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 · WBENC-Certified
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
Writing the Story as You Go
Trusting a non-linear path, even while you're still walking it.
Best for: students in career transition, new grads, professional pivotsFinding Your Voice Before the World Hands You One
Moving past the fear behind public speaking and into real presence.
Best for: students, student leaders, early-career professionals, first-time speakersNerves Are Energy, Not the Enemy
A practical way to network without waiting for the nerves to disappear first.
Best for: students, networking events, career fairs, professional development cohortsYour Career Isn't One Story, It's Several
On viewing your professional life as a series of chapters, not one fixed narrative, and why that reframe gives you real freedom to pivot, reinvent, and take the next leap. Drawn from her own entrepreneurial journey.
Best for: students, early-career professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs, anyone facing a career pivotEvery Organization Carries Three Stories
How to find the gap between what the leader believes, what the team repeats, and what the community actually feels, so you can build real momentum instead of quietly losing trust.
Best for: executive teams, nonprofit boards, organizational leadership retreats -
Selected Speaking & Learning Engagements
Nicole has delivered talks and facilitated learning experiences for a wide range of organizations and institutions, including:
✦ Association for Conflict Resolution
✦ National Bar Association – Women’s Law Division
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School
✦ CoGenerate
✦ TEDx – How Aunties Changed My Life
✦ La Salle University
✦ BPHL Innovation Fest
✦ PECO
✦ Gaudenzia
✦ Smith College
✦ Providence College
✦ Church of Christian Compassion
✦ Christian Stronghold Baptist Church
✦ Washington, D.C. Congressional Briefing on Black Women and Girls’ Mental Health -
How to Inquire
Speaking engagements start at $5,000 and are customized based on audience, format, and goals. Download the speaker kit above for talk topics and details, or contact iswm@nicoleekenney.com to check availability.