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Harriet Waley-Cohen

travels from UK

Her powerful messages and actionable strategies have helped countless companies thrive in the face of challenges and transform their cultures.

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4.75 out of 5 stars

Harriet is an honest and genuine speaker who everyone in the room could relate to on some level - her own honesty has helped to break the stigma around mental well-being and has already inspired some positive change in our workplace. I would recommend Harriet to any organisation looking to promote emotional well-being, and to anyone looking for the tools to take a proactive approach to their own mental health.

Shannon Walsh - Goodman Masson See all references

Why you should book Harriet Waley-Cohen for your next event

  • She has a wealth of personal experience and expertise to draw from, making her relatable and empowering speaker.
  • Harriet is a accomplished speaker with awards in storytelling and leadership.
  • She’s deeply committed to advocating for women’s rights and promoting gender equality, making her an impactful addition to any event.
Non-binding request for Harriet Waley-Cohen

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About Harriet

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International Keynote speaker Harriet Waley-Cohen is a certified health- and women's leadership coach, and entrepreneur. She empowers women to make life-changing transformations to become the most powerful versions of themselves, and thus to fulfil their potential and purpose. With her guidance, you'll witness a tangible shift in mindset and a renewed sense of purpose within your organization. Don't miss out on the opportunity to have Harriet Waley-Cohen inspire and motivate your audience.       

Why you should book Harriet Waley-Cohen for your next event

  • She has a wealth of personal experience and expertise to draw from, making her relatable and empowering speaker.
  • Harriet is a accomplished speaker with awards in storytelling and leadership.
  • She’s deeply committed to advocating for women’s rights and promoting gender equality, making her an impactful addition to any event.

As a speaker, facilitator, trainer and coach, with a background in psychology, a decade in investments and a further decade coaching senior women on confidence and leadership – Harriet specialises in working with companies in traditionally male dominated industries including banking, financial services and tech. She supports her clients to recruit and retain the best female talent at all levels; to shift their culture to one of outstanding allyship and to get a genuine ROI on their gender-focused DEI initiatives.

Harriet ticks many diversity boxes that provide her with extensive lived experience of being ‘different’: she is a Jewish, queer, full-time single mother to one neurodivergent teenager, and another who is gender nonconforming. She has plenty of personal experience around psychological health and physical disability issues too; Harriet is over 20 years in recovery from addictions and complex trauma, overcame serious injury and a pain condition following a car accident in 2016, as well as surviving breast cancer in 2018.

Harriet’s speaking style is authentic, engaging and interactive, leaving her audiences with practical tools and processes they can use right away for maximum impact and transformation. She blends research, frameworks and mindset shifts with interaction and discussion to shift her audience’s thoughts, actions and feelings on emotive subject matter.

 

See keynotes with Harriet Waley-Cohen
Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

Women & The Self-Worth Crisis: a call to action.

In this powerful, eye-opening session, Harriet explores why women don’t feel good enough, through outlining the impact on women’s self-worth of cultural, media, political, medical, corporate and religious paradigms.

Discussion follows on the additional impact of intersectional factors and individual life experiences. The detrimental impact of women feeling inadequate is outlined at individual, organizational and global levels.

Harriet works with her audience to co-create a vision for the future, ensuring that personal and organizational pledges plus action steps are clearly defined, with the aim of creating a new future where women are valued and know their worth.

Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

Breaking Through The Diversity Glass Ceiling

Companies want and need to get an excellent return on their DEI investment and initiatives; however, this isn’t always the case. After initial improvements, progress can stall or even reverse. Sometimes this is because of gaps in implementation, knowledge gaps or a lack of management buy in and communication. Internal push back is common. Harriet calls this hitting the diversity glass ceiling. It occurs despite training on topics like unconscious bias, policy changes, and inspiring talks from external speakers on a range of DEI topics.

No matter how an organisation presents it’s DEI profile to the outside world, the story can be different on the inside, which will ultimately undermine the business. In this session Harriet sets out a range of key indicators that occur if your organisation has hit the diversity glass ceiling.

Examples of signs that this is the case can include: challenges attracting and retaining diverse staff including women; a lack of career progression for diverse employees; complaints from staff members about microaggressions or worse; overt and more subtle pushback from the majority on DEI initiatives; diverse employees not being included on major projects or being spoken down to. There are a wealth of additional indicators.

Drawing on research, best practice and success stories, a broad range of practical suggestions are laid out that will support your organisation with breaking through the diversity glass ceiling to create a truly diverse and inclusive workplace, which will also enhance future business results, brand reputation and culture.

Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

Breaking Down Gender Stereotypes: uplevel allyship and success

Gender stereotyping is a key contributor to lack of equity, inequality and gender-based violence. Dismantling stereotyping is a key part of moving towards equality.

This session focuses on understanding the breadth and nuances of gender-based stereotypes for men and women, and explores the research into the impact that these have at the individual, organizational and wider societal levels. Beyond this, the key outcome of this session is that participants reject and move beyond unhelpful gender-based stereotypes. They start to work together to create a stronger environment of mutual respect and sense of belonging for all in the organisation, with staff seeing individuals not genders, and all that each individual brings to the table.

Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

Why Should We Care About Gender Balance? Aka how to get men truly on board with gender balance

In this workshop, Harriet shifts the conversation around gender balance far beyond the moral case to encompass several more compelling layers of argument through her unique framework.

This supports her audience to leave behind scepticism and become proactive allies for gender balance, inclusion and belonging. Risks and opportunities are discussed at the business, brand and individual career level.

A powerful part of this session is an open conversation exploring how the current, patriarchal system hurts men as well as women, albeit in different ways. A shared vision is created for a different way forward on a bigger picture level: how would we like it to be for men in the future, and what difference would that make? How might gender balance and a different culture in the workplace be part of this? What kind of difference will it make for women, humanity and the planet?

Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

The Future of Allyship & Outstanding Diversity Led Leadership.

Harriet outlines what it is like to be someone who is either upholding the current system of inequality, someone who is neutral or someone who is proactively part of change. The point is made that allyship is for all, and that there is not only an expectation for men to change, although their buy in can be the most impactful in moving the needle forwards. The identity, mindset and behavior of an excellent ally is discussed, giving participants direct and practical guidance they can implement.

This session includes giving yourself and others permission to get it wrong sometimes; mistakes are part of the learning process and change is not an overnight matter – how to handle, making or witnessing mistakes along the way is a vital part of the process.

Part of being an excellent ally is being a leader for the future: research insights on leadership traits and career cycle norms, how these interplay with gender stereotyping, and barriers to diversity, equity, inclusion and gender balance. The latest research into the behaviors, skills and values the leaders of the future need, and the role of self-leadership within this.

Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

From the Conceptual to the Practical at the Organisational Level

What could change at the organisational level to help your organisation lead the way on diversity and gender balance? Areas that can be examined include hiring/promoting processes, general culture, performance measurement, remuneration criteria, parental/caring responsibility and flexible working policies plus fostering a culture where it is acceptable and encouraged for men to take up caring responsibilities. Measuring and tracking. Create a top level project plan, with the staff and especially the leadership team leading the way as they know best how to create change and make it happen internally; what works and what commitments are realistic now, and in the future. Time frames. Communication plan.

Keynote by Harriet Waley-Cohen

Difficult Conversations: in collaboration with Mia Forbes Pirie

Harriet collaborates with Mia Forbes Pirie on this topic, adding Mia’s expertise as a highly experienced, effective and award-winning
mediator to the conversation. Mia offers sessions including ‘Difficult conversations: moving from polarisation or silence to communication, understanding and collaboration.’ Mia and Harriet have co-led events for many years together, including day retreats and shorter workshops. Starting a series of diversity workshops with this particular training on difficult conversations helps to set the scene and equip the audience with important skills ahead of moving directly into the diversity topic.

Watch Harriet Waley-Cohen ina

An Inside Out Solution To The Outside In Problem of Toxic Perfectionism

See keynotes with Harriet Waley-Cohen

References

Harriet is an honest and genuine speaker who everyone in the room could relate to on some level - her own honesty has helped to break the stigma around mental well-being and has already inspired some positive change in our workplace. I would recommend Harriet to any organisation looking to promote emotional well-being, and to anyone looking for the tools to take a proactive approach to their own mental health.

Shannon Walsh

Goodman Masson

I really enjoyed learning more about my needs! How important it is to make sure they are met. Also loved #findyourmission. I was very interested in the way we had to think about us. Thing that is basic but we don't think about it. The pyramide (noisy/nice/need). Having tools & real experiences to explain the subject/idea. The description/perception of perfection - real life story: very interesting, I'm very impressed. Recognising the complexity of emotion and the practical solutions offered. Very relevant topic in today's highly demanding world - the importance of media was well explained.

Henriette Phillips

Parent & Professional Coaching

Thank you, Harriet, for providing something truly different. The conversation challenged us, made us question the status quo and drove us to think about how to work together to drive a different outcome. It was refreshing to have such an open and candid discussion.

ServiceNow

Harriet Waley-Cohen is a real superwoman who empowers others wherever she goes.

Vanessa Vallely OBE

MD of WeAreThe City
03.10.2016

Interview with Harriet Waley-Cohen

Who or what inspires you most?

I am inspired by people who are willing to keep going through thick and thin to make change happen – whether that’s for themselves, their families, for humanity or for the planet in general. I also find people who don’t give up easily inspiring, as well as people who aren’t afraid to stand out from the crowd and stand up for what they believe in, even if that might carry a personal cost to them. Malala Yousafzai is one example of someone who inspires me.

Do you have a favourite experience from your speaking career?

I was thrilled to be invited to speak at a fundraising event for The Orchid Trust  in June 2015, and I will always remember that night for several reasons. It was a very enjoyable evening, the audience were high engaged with the speakers and entertainers, a significant amount of money was raised to fund new projects and my talk on female sexuality and intimacy in relationships was extremely well received. Without a doubt, it was the time I’ve had the most fun on stage too!

What makes your keynotes and workshops unique?

I bring heart, passion, authenticity and my personal experience to every talk and workshop. I’m not afraid to show audiences who I am, what I’ve been through and draw on every aspect of my life experience and training to deliver points and learnings with maximum impact. Connecting with the audience is the number one way to make a lasting impact and an element of vulnerability to achieve that is essential.

In your opinion, what are the most important factors for mental wellbeing?

The greatest influencers on mental wellbeing range from our home surroundings, how satisfied we are with our career and relationships, to our physical health, which covers exercise and diet, and to our ability to make space for creative expression and spirituality.

Every person is different in terms of the key things that make them happy and fulfilled – for one person music might be essential and for another, getting out into nature frequently makes all the difference.

That said, the ability to take a step back from the minutiae of life, assess what is out of balance and then invest time in those areas that make us feel happy, is vital. Having an effective inner support circle is also extremely important.

Can you give three tips for individuals struggling with low self-esteem?

I’d suggest putting into place a plan of action that lifts self-esteem by showing yourself that you are a person of worth. Esteem grows with estimable actions. This might be to do with what you wear, how you feed yourself or some other way.

Second, find a way to be of service to others, so that you feel like a productive and valued member of society. Volunteer work can be wonderful here.

Thirdly, make a list every night of three positive things that happened that day that you played a part in making happen, and then list one thing you’d like to work on improving for the next day. This gives balance and over time, helps people to see that not only do positive things happen for them, they play a vital role in making them happen.

See keynotes with Harriet Waley-Cohen
Non-binding request for Harriet Waley-Cohen

Send a simple request. You’ll get a quick reply with fees and availability

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Harriet Waley-Cohen
Harriet Waley-Cohen

4.75 out of 5 stars

Harriet is an honest and genuine speaker who everyone in the room could relate to on some level - her own honesty has helped to break the stigma around mental well-being and has already inspired some positive change in our workplace. I would recommend Harriet to any organisation looking to promote emotional well-being, and to anyone looking for the tools to take a proactive approach to their own mental health.

Shannon Walsh - Goodman Masson See all references

Keynote topics with Harriet Waley-Cohen