Your story can be the ceiling to your growth, or the vehicle for it.
Keynotes and learning experiences that help leaders and rising professionals find their story and carry it forward with clarity and confidence.
Learning That Builds Clarity, Confidence, and Capacity
Story isn't just what you say. It's how people make sense of who you are, what you're building, and why it matters.
Nicole's speaking and learning engagements help audiences find the story they're already living, and the clarity, confidence, and capacity to carry it forward. This work draws on more than a decade of real experience training leaders and speaking to students, not abstract theory, and it's designed to meet audiences exactly where they are.
Each engagement is shaped around the room, the audience, the moment, and the outcome the organization actually needs.
This work moves people and gives them something to use. It's built for organizations who want their people to leave inspired and equipped to act, not one or the other.
About the Speaker
Nicole E. Kenney
Strategic Storyteller, Keynote Speaker, Award-Winning Founder
Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Graduate ·
In moments of transition, the stories we hold under pressure become critical. Because who you are personally shapes who you become professionally, Nicole founded the strategic storytelling firm It Starts With Me. At her core, she's a community builder, someone who believes story is deeply relational. With over fifteen years of experience in storytelling and communications, spanning nonprofit, for-profit, and government sectors, she has helped leaders untangle the personal and organizational tensions that come with growth, not just by managing communications, but by finding the real story hiding underneath the noise, and turning that clarity into a real, strategic path forward.
Her work doesn't stay behind closed doors. Nicole speaks from direct experience across corporate boardrooms, classrooms, and government chambers, bringing the same grounded frameworks she uses one-on-one, frameworks that have helped organizations strengthen alignment, build stronger networks, unlock resources, and drive measurable growth, to audiences navigating their own moments of transition. These insights have been shared at Stanford, Wharton, a Congressional Caucus briefing, and with the City of Philadelphia's Office of Public Safety.
Watch Nicole Speak
TEDx — How Aunties Changed My Life
What Audiences Are Saying
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Nicole is such an engaging speaker. Whether her audience is current students or fellow alums, her remarks leave participants feeling seen, validated, hopeful, and with a clear directive to lean into communities for ongoing support and connection in times of uncertainty or challenge.
— Christie Kennedy, Director of Alum Leadership and Career Engagement, Smith College
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Nicole connected beautifully with the attendees of our inaugural conference. We received nothing but rave reviews from her sessions and are looking forward to working with her again!
— Andrew Jenkins, Grants Compliance Manager, Office of Public Safety, City of Philadelphia
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Nicole is an outstanding speaker who can do it all -- keynotes, panels, workshops -- with passion, smarts and heart. I have worked with her numerous times, recommend her often, and look forward to the next opportunity to partner with her!
— Marci Alboher, VP of Narrative Strategy, Co-Generate
Types of Engagements
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Keynote Addresses
Thoughtful talks designed to invite reflection, challenge assumptions, and create shared understanding, grounded in real-world experience rather than abstraction.
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Panels, Moderation & Focus Groups
Skilled facilitation that supports focused, inclusive conversation, draws out diverse perspectives, and helps groups move toward insight and clarity.
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Workshops & Learning Sessions
Interactive learning experiences that build shared language, practical communication skills, and usable frameworks, designed for participation, reflection, and real-world application.
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Signature Talks
The Power of Presence
Staying grounded, visible, and intentional when the next chapter is still unfolding.
In moments of change, people are often told to be more confident, more visible, or more prepared. But real presence is not about pretending to have every answer. It is the ability to pause, recognize the story shaping how you are showing up, and choose a more intentional way forward.
In this keynote, Nicole helps audiences explore what it means to stay connected to themselves under pressure, communicate with greater clarity, and step into new rooms, roles, and opportunities before everything feels fully certain.
Best for: student leadership programs, women’s leadership initiatives, emerging-professional cohorts, entrepreneurship programs, staff development, affinity groups, and communities navigating transition.
Every Organization Carries Three Stories
Aligning leadership intent, internal culture, and community perception.
Every organization carries at least three stories: the story leadership believes, the story employees and partners repeat, and the story the community actually experiences. When those stories drift apart, even strong organizations can lose trust, clarity, and momentum.
This keynote helps leaders identify where those stories are aligned, where they are beginning to diverge, and what it takes to create shared language that can travel through growth, transition, and change. Participants leave with a clearer understanding of how storytelling, strategic communications, and organizational alignment work together to strengthen trust and sustain impact.
Best for: executive teams, nonprofit boards, foundations, public agencies, leadership retreats, staff-development programs, and mission-driven organizations.
Writing the Story as You Go
Building confidence and direction on a nonlinear professional path.
Professional paths are rarely linear, even when people feel pressure to make them appear that way. Drawing on her own journey as a strategist, social-impact entrepreneur, and community builder, Nicole helps students and emerging professionals see their career as a series of evolving chapters rather than a single fixed story.
This keynote gives audiences language for transition, a more grounded relationship with uncertainty, and practical ways to build confidence, connection, and direction while they are still becoming.
Best for: career services, student-success programs, graduating seniors, alumni programming, early-career professionals, first-generation or transfer-student initiatives, and career-transition cohorts.
Additional Workshop Topics
Nicole also offers customized workshops and facilitated conversations that extend the keynote experience:
Finding Your Voice Before the World Hands You One
Building authentic presence and communication confidence before stepping into high-stakes rooms.Nerves Are Energy, Not the Enemy
A practical, human approach to networking, visibility, and connection, without waiting to feel perfectly ready.Your Career Is Not One Story—It Is Several
Reframing pivots, unexpected turns, and evolving ambition as meaningful chapters in a professional life.
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Selected Speaking & Learning Engagements
Representative Engagements
Nicole has spoken for students, professionals, leaders, and mission-driven communities across higher education, corporate, nonprofit, civic, faith, and public-ideas settings.
Universities, Colleges & Student Audiences
Stanford University · Smith College · University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School · Saint Joseph’s University · Tulane University · Lasell University (Boston)· Providence College
Professional, Corporate & Innovation
City of Philadelphia‘s Office of Public Safety · PECO · Gaudenzia · Baltimore Healthy Start · Association for Conflict Resolution · National Bar Association, Women’s Law Division · CoGenerate · BPHL Innovation Fest
Civic, Nonprofit & Community
Washington, D.C. Congressional Briefing on Black Women and Girls’ Mental Health · Church of Christian Compassion · Christian Stronghold Baptist Church
Public Ideas
TEDx — How Aunties Changed My Life
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How to Inquire
Bring Nicole to Your Audience
Nicole is available for keynotes, panels, trainings, and facilitated conversations for students, emerging leaders, executive teams, and mission-driven organizations.
Keynote engagements begin at $5,000 and are customized to your audience and goals.
Workshops, facilitated conversations, fireside chats, and select panel engagements are scoped and priced separately based on audience, goals, format, and level of preparation.
Philadelphia-based · Available nationally, internationally, and virtually.
Download the speaker kit above for talk topics and details, or complete the Contact Us form here to begin the conversation.
CASE STUDY: Present Tense x Diamond Beauty Academy
Young leaders. Two sessions. A room that went from reluctant to ready. See how Present Tense helped a cohort of youth beauty entrepreneurs find their voice and own their brand story.