It Started with a Simple Ask
In 1993, Angela Schelp wasn’t trying to build an empire. She was a working mother with a sales background, looking to build a successful career that wouldn’t sacrifice time with her family. Her stepfather (who was a corporate speaker) one day asked if she could maybe help him with his business, managing relationships with both existing and prospective clients.
She could… More than that, she was exceptionally good at it. The clients Angela worked with weren’t just satisfied. They kept coming back. Not for her stepfather’s next engagement, but with new requests: “Can you help us find a speaker for this event? Do you know anyone who could talk about this topic?”
One conversation led to another. A need led to another need. Angela realized what she was really solving for wasn’t booking speakers, it was finding the right match between what an organization needed and the voice that could deliver it.
That one conversation became Executive Speakers Bureau, founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in July of 1993. What Angela couldn’t have known then was that she was stepping into an industry that had a fundamental problem, and that solving it with a lot of hustle and genuine care for people would eventually build one of the top five speakers bureaus in the United States.
The Problem Nobody Was Talking About
Planning an event sounds straightforward until you get to the speaker.
You have a theme, a budget, and a room full of expectations. You need someone who can read the room, connect with your audience, and deliver something that people actually remember on the drive home. Not just a polished talker. The right one. For your people, your moment, your message.
The old way to find that person was fragmented, slow, and frustrating. You could spend weeks cold-calling agents, chasing unresponsive reps, and getting pitched speakers who were clearly wrong for your audience. Or you could trust the first person who called you back and hope for the best.
Angela built something different. A bureau that started with listening, not pitching.
The Mission: Match, Don’t Just Book
ESB’s whole model is built on a deceptively simple idea: find out what the client actually needs, then find the speaker who genuinely fits. Not the speaker with the biggest name or the highest margin. The right speaker.
That means asking questions most bureaus skip. What does your audience care about? What do you need them to walk away believing? What has worked before? What hasn’t? Where are you in your company’s story right now?
It also means being honest when a speaker isn’t the right fit, even when the booking would be easy. That kind of candor builds something you can’t manufacture: trust.
ESB charges no fee to clients for research or recommendations. Compensation comes from the speaker side, and only when an engagement closes. That structure keeps the incentive exactly where it should be, finding the best match, not the most convenient one.
Thirty Years In, Still Growing
Richard Schelp joined as co-owner in 2001, and the bureau quickly expanded its reach globally. ESB also pioneered using video on their website to showcase speakers, giving clients a real sense of how someone performed and connected with an audience before making a booking decision. That sounds obvious now, but it was a game-changer when most bureaus were still sending video cassettes and printed bios.
When the pandemic shut down live events in 2020 and most of the industry froze, ESB pivoted fast. They restructured, leaned into virtual, and came out the other side with momentum instead of scar tissue. The result: five appearances on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the last seven years.
That’s not an accident. It reflects a culture that takes pride in responsiveness and staying ahead of how the industry actually works. Clients don’t wait days for a callback at ESB. They hear back fast, get real options, and work with people who know this industry at a deep level, by speaker, by vertical, by audience type, by what actually lands in a room versus what just looks good on paper
Where ESB Is Going
The speaking industry is more complex than it has ever been. Clients are more sophisticated. Speakers are building bigger personal brands. Topics like AI, leadership through disruption, and organizational culture aren’t just conference themes, they’re live business problems that audiences need real answers to.
ESB is positioned to be the bureau that meets that moment. Deeper vertical expertise. Better tools to handle internal processes so even more focus can be on matching speakers to the specific outcomes clients are trying to drive. A continued commitment to the relationship-first model that built the business in the first place.
Angela Schelp’s stepfather just needed some help with his events and clients just needed help with theirs. Thirty-plus years later, that ask is still being answered, thousands of times over, by a team that genuinely believes the right speaker at the right moment can change how a room full of people think, act, and lead.
That’s the business. And it’s still just getting started…
