Unlock your potential. Ignite your business.
Over 20 years of inspiring and engaging audiences with insightful perspectives and actionable strategies for business success and personal empowerment.
A therapist, a CEO and a professor walk into your event
Laura Wagenknecht is a dynamic and engaging speaker who has spent more than two decades captivating audiences. Drawing on her blend of therapist, CEO and assistant professor — and her work with hundreds of businesses — she delivers presentations that resonate with women and BIPOC entrepreneurs and leave them inspired, motivated and equipped to take their ventures to the next level.
- Engaging storytelling
- Actionable insights and steps to follow
- Humor and authenticity
- Warmth and genuineness
- Empowerment and motivation
Laura on stage — storytelling that lands, with a takeaway attached.
Talks that move a room to act
Hover or tap any talk to see exactly what your audience takes home.
Unlocking Your Inner Champion
The power of self-competition in leadership — shifting focus from comparison to personal growth.
What your audience walks away with
- Name the comparison triggers costing you focus and confidence
- A three-step blueprint: recognize and reframe, anchor to your why, compete with yesterday
- A short script that redirects self-doubt in the moment
- One commitment that builds momentum before the week is out
Women in Business Success
Breaking barriers and building thriving enterprises.
What your audience walks away with
- A clear read on the barriers that actually slow women-led businesses
- Practical moves on pricing, positioning, and asking for what you are worth
- Goals broken into quarters with real numbers attached
- A growth plan that does not run on burnout
Being Fearless and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Recognize and dismantle limiting beliefs, then step into your power with unwavering confidence.
What your audience walks away with
- Catch imposter syndrome as it happens, in yourself and in your team
- Separate a genuine skill gap from the story told about it
- Language for claiming your expertise out loud, without apology
- A confidence practice that holds up under pressure
Move Past Our Limiting Beliefs
Release self-doubt and embrace possibility.
What your audience walks away with
- Surface the beliefs quietly running your decisions
- Test a belief against evidence instead of feeling
- Build a replacement belief that survives a hard day
- Take one action that proves the new belief true
Choosing Strategy Over Tactics
Develop a winning framework for growth — and know the difference when AI is selling you tactics.
What your audience walks away with
- A working definition of strategy versus tactics you can use the same day
- Where AI genuinely belongs in the plan, and where it does not
- A strategic framework with a clear path from here to the goal
- Quarterly milestones with real numbers attached
A Custom Keynote
Built around your event theme, your audience, and the outcome you need from the room.
What your audience walks away with
- A pre-event call to learn the audience and the goal
- Stories and examples chosen for your room, not recycled
- Content shaped to your slot, from 20 minutes to a half day
- A takeaway handout matched to the talk
Every audience leaves with something to do on Monday
Inspiration fades by Tuesday. A next step does not.
Engaging & story-driven
Real stories and relatable anecdotes that make the message stick long after the session ends.
Packed with actionable insight
Practical steps attendees can put to work immediately. No fluff, no filler.
Humor and authenticity
Down-to-earth delivery with just enough humor to keep a room focused and awake.
Warm and genuine
An open, safe learning environment where people are willing to be honest.
Empowering
Audiences leave more confident, clearer on their next move and ready for the challenge.
Something in hand
A worksheet or framework attendees keep, use and bring back to their own teams.
“Laura provided great content all while weaving it through stories. She puts just enough humor in to keep you focused.”Angela H.
Ways to bring Laura in
Every talk adapts to the time you have and the room you are filling.
- Conference keynote (45 to 60 minutes)
- Micro-workshop or breakout session (20 to 40 minutes)
- Corporate or organizational training, up to a half day
- Association, chamber and economic development events
- Virtual keynote, webinar or fireside chat
- Panel moderation and Q&A facilitation
Let's put the pieces together.
Book Laura for your next event and inspire your audience to unlock their full potential.
In a hyper-visible world, the biggest threat to a leader is not the competition — it is the comparison. Laura opens with a childhood clarinet challenge and closes with a lesson learned chainsawing trees after a tropical storm. In between she explains why our brains compare at all: survival, social rank, and a small hit of dopamine every time we measure up. The room leaves with a memorable three-step framework, a personal redirect script, and the one-page Inner Champion Action Blueprint worksheet.
- Works as a 20-, 40-, or 60-minute session
- Think-Pair-Share activity when the room setup allows
- Printable worksheet provided for every attendee
- Built for leaders, entrepreneurs, and high-achieving professionals
Women start businesses at record rates and still hit a predictable set of walls — access to capital, pricing that undercuts their own expertise, and networks that were never built with them in mind. This session names each barrier plainly and hands the room a strategy for it, drawn from thirty years of work with hundreds of businesses and from Laura’s own years as a CEO.
- 60 minutes: 50 of content, 10 of Q&A
- Women-in-business summits and BIPOC entrepreneurship conferences
- Chambers, associations, and economic development stages
- Adapts to a 30-minute breakout
Imposter syndrome rarely announces itself. It shows up as over-preparing, under-charging, and turning down the one opportunity you are most qualified for. Laura brings a therapist’s understanding of where the pattern starts and a CEO’s view of what it costs a business, then gives the room a way to interrupt it in real time.
- Keynote or interactive workshop
- Especially strong for rooms where your audience is still the exception
- Pairs well with a leadership development track
- 30 to 60 minutes
Most plans do not fail on strategy. They fail on a belief nobody said out loud — that the market is too crowded, that the price is too high, that someone else is more qualified. This session gives attendees a repeatable method for finding those beliefs, testing them, and replacing them, with enough humor that people are actually willing to be honest in the room.
- Opens a retreat or planning day well
- 45 to 60 minutes
- Reflection prompts attendees keep
- Strong fit for teams as well as entrepreneurs
Everything is a tactic now — a tool, a post, a prompt. Laura makes the distinction concrete, then walks the room through building the framework that decides which tactics are worth anyone’s time. Particularly relevant for owners feeling pressure to adopt AI without a clear answer to what it is supposed to accomplish.
- 45 to 60 minute keynote
- Also available as a half-day working session
- Framework template provided
- Best for established owners and leadership teams
If your event theme does not map neatly onto one of the signature talks, Laura builds the session around it. That starts with a conversation about who is in the room, what they are wrestling with, and what you need them to do differently on Monday.
- Conference keynotes and breakouts
- Corporate and organizational training
- Association and chamber events
- Virtual keynote or fireside chat