Keynotes on Emotional Intelligence,

Resilience, and the Worth Beneath the Title

Susie Wagner helps audiences stay whole when identity is under pressure,

whether the title just disappeared or the success on paper never felt like enough.

She is an award-winning communicator, a national media voice, and a speaker

who has rebuilt herself more than once.

20+ years leading marketing and communications. Eight PRSA Prism Awards. Featured on Good Morning America. Speaks nationally.

Why planners book Susie

She earns the room fast. Media-trained and featured on national television, Susie builds trust with an audience in the first five minutes, not the last.
She moves people to act, not just to feel. Every keynote is built around story and lands on one concrete action the audience can take, so the impact outlives the applause.
She is easy to book and easy to work with. One signature keynote at 60 minutes, straightforward technical needs, and available to travel nationally.

Signature Keynotes

Susie helps leaders stay steady and lead well when everything feels uncertain, using emotional intelligence and one practiced shift in behavior that compounds over time.

Markets Served

Non-profits, Universities, Healthcare, Hospitality, Technology, Government, Energy, Finance

Susie helps successful people who feel stuck through emotional intelligence and one honest shift in how they show up, starting a ripple that changes their relationships from the inside out.

Markets Served
Non-profits, Universities, Small Businesses, Women's Conferences, Healthcare, Hospitality, LGBTQ

Go First: A Half-Day Emotional Intelligence Intensive

Half-day Workshop

Your strongest people are often the ones quietly burning out. This half-day intensive teaches a team to notice it, name it, and say the hard thing before it costs you a resignation.

High performers armor up, over-function, and go quiet. It reads as reliability, right up until they disengage or walk out the door. This session gives a team a shared language for what is actually happening underneath, and the tools to do something about it.

Over three and a half to four hours, on-site or virtual, your team practices real emotional intelligence tools on their own situations and leaves having used them, not just heard about them.

They leave able to:

Recognize their own triggers and stay regulated under pressure instead of reacting.

Make the hard ask, the direct version of feedback, boundaries, and conflict they have been avoiding.

Spot the silent over-functioning that burns out strong performers, in themselves and in the people around them.

Share a common language for how each person protects themselves when work gets hard, which is the real groundwork for psychological safety.

Best for groups of up to twenty to twenty-five so the work stays deep, on-site or over video, with outcomes measured by a short self-report before and after. Fees available on request. This intensive can be tailored to a leadership team or to a specific audience. Ask about both.

One Hour Webinars

Three lunch-and-learn sessions a company can book, each one hour and fully virtual, drawn from Susie's keynote work but built for a lighter, work-focused format. They are the low-commitment way to bring Susie to a team, and a natural first step toward the half-day intensive or a keynote.

How You Show Up When Work Gets Hard

Everyone has a default move when a deadline slips, a meeting gets tense, or feedback stings. Most people have never named their own, and it is quietly shaping how their whole team communicates. This hour introduces Susie's Connection Styles, a practical map of how we protect ourselves under pressure at work. Participants identify their style, see what it costs the people around them, and leave with one shift to try. It is the most interactive of the three and runs well even with a camera-off audience, because everyone wants to know which one they are.

Participants leave able to:

Name their own protective pattern at work and the fear driving it.
Recognize the same patterns in colleagues instead of misreading them as difficult or checked out.
Try one concrete change that interrupts the pattern.

Best for intact teams and all-staff sessions focused on communication and collaboration.

Staying Steady When Work Feels Uncertain

Reorganizations, layoffs, new leadership, and constant change leave good people anxious, distracted, and bracing for the worst. This hour is about staying grounded when you cannot control what happens next. Drawing on Susie's own story of losing a role she had tied her identity to, it helps people separate what is actually happening from the story their fear is telling them, and steady themselves enough to keep doing their work. It is the most timely of the three, and a reason to bring Susie in during exactly the moments that are hardest on a workforce.

Participants leave able to:

Tell the difference between the facts of a situation and the fear-driven story layered on top of it.
Use a simple practice to regulate in the moment instead of spiraling.
Take one action to steady themselves rather than wait for certainty that may not come.

Best for companies going through change, restructuring, or uncertainty.

The Conversation You're Avoiding

Almost everyone is carrying a conversation they keep putting off: the feedback they will not give, the boundary they will not set, the request they will not make. Avoiding it feels safer, but it erodes trust and lets small problems grow. This hour is about the hard ask, why we dodge it, what the dodging costs, and how to say the direct thing in a way that keeps the relationship intact. It is the most immediately actionable of the three, and the most obviously useful to a manager.

Participants leave able to:

Name the conversation they have been avoiding and what avoiding it is costing them.
Make a direct ask honestly, without triggering defensiveness in the other person.
Commit to one real conversation to have within the week.

Best for teams where candor, feedback, or conflict avoidance is the pain point.

About Susie

Susie Wagner is a keynote speaker on emotional intelligence, resilience, and self-worth, and a marketing and communications leader with more than twenty years of experience. She has earned eight PRSA Prism Awards, represented organizations as a national media spokesperson including multiple Good Morning America interviews, and taught marketing and communications at the university level. Her own story runs underneath every talk. She has been laid off five times and rebuilt each time, which is why her message about worth beyond a title lands as lived truth rather than theory. Based in Columbus, Ohio, she speaks to audiences nationwide.

Susie's gift on stage is handing an audience language for what they have felt but never named, and a way back to themselves that is practical, not precious.

As Seen on Good Morning America

Good Morning America came to Ohio to put Susie on camera, not once, but three times. As the trusted spokesperson for the state's unclaimed funds program, she was featured in GMA's "Show Me the Money" segment at the Ohio State Fair in 2023, at Cedar Point in 2024, and again in 2024 at Cedar Point and outside a Cincinnati Bengals game, helping everyday Americans discover cash they were owed and never knew existed.

That is a rare kind of proof. National television does not return to the same person by accident. GMA came back because Susie delivers on live camera, unscripted, in front of an audience of millions, with the warmth and composure that make a message actually land. For an event planner, that erases the biggest unknown before any booking. A speaker who can hold a national morning show, three times, will hold your ballroom without a flicker of nerves.

Her reach did not stop at national TV. Susie has been featured in numerous Ohio news stories helping local families track down money owed to them, making her a recognized and trusted on-camera voice across the state.

GMA at Ohio State Fair, 2023

GMA at Cedar Point, 2024

GMA at Bengals game, 2024

Mike Brookbank Interview with News 5 CLE

Formats and Logistics

A 60-minute keynote. Susie is based in Columbus, Ohio and travels nationally.

Simple technical requirements, delivered to your run of show.

Speaking fees are available on request.

Request the speaker kit for bio, topics, introductions, and audiovisual specifications.

Book Susie

Ready to check a date? Use the form to tell Susie about your event, your audience, and your goals, and she will respond personally.

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