Karin Hurt

Interactive Leadership Keynotes for Courageous, Collaborative Teams

Expert on

  • Leadership
  • Workplace Culture
  • Innovation
  • Employee Engagement
  • Team Building
  • Conflict Resolution

Fee Range

$15,000–$20,000

Travels from

CO, US

Biography

Karin Hurt is the Founder and CEO of Let’s Grow Leaders, a global leadership development firm known for highly interactive keynote experiences and practical tools that help teams communicate better, solve problems faster, and work more collaboratively.

A former Verizon Wireless executive with more than two decades of experience in sales, customer service, and human resources, Karin helps human-centered leaders build courageous cultures where people speak up, navigate conflict productively, and contribute their best ideas.

Karin works with executives and organizations around the world—including clients like Amazon, Nestlé, and Honeywell Aerospace—to strengthen collaboration, improve decision-making, and build more connected, high-performing teams.

Known for her practical, engaging style, Karin equips leaders with actionable strategies they can use immediately to navigate difficult conversations with greater courage and confidence. Her high-energy keynotes combine audience interaction, memorable activities, relatable stories, and immediately usable tools that create lasting impact long after the event ends.

Karin is the award-winning author of several books, including Courageous Cultures and Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict. She also hosts the popular Asking for a Friend leadership show and was recently named one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Great Leadership Speakers.

Speaker Videos

Courageous Cultures: How to Help Your Team Solve Problems Faster, and Surface Remarkable Ideas

This highly interactive keynote experience gets your audience thinking, talking, solving, and applying ideas to their most pressing challenges.

Through dynamic audience interaction and live problem-solving moments, participants experience what it takes to build a culture where people speak up, share ideas, and solve problems faster.

Based on her groundbreaking research in innovation, leadership, and workplace communication, Karin reveals why even talented teams hold back—and what leaders can do to replace hesitation and frustration with practical innovation and meaningful contribution.

Participants will explore the hidden impact of FOSU (Fear of Speaking Up) and discover practical ways to build teams of courageous problem solvers, micro-innovators, and customer advocates.

Your audience will leave with:

  • Practical tools to encourage solution-focused thinking and smarter everyday innovation.
  • Techniques to spark deeper dialogue and collaboration—up, down, and sideways.
  • Simple ways to respond to ideas without shutting down initiative or trust.
  • Interactive strategies to help teams surface concerns, solve problems earlier, and take greater ownership.
  • A practical personal experiment participants can apply immediately to build one courageous leadership habit that sticks.

Karin customizes every keynote to create a memorable, high-energy experience that feels relevant, personal, and immediately useful. Audiences leave inspired, equipped, and ready to put the ideas into practice right away.

 

Courageous Careers: Practical Ways to Build Your Influence and Stand Out

 You don’t need a bigger title to lead with influence.

This interactive keynote experience helps emerging leaders build confidence, communicate with credibility, and stand out through practical leadership habits they can use right away.

Through engaging activities, audience interaction, and actionable tools, participants learn how to speak up with confidence, contribute ideas that get noticed, and navigate workplace challenges with greater influence and professionalism.

Your audience will learn how to:

  • Build confidence and communicate with greater credibility.
  • Navigate workplace conflict with professionalism and confidence.
  • Identify and manage their own “conflict cocktail” in high-pressure situations.
  • Build stronger working relationships up, down, and sideways.
  • Contribute ideas in ways that increase trust and influence.
  • Lead with courage and impact—even without formal authority.

Participants leave with practical phrases, immediately usable tools, and one meaningful mini-personal experiment they can apply right away to increase their impact at work.

Whether your audience includes emerging leaders, high-potential employees, interns, or individual contributors.

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.

In this interactive, high-energy keynote, your audience will experience practical tools and habits that help teams communicate more clearly, solve problems faster, and work better together—right away.

Because collaboration isn’t just a mindset. It’s a skill set.

Through engaging activities, audience interaction, and practical tools participants discover the proven habits of highly collaborative teams and learn practical ways to:

  • Build trust and stronger working relationships.
  • Communicate more clearly across teams and functions.
  • Reduce misunderstandings and unnecessary friction.
  • Navigate conflict more productively.
  • Create accountability without drama.
  • Turn everyday collaboration challenges into opportunities for better results.

Participants leave with practical tools they can apply immediately to become the kind of teammate people trust, respect, and genuinely want to work with.

When collaboration stops being a buzzword and starts becoming a daily habit, teams move faster, work smarter, and achieve better results—together.

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 simmering disagreement. The request you need to make, but don’t want to hear “no.” Whether it’s with a colleague, direct report, customer, or boss, these moments can leave you overthinking every word and bracing for impact.

In this interactive, high-energy keynote, participants learn practical techniques and powerful phrases they can use to start difficult conversations with confidence, stay calm under pressure, and move conflict toward productive solutions.

Through engaging activities, audience interaction, and immediately usable tools, your audience will learn how to:

  • Stay grounded and confident in emotionally charged situations.
  • Use practical phrases that build trust, clarity, and accountability.
  • Handle disagreement with greater professionalism and influence.
  • Build deeper accountability, without the drama, using our proven I.N.S.P.I.R.E. methodology.
  • Identify and manage their own “conflict cocktail” before it takes over the conversation.

Participants leave with a practical game plan, memorable tools, and specific phrases they can use right away—so the next time a conversation makes them want to run the other way, they’ll know exactly what to say and how to say it.