful lessons for leaders in any field.
It Starts with You - A 75-Minute Leadership Reset
Thursday, March 19, 2026
In high-pressure, creative, fast-moving environments, it’s easy to focus on deadlines, deliverables, and doing more. But leadership—real leadership—isn’t just about output. It’s about how we show up when it counts. In conversations. In conflict. In culture.
This 75-minute keynote invites every person in the room to pause, reset, and reconnect with the most important leadership tool they have: themselves.
Whether you’re early in your career or deep into it, your presence—your tone, your energy, your mindset—has impact. Sometimes that impact is intentional. Sometimes it’s not. This session creates space to explore both.
We’ll dig into what it looks like to be at your best, how stress pulls you off center, and how to reset when the pressure is high and the stakes are real.
Why This Matters Now
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We are all navigating constant change, competing demands, and relentless expectations. But amid all that, there’s still room for choice. We get to decide how we show up.
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We don’t talk enough about the small, invisible ways we shape culture. A shrug. A sharp tone. An avoided conversation. A micro-decision to speak up—or stay quiet.
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This session isn’t about surface-level leadership tips. It’s about coming back to yourself. Because when you’re clear on who you are and how you lead, everything else gets easier.
Amber Wendover
Amber Wendover is an executive coach, keynote speaker, and founder of Thinking People, a boutique consulting firm dedicated to human-centered leadership, culture change, and sustainable performance. With over 25 years of experience, Amber has supported thousands of leaders—from rising stars to seasoned executives—through coaching, facilitation, and live events that are as practical as they are transformational.
Amber is known for her grounded approach and ability to speak directly to what leaders are actually experiencing—stress, disconnection, conflict, and the silent toll of always needing to perform. She brings both insight and empathy, drawing from her own experience as a high performer and entrepreneur navigating complex health challenges. Her client list includes Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, Whole Foods, Dignity Health, Levi’s, Samsung, Boston Children’s Hospital, Genoa Healthcare, the City of Bellevue, McDonald’s, and many more. Whether coaching one-on-one or speaking to hundreds, Amber’s work is rooted in the belief that real leadership growth doesn’t start with strategy. It starts with you.
Peace Is a Strategy: The Competitive Advantage of Calm Leadership
Friday, March 20, 2026
We’ve been sold the myth that peace is passive. It’s not. Peace is a performance system. In high-stakes work—tight deadlines, complex stakeholders, constant change—peace is a strategy that improves outcomes. When leaders and teams choose calm on purpose, they think more clearly, collaborate more honestly, and execute with fewer costly resets.
In this closing keynote, Danielle Gray turns calm into a competitive advantage. Learn the Peace-to-Performance Framework to move from reactivity to results; a 90-second reset for tense moments; and conflict-to-clarity steps that protect relationships and decisions.
Learning Outcomes
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Use the P.E.A.C.E. framework to move from reaction to resolute action in minutes.
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Apply a 90-Second Reset to protect decision quality in tense moments.
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Run a Conflict-to-Clarity conversation that surfaces truth without damage.
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Explain the ROI of Peace in plain language: better retention, faster decisions, stronger client trust.
You’ll leave with language to rally your team, a playbook to reduce friction, and proof points for the ROI of calm: better retention, faster decisions, stronger relationships, and clearer creative work. Peace isn’t the absence of pressure—it’s the system that helps you perform under it.
Danielle Gray, MBA
Danielle Gray is a Creative Director, Executive Producer, and global speaker whose work lives at the intersection of strategy, soul, and storytelling. She brings brand experiences to life—on stage, on screen, and in the hearts of audiences. As the visionary behind corporate conferences, Danielle leads the creative direction of main stage design, video production, and speaker content, producing high-impact events that captivate and inspire.
As founder of DG Marketing Company, she has spent over a decade developing content strategies and coaching marketing teams across the A/E/C and professional services industries. Her work helps brands unlock clarity, elevate their voice, and move audiences with purpose.
At the core of her mission is a commitment to peace—as a way of being, a leadership edge, and a business strategy. Through her meditation and affirmation collection Peace Over Everything—available on Spotify, Insight Timer, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon—Danielle invites people to ground themselves in intention. Her keynotes focusing on peace as a strategy lay the foundation for a forthcoming global workshop series helping companies embody calm leadership that drives sustainable success.
A former Division I basketball athlete with a Bachelor’s in Marketing and an MBA, Danielle lives in Atlanta with her adorable standard poodle, Duchess—her creative muse and constant reminder that peace is always within reach.
