Kristin Arnold

Elevating Workplace Team Performance by facilitating high-stakes meetings, speaking/EmCeeing at events, & moderating panels (F2F, virtual & hybrid). Leading authority on panel moderation.

Expert on

  • Facilitator
  • Teamwork / Teambuilding
  • Master of Ceremonies / Emcee
  • Leadership
  • Innovation
  • Strategic Planning

Fee Range

$6,000–$7,500

Travels from

AZ, US

For over 30 years, Kristin J. Arnold has helped over a 250 different organizations, facilitated over 450 distinct teams, and worked with over 16,000 leaders in a dozen countries around the world on the topics of team leadership, teamwork, team culture, and critical thinking, 

Kristin is a leading authority on panel discussions, a Master Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF-M), a CPAE Speaker Hall of Famer, and an award-winning author.  

Kristin Arnold blends the best of two worlds as a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), as well as a Certified Professional Facilitator | Master (CPF | M). Her unique background and personality have enabled her to work as a mainstage conversationalist™, engaging and involving the audience in shaping the content. She has engaged over half a million people around the world to think differently by invoking relevant, timely insights applicable to real-world issues.  She is equally conversant F2F as she is virtually or using a hybrid model.

Her most requested programs include (see further detail below):

  • Smarter, Better, Faster – How to Make Good Decisions More Often
  • Beyond the Usual Suspects: Springboards to Unleash Your Team’s Creativity and Tap into Their Next Innovation
  • Stop Working So Hard: The Leaders’ Guide to Elevating People, Process, and Performance
  • Supercharge Your Team: A Booster Shot to Leverage Your Team Talent
  • Team Player or Spectator? How to Get Everyone in the Game
  • So What? Now What? Translate Your Takeaways into Action
  • Panel Moderation: Making Onsite, Online & Hybrid Conference Panel Discussions Extraordinary
  • EmCee: Onsite & Online Digital/Virtual Master of Ceremonies

As one of the first female graduates of the United States Coast Guard Academy and the first woman stationed onboard a sea-going buoy tender, Kristin learned early on about working with others.  In 1990, she became one of the first USCG facilitators – and made every mistake one could!  Frustrated, she avidly researched this nascent skill called “facilitation” and found herself training a cadre of internal facilitators.  By 1992, companies were asking her to teach their people how to facilitate and lead teams!  Since then, she has been sharing her concrete approach to teambuilding with a treasure trove of practical concepts, tools and techniques her clients can apply immediately to see positive, substantive results. 

Kristin’s passion for teams is reflected in her writing, speaking, facilitation, and consulting.  She is an award-winning author of Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve, and Inspire Your Audiences to Action and several books in the Extraordinary Team Series (Team Basics, Email Basics and Team Energizers).  Her latest book, Powerful Panels, was written to raise the level of performance of panels at meetings, conferences and conventions.  Her next book, 125 Ways to Add More Pizzazz to Your Panel will be published in the summer of 2020.

Featured in numerous publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business Update, USA Today, Selling Power, Kristin knows what it takes to lead, facilitate and participate on high-performing teams.  She was President of the National Speakers Association of the United States (2010-2011) and served as a National Director from 2005 to 2012.  She also served as President of the Downtown Hampton (Virginia) Development Partnership (2001-2), a nonprofit business organization attributed to turning Downtown Hampton from a quaint, sleepy town to a thriving entertainment, retail and residential center.  She retired from the USCG Reserves in 2002 as a Lieutenant Commander.

She has achieved the highest designations available within each of her core competencies:

  • Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) from the National Speakers Association (2002) 
  • Certified Professional Facilitator|Master (CPF|M) from the International Association of Facilitators (2020)
  • Certified Professional Facilitator(CPF) from the International Association of Facilitators (2002)

She is also certified to administer several assessment tools that assist people in determining their thinking styles, personality preferences and management effectiveness  (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, Kolbe™, Human Synergistics’ Group Styles Inventory™ and Organizational Culture® Inventory).

When Kristin is not working with teams of people, she attempts to play golf in Scottsdale, Arizona and Prince Edward Island, Canada.

 

SMARTER, BETTER, FASTER - HOW TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS MORE OFTEN

In a world of incredible change and chaos, where decisions are made in the blink of an eye, have you ever made a half-baked decision? For whatever reason, you just didn’t think it through. The result? Less than stellar outcomes.

You and your people don’t have hours to agonize over every decision, (nor would you want to…) but you can get smarter about it!

In this highly interactive and thought-provoking presentation, you will be able to:

  • Identify 5 common traps that cause poor or faulty reasoning
  • Discover simple techniques to prevent yourself from falling into these traps
  • Learn an easy, 4-step process that will allow you and your teams to be brilliant!

Smarter Decisions ♦ Greater Confidence ♦ Outstanding Outcomes

Leadership Audience Activity Educational / Informative Technical / Specific

STOP WORKING SO HARD: THE LEADERS' GUIDE TO ELEVATING PEOPLE, PROCESS, AND PERFORMANCE

Gone are the days when the leader can simply tell their people what to do. Rather, the leadership role has evolved into being more of a facilitative coach, responding to the needs of a specific person and situation in order to achieve the desired performance.

In this fun, upbeat and interactive session, you will learn how to coach your team members to be truly empowered – with minimal intervention from you! You’ll increase the quality and quantity of conversations you have with your employees, accelerate their development, and dramatically improve their performance.

You’ll walk away being able to:

  • Diagnose the development levels of your team members and choose the appropriate coaching style
  • Discover your own “default” coaching style
  • Adapt to the changing needs of your team members

Improved Performance ♦ Empowered Employees ♦ Greater Productivity

Leadership Audience Activity Educational / Informative

CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST: 7 LEVERS TO CREATE A CONSTRUCTIVE CULTURE

People talk about how important “culture” is to an organization, but what exactly is “culture”?  More importantly, how can we, as leaders, intentionally shape the organization into a much more productive and engaging workplace?  In this highly interactive and engaging session, team management expert Kristin Arnold shares real-time, practical tools, techniques and best practices for leaders, managers, and employees to access, enhance and magnify your organization’s culture.

  • Define “culture” in the context of your organization and/or industry.
  • Understand seven key elements that contribute to your current organizational culture.
  • Discover specific steps/techniques/tools to help shape the company culture.

Exceptional Results ♦ Smooth Process ♦ Cohesive Relationships

Audience Activity Educational / Informative Technical / Specific

BEYOND THE USUAL SUSPECTS:SPRINGBOARDS TO UNLEASH TEAM CREATIVITY & TAP INTO THE NEXT INNOVATION

Let’s face it. We’re living in a commoditized world. And if you aren’t innovating, you’re dying.

But it’s gotta be more than “new and improved,” slapping a new label on a new package of your tried-and-true product.

You’re looking for innovation…and it’s in short supply!

In this big brainstorming, barnstorming barrel of a good time, we’ll:

  • Dig through Drucker’s 7 sources of innovation
  • Show you how gosh darn easy it is to come up with new ideas
  • Sift through the possibilities to find real gold in them there hills!
  • Brainstorm in real time potential innovations

Better Brainstorming ♦ More Innovative Thinking ♦ Brilliant Ideas

Innovation Audience Activity Educational / Informative

SO WHAT? NOW WHAT? TRANSLATE YOUR TAKEAWAYS INTO ACTION

You just budgeted a boatload of bucks for the upcoming conference. And what do you have to show for it? Smilie faces? Comments about tepid coffee?

Find out what your attendees are really going to take away and do back in the workplace.

In this unique and highly interactive session, the participants will:

  • Share key takeaways and best practices
  • Develop mastermind partnerships and accountabilities
  • Be energized and motivated to implement their ideas
  • Be excited about coming back to the next conference!

And… you’ll be able to extend the learning by following up on the actions that matter most!

Exponential Learning ♦ Awesome Accountability ♦ Inspired Action

Audience Activity Educational / Informative Technical / Specific

PANEL MODERATION: MAKING ONSITE, ONLINE & HYBRID CONFERENCE PANEL DISCUSSIONS EXTRAORDINARY

Kristin Arnold is adept at making ordinary panel presentations powerful through a lively, engaging, audience-centered conversation.  As a thought leader in making panels more powerful onsite and online, she uses her facilitation skills and process techniques to make your panel session into a robust, interesting and lively discussion.  She ensures there is audience/ panel participation, the information is useful and the session starts and stops on time.

Kristin knows her panel moderator role is to be the producer/director of your conference panel presentation – and not the star of the program.  Your panel presenters and participants are the stars and Kristin makes them look like heroes!

For more information, please go to www.PowerfulPanels.com

Master of Ceremonies / Emcee Audience Activity Educational / Informative Technical / Specific

EMCEE: ONSITE & ONLINE DIGITAL/VIRTUAL MASTER OF CEREMONIES

With Kristin as your onsite or online Emcee, you can be assured that your business event will flow smoothly and on time. She’s the glue that holds it all together in a gracious and elegant way.

Kristin quickly connects with the group with her warm, engaging style. She reinforces the conference theme and “connects the dots” between mainstage speakers and event activities. She involves the audience without making them do silly teambuilding, ra-ra, turn to your neighbor activities. She’s “refreshingly candid,” building conversations with the audience about key issues. She’s known to be spontaneous, witty, and gets the audience to crack a few smiles and chuckles – even with left-brained scientists and engineers!

Caveat: While Kristin is fun, engaging, and perfect for business meetings, she is NOT a comedienne or entertainer – so if that’s what you are looking for, we can refer you to a colleague! 

Entertainment-based Audience Activity Educational / Informative