How to Go from Victim to Visionary
In this signature keynote, Chad will entertain, inspire, and move your audience, while teaching them how to shift their mindset from victim to visionaryTM. Going blind at 21-years-old and facing a life with seemingly limited opportunities, Chad had to reinvent himself before even having a shot at success. Turning obstacles into opportunities, he became a Harvard-educated rainmaker, created countless jobs, and now he teaches teams how to cultivate resilient mindsets, adapt and thrive in change, and set ambitious goals with the right mindset to achieve them.
This program gives your people the tools and inspiration to overcome difficult circumstances and create a promising positive future. More than just a motivational talk, this session connects inspiration to implementation.
Growth Through Adversity
Life without obstacles removes opportunity for growth. For any of us to grow, we need to step outside our comfort zones. In this powerful keynote, Chad teaches how the obstacles that lie in front of us can propel us towards our goals.
Every organization finds itself face-to-face with problems that can seem insurmountable. Beyond Chad’s personal path of overcoming overwhelming odds, his business track record for moving through challenges and improving results gives a unique perspective on how comfort zones hold us back.
Chad will talk about how he’s not successful in spite of being blind. He is successful because he’s blind. He embraced his problem and turned it into a solution. In this session Chad will teach your teams how to realize exponential growth through adversity.
The Engine for Innovation
Chad was born part of the mainstream majority, but after going blind in college, he was treated differently as a disabled minority. After living over 20 years in both social groups, his unique vantage points of both worlds allow him to equip your teams to think differently about Diversity and Inclusion (DnI) in the workplace.
Chad goes beyond just valuing each person. He will show how DnI drives business innovation. We know that diversity of thought creates change, and when harnessed correctly, change drives innovation. How can we create a culture that invites diversity of thought to have a welcomed seat at the table so each individual feels valued to contribute? This session shows how you can unlock the value of DnI in your workplace to power the innovation your business needs to thrive.
Resilience Workshop
In this workshop Chad will lead you through the steps you can take to improve resilience. He teaches the practical tools you can apply to any situation in order to move your mindset from victim to visionary.
During this session you will map out your resilience journey. After setting out your own personal vision of greatness, you will see your life more clearly than you ever have before. It can set you free to discover the amazing advantages that your disadvantages offer. You can then seek your own gifts that are disguised in terrible wrapping paper and see how the unique perspectives you’ve gained from those disadvantages contribute to your vision of greatness.
Nothing in life is permanent. Everybody and everything changes. The only certainty is change. The key is figuring out how you will adapt.
Chad Foster is a resilient leadership expert, motivational speaker, and author who teaches audiences how to go from victim to visionary. After losing his eyesight in college, he built a career as a Harvard-educated executive dealmaker, pioneering accessible CRM in tech and generating over a billion dollars in revenue.
His keynotes connect inspiration to implementation, giving leaders practical tools to thrive through disruption, expand comfort zones, and unlock innovation through diversity and inclusion. Chad’s lived experience and business record make him a powerful voice for transforming obstacles into opportunities and building teams that perform under pressure.
Chad Foster is a billion-dollar revenue generator, a visionary innovator in the tech world, and a job creator who redefines what it means to succeed. What sets him apart even more? He’s blind. Far from being a limitation, his loss of eyesight as a young adult transformed him into a powerful advocate for resilience and opportunity.
When Chad takes the stage, he inspires audiences by sharing his journey of turning adversity into strength. Through his groundbreaking achievements, including becoming the first blind executive to graduate from Harvard Business School’s leadership program and revolutionizing CRM software for the visually impaired, he proves that obstacles are merely opportunities in disguise.
Chad Foster’s story is one of determination, innovation, and unparalleled leadership. Losing his sight as a young adult was not the end of his dreams, it was the catalyst for his evolution. Refusing to succumb to limitations, Chad leveraged his tenacity and intellect to excel in a world often unaccommodating to those with disabilities. His resilience and forward-thinking approach allowed him to break barriers and inspire countless others.
Chad Foster’s academic credentials further amplify his authority. As the first blind executive to graduate from Harvard Business School’s leadership program, he demonstrated his ability to excel at the highest levels. His combination of academic excellence and real-world expertise positions him as a thought leader who speaks with authenticity and authority.
Audiences across the globe are captivated by Chad’s ability to connect on a deeply human level. His insights on overcoming challenges, fostering a growth mindset, and creating opportunities resonate with professionals, students, and organizations seeking inspiration. Whether he’s addressing Fortune 500 companies or nonprofit groups, Chad’s story transcends industries and demographics, delivering a message that inspires action and instills hope.
Chad Foster’s extraordinary journey from losing his eyesight to becoming a billion-dollar revenue generator, tech innovator, and Harvard Business School alum embodies the triumph of the human spirit. His ability to turn setbacks into stepping stones inspires audiences to redefine their own possibilities. With a message rooted in resilience, adaptability, and innovation, Chad leaves a profound and lasting impact wherever he speaks.
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A fast, high impact reel where Chad Foster shows how mindset, story, and comfort with discomfort ignite resilience, performance, and innovation in times of rapid change.
The reel opens on the problem: relentless change is driving anxiety, burnout, and talent loss, which hurts productivity and customer value. Chad’s answer is a mindset upgrade that helps people visualize their own greatness. Core cues from the clip include tell yourself the right stories, get comfortable with discomfort, and remember that courage is action despite fear.
After a brief stage intro, Chad explains that he lost his eyesight at 21 yet emerged happier and more successful by using specific tools that anyone can learn. He outlines the goal of moving from victim to visionary by looking inward, clarifying purpose, and choosing better narratives. Testimonials from major brands underscore impact and emotional resonance.
The reel closes with a call to define your vision of greatness, believe it, demand it, and pursue it with confidence and blind ambition.
00:00 The problem: pace of change, burnout, and lost productivity
00:12 Mindset cues: tell yourself the right stories, seek growth through discomfort
00:28 Onstage intro and theme: anatomy of resilience, tools that work in real life
00:44 Personal pivot: went blind at 21, emerged stronger with a repeatable toolkit
01:02 Victim to visionary: look inside, reframe, act with courage despite fear
01:20 Social proof montage: audience reactions and client testimonials
01:36 Closing call to action: define and pursue your vision with blind ambition
had Foster shares a true Stevie Wonder story, then shows how positive belief and “blind ambition” turn disadvantages into competitive advantage.
Chad recalls meeting Stevie Wonder at an accessibility convention in Los Angeles. Instead of asking for an autograph, he offers help optimizing Stevie’s computer setup, which leads to an invite to the studio and a surreal stop at Roscoe’s in Hollywood. The story underscores a key theme: you miss every shot you do not take. Confidence and willingness attract support.
He pivots to performance psychology. The most important driver is positive belief, even slightly unrealistic confidence. No one is world class without weaknesses. What separates top performers is their relationship to those weaknesses. Chad shares his own arc: after going blind, he never imagined attending Harvard Business School, yet he did and delivered the graduating speech. The lesson is to set goals higher than you think you can achieve because most of us are capable of far more than we credit ourselves for.
Ambition must be paired with the right self-talk and the habit of turning disadvantages into advantages. Success requires refusing to be denied, demanding greatness from yourself and those around you, and rejecting others’ limiting expectations. He closes with a call to define your vision of greatness, believe it, and demand it, then ties the message to sales execution: rev up product knowledge, customer success, and commissions with blind ambition.
00:00 LA accessibility convention, meets Stevie Wonder, offers tech help
00:35 Studio invite, Roscoe’s chicken and waffles, calling his wife
01:05 “Seeing eye people” joke and the confidence to take big shots
01:28 Willingness attracts support, why positive belief matters most
01:55 No one is world class without weaknesses, change your relationship to them
02:20 Personal arc: going blind, then Harvard Business School graduating speaker
03:00 Set goals higher than you think possible, take advantage of disadvantages
03:35 Refuse to be denied, reject others’ expectations and fear
04:05 Call to action: identify, believe, and demand your vision of greatness
04:35 Sales tie-in: rev up product knowledge, customer success, and commission
Chad Foster shows how mindset and self-taught coding turned accessibility roadblocks into enterprise solutions, defining what innovative leadership looks like.
Chad opens by acknowledging how hard change can be. After going blind, computers opened a new world, but not every app worked with his screen reader. Using that constraint as motivation, he taught himself to code and engineered bridges so the accessibility software could integrate with other applications. He stresses that adaptation is less about ability and more about willingness and determination. The integrations he built for himself and others are still used by thousands of blind users.
He raises a standard of leadership with a real case. A colleague at Accenture called about a customer whose blind employee was blocked by an incompatibility between a software system and the screen reader. Chad wrote a solution that allowed both programs to communicate. While a major vendor, Oracle, said it could not be done, he had already delivered it. He closes by defining innovative leadership as doing what you know you can achieve and leading people around you to do the same.
00:00 Change is hard; blindness leads to accessibility tech but apps do not always work
00:18 Teaches himself to code; engineers integrations between screen reader and applications
00:38 Growth mindset message; ability vs willingness and determination
00:55 Builds solutions used by thousands of blind users
01:07 Sets the bar: are you a leader or a follower
01:14 Accenture call about a blocked blind employee
01:28 Writes a bridge so the software and screen reader work together
01:47 Notes Oracle said it could not be done, but he had done it
02:10 Defines innovative leadership and invites the audience to adopt it
Yes. Programs are customized to your goals and audience level.
Both, with immediately usable tools.
Travels from Atlanta. Typical ranges are listed on the Speakers Inc profile.
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