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Meet

Sara Ross

Leadership and Workplace Expert
  • Chief Vitality Officer
  • Bestselling Author
  • Global Gurus Top 30 Motivational Speakers
Speaker Fee:
$20,000 - $30,000
Virtual Fee:
$10,000 - $15,000
Travels From:
Canada
5.0 | 4 Reviews
Sara Ross
Book Sara Ross
Speaker Fee: $20,000 - $30,000
Virtual Fee: $10,000 - $15,000

Sara Ross Speaker Biography

In an era where 73% of organizations are bracing for major technology-driven disruption, 61% of leaders feeling unprepared to navigate the growing complexity, 62% reportedly disengaged, and nearly half the workforce running on fumes—these aren’t just statistics; they’re warning signs. Our current approaches are leaving untapped collective potential, depleted talent, and a version of high performance that may be achievable in sprints but not sustainable over time.

As the Founder and Chief Vitality Officer at BrainAMPED, a leadership research firm, Sara Ross believes there’s a better way: what she calls the LeadFULL™ way—a human-centered, vitality-fueling approach to leadership that helps both people and performance thrive.

Named a 2023 Woman of Influence by SUCCESS Magazine and recognized among the Top 30 Motivational Speakers by Global Gurus for 2025, Sara brings nearly two decades of experience integrating behavioral sciences into her work with leaders. Her expertise lies at the intersection of organizational culture, emotional intelligence, and energy management.

Her pioneering multi-year study on workplace vitality and sustainable high performance formed the foundation of her bestselling book, ‘Dear Work, Something Has to Change’ establishing Sara as a fresh, thought-provoking voice tackling today’s epidemic levels of stress, disengagement, and burnout.

Grounded in research but geared for real life, Sara has become a go-to expert for organizations ranging from Microsoft, Deloitte, PepsiCo, Wells Fargo, and T-Mobile to members of the U.S. Navy, judges, surgeons, air traffic controllers, and space engineers. Her diverse experience also includes working with leading healthcare systems, government agencies, global associations, universities, professional sports teams, and guest lecturing in the executive leadership program at Smith College. This broad perspective is why Sara is trusted by some of the most senior, technically sophisticated, and skeptical audiences.

On stage, you can count on Sara to challenge status quo thinking and embody her role as Chief Vitality Officer. With her trademark high energy, cutting-edge science, as well as humorous and relatable storytelling, Sara both inspires and provides a clear, actionable blueprint for helping both people and performance flourish.

Before founding BrainAmped, Sara spent over a decade immersed in the neuroscience of emotional intelligence and performance at a global organizational training company where she served as Vice President and Global Head of Leadership Development. She and her team led the development and delivery of award-winning leadership training programs (virtual and in-person), assessments, coaching, and accreditation offerings designed to help leaders across the globe be at their best—even in the most complex, high-pressure moments. This background in learning and development makes her uniquely qualified to respond to the expanding needs of clients looking for interactive experiences and extended learning sessions that drive sustainable behavior change.

Sara holds a Master of Science (MSc.) and multiple certifications, including Executive Coaching and Language & Behavioral Profiling. Outside of work, she’s a coffee-loving, meditation rookie whose husband describes her career as “professional eavesdropping and people-watching.” She insists she’s simply a devoted street scientist on a mission to better understand people and why they do what they do!

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Speech Topics

Keynote #1: LeadFULL EXCELLENCE: Empowering the Three Drivers of Excellence to Multiply Collective Impact
What would be possible if leaders could unlock the full potential—the expertise, creativity, and energy—already within their teams?
As workplaces are reshaped by AI, competition for talent intensifies, and pressure runs high; that question has never mattered more. Drawing on data from over 10,000 people, Sara Ross’s three-step LeadFULL™ framework for leading others provides the way forward. In a world of rising complexity, Sara uses compelling stories and science to deliver clarity and instantly applicable tools that help leaders strengthen human-centered EQ and apply these skills in game-changing, vitality-fueling ways elevating their leadership and collectively multiplying excellence in their teams and across cultures.

This Keynote is best for audiences who:
• Are leaders facing compounding pressures—AI transformations, organizational shifts, rising customer demands, and critical talent challenges.
• Excel technically, but recognize the need for deeper levels of emotional intelligence.
• Aim to transform siloed, exhausted, or disengaged teams into high-performing collaborative powerhouses—in-person and virtually.
• Seek practical strategies to elevate their leadership impact and overcome the invisible barriers holding them and their teams back.
***This keynote can be customized for more general and mixed audiences to focus on self-management, connection, and collaboration.

Audiences will leave able to:
• Lead by Example — Apply a personal accountability framework that strengthens self awareness, regulates emotions, and activates curiosity for better agility, focus, and impact.
• Redefine Empathy as a Performance Catalyst — Identify the perspectives that unlock or block excellence, enabling better collaboration across teams and deeper connection between people to support bold goals.
• Unlock Potential and Empower Growth — Infuse confidence and motivation in others by embracing a balanced support-stretch coaching approach.
• Cultivate a Vitality-Fueled Culture — Use the LeadFULL approach to create more energized, enthusiastic, engaged cultures that drive sustainable and scaleable success.

Keynote #2: LeadFULL ENERGY: A Blueprint for Generating Capacity, Fueling Vitality, and Activating Your Full Potential
What would be possible if leaders could unlock their full potential in a way that lights them up, fills them up, and lifts those around them up, all without lowering the bar on success?

Chief Vitality Officer Sara Ross has the research—and the roadmap—to make it real. Drawing on her three-year Workplace Vitality Study and her bestselling book Dear Work, Something Has to Change, Sara introduces the LeadFULL Way™, a science-backed blueprint that helps leaders operate from a vitality-fueling state. From here, excellence doesn’t just become more sustainable—it becomes more energizing. In this inspiring and actionable keynote, Sara shows leaders why strengthening their internal capacity to thrive is the ultimate competitive advantage at work and the catalyst for fulfillment in life.

This Keynote is best for audiences who:
• Are leaders caught in an exhausting cycle of reactivity despite hard work.
• Want to achieve career success without sacrificing well-being, happiness, or relationships.
• Need practical strategies to sustain performance and create high-performing cultures.
• Feel disconnected from their original spark and want to reignite purpose and passion in their work and joy in their life.

Audiences will leave able to:
• Apply the Regenerative LeadFULL Approach — Intentionally shift into the Vitality State to expand their energetic capacity to meet complexity with resiliency, agility, and sustainability.
• Transform Firefighting into Potential Amplification — Create space in their mind and day with an empowerment framework to extend ownership of problem-solving.
• Apply the Activate 20 Principle — Understand why traditional work-life balance strategies often backfire and how to activate a deeper sense of aliveness across the full spectrum of work and life.
• Embrace their Role as a Chief Vitality Officer — Replace “rest guilt” by treating renewal as a leadership responsibility, modeling the behaviors that empower teams to recharge, refocus, and rise stronger.

Keynote #3: LeadFULL CHANGE: Transforming Stress into Strength, Obstacles into Opportunity, and Fear into Future-Ready Resilience
What would be possible if change wasn’t perceived as something to get through, but as something to grow through?

In today’s dynamic world, there are two human operating states from which we can approach change: the Scarcity State, where we’re reactive, stressed out, frustrated, and change-fatigued, or the Vitality State, where we’re strategic, energized, resilient, and future ready. With 73% of organizations expecting significant change in the next year—leading change from the Vitality State isn’t just an option; it’s a competitive advantage. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience researching, coaching, and advising leaders through change, Sara shares how operating from the Vitality State transforms resilience from a reactive response in moments of crisis into a proactive practice strengthened daily. From here, change becomes a catalyst for energy, momentum, and growth to shape the future.

This Keynote is best for audiences who:
• Are working at any level and see signs of stress, change fatigue, fear and disengagement.
• Recognize the urgent need to strengthen future-readiness, particularly around AI integration.
• Want practical approaches to embrace uncertainty, influence buy-in, and overcome resistance.
• Wonder if focusing on vitality means ignoring challenges, forcing positivity, or lowering standards (it doesn’t).

Audiences will leave able to:
• Activate the Vitality State — Navigate change from the Vitality Operating State by working with their brain’s negativity bias to activate a growth-oriented possibility mindset.
• Become Genuinely Future-Ready — Apply behavioral science-based insights to better work with stress, boost uncertainty tolerance, harness energy to fuel resilience from a place of resourcefulness.
• Master the Emotional Landscape of Change — Channel the full spectrum of change emotions—including fear and resistance—into powerful drivers of connection, collaboration, and performance.
• Dismantle FAUX Resilience — Replace toxic positivity, isolation, and exhaustion with the LeadFULL Resilience framework rooted in realistic optimism, connection, and well being.

Keynote #4: DEAR WORK: The Three Drivers to Help You Standout Without Burning Out
What would be possible if you could pursue your boldest goals without running on fumes? If you didn’t feel caught between choosing ambition or well-being? Or if you had more clarity on why the very strategies that once fueled your success no longer seem to be working?

In a world where exhaustion is too often accepted as the price of excellence at work, Sara Ross has the data to prove otherwise. Based on her bestselling book, Dear Work, something needs to change, Sara shares how a letter to work evolved into a research-backed mission to redefine our relationship with work by shifting the focus from how work needs to change, to how we change the way we work. In this inspiring and fun keynote, she shares mindset shifts and science-backed strategies to help people bring their best, most vitality-fueled selves forward to do what matters to them, in way that fills them up and lifts those around them up without lowering the bar of success.

This Keynote is best for audiences who:
• Are ambitious professionals at any level working in high-demand environments who are starting to feel signs of burnout
• Want to grow in their success without sacrificing health, happiness, or relationships.
• Feel disconnected from their original spark and want to reignite purpose and passion in their work.
• Struggle to disconnect from the “always-on” work culture and create the space and energy for what truly matters beyond it.

Audiences will leave able to:
• Break Free from the Excellence-Exhaustion Trap — Learn to recognize when they are operating from the Scarcity versus Vitality State and master simple shifts to break the burnout cycle, boost happiness, and bring their best forward.
• Decode Their Brain’s Hidden Saboteurs — Uncover the two deceptive negotiations the brain uses to lure high performers into “success traps” and how to shift them, turning sustainable excellence into an achievable reality.
• Harness Stress as a Superpower — Transform how they engage with stress, converting it into a source of meaning, motivation, and momentum where possible.
• Revolutionize Their Self-Care Strategy — Integrate strategic renewal to fuel performance, embrace guilt-free rest, and reignite authentic vitality across every dimension of their life

Reviews

5.0 | 4 Reviews
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Sara was fantastic! Her message was one our audience needed to hear. She is engaging, kind-hearted and impactful!

Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association | February 4, 2025
Trustmark Health Benefits | April 19, 2024

Sara Ross hit it out of the park! Our audience of Federal Chief Judges are a tough crowd to win over, but Sara delivered an informative and energetic keynote that really resonated with our executive audience.

Federal Judicial Center | March 26, 2024
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“Sara Ross is phenomenal. She delivered a message that was not only inspiring, but also deeply practical for our business community. Her high energy program provided plenty of laughs and a-ha moments, but most importantly she shared real, actionable takeaways our member businesses could implement right away.”

Director of Marketing & Communications – Sevierville Chamber of Commerce

“Thank you, for all your help. Sara was wonderful and such a professional! Her talk went very well and was well received. I personally took away not just an inspiring message but also felt armed with some new tools for helping myself and others acknowledge challenges (including those brought to us by others to solve) AND move on to what we can control. I have enjoyed Sara’s first book and look forward to reading her next ones!”

“Sara had a very inspirational message that all of the Superintendents needed to hear about leadership and taking care of yourself. I heard nothing but positive comments from those in attendance. Extremely nice person who delivered a heartfelt message to us all. Would recommend her without hesitation. I really enjoyed talking to her.”

Vice President

“She was absolutely phenomenal, and we will absolutely be reaching out again when the right opportunity presents itselfSara was FANTASTIC even more so in person than on our earlier engagement for the Managers Call in December. Her content was super relatable, and we received a lot of positive feedback from the audience. We hosted a networking lunch right after the Town Hall and Sara was graceful with her time and joined us during lunch which allowed with follow on conversations with many of our team members. Overall fantastic engagement and we are very happy with the outcome.”

Director, Customer Engagement and Communications

“Thank you for reaching out. The event was a tremendous success, and Sara played a huge part in that. Her keynote was exceptional — she truly resonated with every woman in the room and delivered a message that was both inspiring and actionable. You could see the impact in real time as attendees were taking notes, snapping photos of her slides, and leaning in. The Q&A could have gone on for hours — our guests were eager to hear more from her — and every single book we ordered was gone by the end of the night.”

Manager / Sales & Marketing

“Sara Ross was amazing and all our guests were so impressed! Sara was the perfect closing keynote speaker for LUX 2024! – Director I hope you’re both having a great week. I wanted to express our sincere gratitude for a fantastic closing keynote speech. Sara, you skillfully touched upon the points and audience we discussed in our intake call and beautifully included the theme of National APP Week. The feedback we’ve received thus far has been great and very well-received. Thank you for making the experience so seamless; it was a pleasure working with you both again.”

Assistant Director

“I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere thank you for the fantastic keynote and workshop you delivered at our conference this week. Your expertise and passion truly shined, creating an outstanding experience for our Regional Teams. Your energy and ability to captivate the group with your insights, knowledge, and engaging presentation style was well received. The content you shared was not only valuable but provided practical tips and techniques and will undoubtedly benefit our team.”

Human Resources, Learning and Development

“Sara, That was fantastic. Our women leaders definitely need to be told its important and fruitful to relax and recharge. Your comments came at just the right time, we needed that! Your personal stories and practical tips are very helpful in driving the point home and making it actionable.”

Managing Director

“I just wanted to let you know that Sara was fantastic at yesterday’s Annual Meeting. She connected with the audience, and her message was well received. We appreciate her participation and contribution to the success of the event. Please convey our appreciation to her. I also sent her a text yesterday after the meeting.”

Sr. Director, Property & Casualty

“She was incredible, messaging was awesome, a breath of fresh air, commanded the stage, overall fantastic to work with and brought different perspectives to this topic and conversation! She was also incredibly nice and sincere!”

Vice President