About Karin
Karin is an engaging and dynamic speaker known for her highly interactive, fun, and compelling presentations that captivate audiences. With a focus on practicality, she equips leaders with actionable tools and techniques they can immediately apply to achieve results. Drawing from her extensive experience as a Verizon executive and her work with clients across various industries worldwide, Karin’s insights are grounded in real-world experience, ensuring her content is both relevant and impactful.
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Courageous Cultures: Help Your Team Solve Problems Faster and Surface Remarkable Ideas
In this highly interactive keynote, I share practical tools to help leaders at every level build a Courageous Culture, where it’s safe and expected to speak up, contribute ideas, and solve problems.
Based on our extensive research and work with organizations around the world, I’ll guide your audience through four powerful practices:
- Curate Connection – Build trust and human-centered relationships that fuel collaboration.
- Create Clarity – Align around key priorities so ideas are relevant and actionable.
- Cultivate Curiosity – Invite fresh thinking and diverse perspectives to spark innovation.
- Respond with Regard – Acknowledge all contributions with respect—even the messy, half-baked, or unpolished—so people keep sharing.
You’ll walk away with immediately usable tools, and a 30-day mini-experiment—to help you put what you learn into action right away.
Bonus: I can weave in short soundbites from your own leaders, showcasing examples of everyday courage and innovation from inside your organization, making the message even more relevant and real. More here.
Collaborate! Be the Teammate Everyone Wants to Work With
Too often, collaboration is discussed in broad terms: “communicate better,” “build trust,” “break down silos.” Inspiring? Sure. Actionable? Not really. Collaboration isn’t an abstract idea; it’s a set of repeatable habits backed by tools and best practices you can learn.
In this practical, highly experiential keynote, you’ll discover the proven habits of highly collaborative teams and the tools to put them into practice right away. You’ll learn how to:
- Apply the four components of effective collaboration—connection, clarity, curiosity, and commitment.
- Use research-backed best practices to cut through silos and get everyone on the same page.
- Build a toolkit of repeatable techniques that make collaboration easier and faster
You will leave with a personalized 30-day action plan, including the specific habits and tools to transform collaboration from a frustration into your competitive advantage.
Imagine a team that doesn’t just want to work well together; they know how. That’s what happens when collaboration stops being an idea and starts being a habit.
Are you ready to be the teammate everyone wants to work with?
Bonus: I can weave in short soundbites from your own leaders, showcasing examples of everyday collaboration from inside your organization or association, making the message even more relevant and real. More here.
Can We Talk for Real: How to Have Courageous Conversations
Avoiding these conversations doesn’t make the problem go away, it usually makes it worse. And most “just be confident” advice won’t help when you’re sitting across from someone, emotions are high, and the stakes feel personal. You need specific techniques, practical tools, and powerful phrases you can count on to start strong, stay calm, and steer the conversation toward a productive outcome.
You’ll leave this interactive keynote with a game plan, complete with powerful phrases and practical tools, so the next time a conversation makes you want to run the other way, you’ll know exactly what to say and how to say it.
The audience will leave with:
- A research-based perspective on why courageous conversations are hard, and why it’s worth it.
- Practical strategies to foster deeper connection and trust in every interaction.
- Tools to speak up and stay confident, no matter how tough the topic.
- Proven language patterns like G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time), Powerful Phrases to handle awkward, high-stakes conversations.
- A roadmap for using the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. method to hold others accountable, without damaging relationships.
You’ll walk away with immediately usable tools, and a 30-day mini-experiment, to help you put what you learn into action right away.
Bonus: I can weave in short soundbites from your own leaders, showcasing examples of everyday approaches to courageous conversations from inside your organization or association, making the message even more relevant and real. More here.
Awards & Publications
Books published
- Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators
- Problem Solvers and Customer Advocates (Harper Collins, 2020)
- Winning Well: a Manager's Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul (Amacom), Inc.
- 100 Top Leadership Speaker, Inc. Best Leadership Books Written By Women
- We have a new book coming out with Harper Collins in Spring 2024 "Powerful Phrases for Dealing With Conflict at Work: What to Say Next For More Influence, Deep Trust and Better Collaboration"
More About Karin
A former Verizon Wireless executive and Inc. 100 Great Leadership speaker, she brings decades of leadership experience to her work with clients such as Nestle, National Institutes of Health, Honeywell Aerospace, PMI Global and EMEA, and Geisinger Health Systems. She translates that experience to practical takeaways from the keynote stage.
Karin’s keynotes are interactive, high-energy, and deeply practical. She engages audiences with active participation and conversation, making every session feel personal and actionable. For association conferences and company events, Karin can curate best practice video soundbites from association members, executives, or employees to highlight relevant insights and best practices aligned with her key messages.
She’s the author of five books, including Courageous Cultures and Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict, and her “Asking For a Friend” show and blog are known around the globe for practical advice.
Whether she’s speaking to executives or frontline teams, Karin equips leaders with the tools and courage to navigate conflict, foster trust, and build habits for lasting impact.
Reviews
Amazing
- Jeanne Martel
You will be amazed at the possibilities when your employees feel truly empowered to share their ideas and solve problems.
appREciate your energy!
- Kerrie Phipps
Karin's delivery style, real-world stories, and innovative concepts kept this audience engaged. The feedback from the leaders is that they gained takeaways they could immediately apply. I would hire Karin again to improve the skills of people who manage in any capacity.” Karin and David light up the stage through dynamic storytelling and highly-practical leadership solutions participants can implement right away. While they’re teaching teamwork and communication, they’re actually demonstrating it beautifully.
rock star + superhero
- Jean Cantey Segal
I work with many keynote speakers, and Karin Hurt is truly exceptional. Dynamic, interactive, and deeply relevant, our participants left energized with practical takeaways they could use immediately.
left feeling motivated
- Erin Glarner
Karin Hurt delivered exactly what we needed – high-impact, customized sessions that truly resonated with our audience. She crafted two powerful programs: one for our executives, built on her Courageous Cultures research and book, and another for all attendees, inspired by her most recent book, Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict. The sessions were strategically integrated, highly interactive, and packed with practical takeaways our members could immediately apply. Karin was a joy to work with – professional, insightful, and fully invested in our success. We would definitely love to work with Karin again in the future!
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