Dima Ghawi: Leadership speaker

Quick Facts:

Highlights:
  • Founder of a global talent development company focused on leadership advancement.​
  • Two decades of experience leading global teams at Fortune 100 companies, including IBM, Merrill Lynch, and Intuit.​
  • Author of the award-winning memoir “Breaking Vases: Shattering Limitations & Daring to Thrive – A Middle Eastern Woman’s Story.”
  • Recipient of multiple awards, such as the 2023 American Advertising Federation Mosaic Champion Award and the 2022 International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge Award.​

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  • Travels from: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  • **Fee range: $10,001 - $20,000

Talent Services

Keynote Topics:

Inspired by her TEDx talk, Dima Ghawi’s story of personal transformation encourages audiences to confront and conquer internal limitations. As she recounts her own struggles and triumphs, her vulnerability and insight resonate with audiences, sparking a guiding light for attendees’ own journeys of self-discovery and leadership growth.

Dima dares individuals to examine at their own internal limitations, such as the pursuit of perfection and the fear of failure or judgment. She then equips audience members with the tools and courage it takes to shatter those limitations and emerge as empowered individuals.

Audiences will learn:

  • The importance of self-awareness and how effective personal leadership starts from within.
  • How conscious professionals lead to better teamwork, enhanced communication, and an improvement in overall organizational culture.
  • How internal limitations inhibit individuals from performing at their best and advancing professionally.

Key attendee takeaways:

  • Elevate employee engagement and team morale by encouraging risk-taking and increasing individual self-awareness.
  • Shattering internal limitations creates more confident and conscious leaders.
  • By increasing courage in organizations, creativity and innovation also increases, improving the bottom-line results.

Employees in healthy cultures thrive. These cultures are created and passed down, inherited by the next generation of employees. The strongest leaders know to focus on a long-term strategy with an emphasis on corporate culture health for future generations to sustain.

For decades Dima Ghawi worked with Fortune 20 corporations and diverse teams around the world. Through her work in 19 countries with IBM in Leadership Training and Development, she gained critical insights into leading across global teams. She recognized that bold leadership, employee engagement, and DEI were not only inextricably linked, but they were also important across cultures.

Her experience has given her deep insights in how to be an effective leader in the global age:

  1. START WITH TRUST TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS: Trust is the basis for nearly all healthy relationships, and getting it starts with giving it.
  2. HIGHLIGHT SIMILARITIES: It’s easy to focus on cultural differences, but leaders must understand their team and pay attention to universal similarities.
  3. BE ADAPTABLE: Leaders must be able to adapt quickly to their team’s cultures and find what they value.

Audiences will learn:

  • The wisest leaders recognize that corporate culture is learned and passed down to the next group of employees.
  • The strongest leaders prioritize healthy employer/employee connection, and healthy, connected cultures produce connected, engaged employees.
  • That inspired, courageous leadership involves assuming the responsibility of modeling and teaching healthy culture to create their organization’s next generation.

Key attendee takeaways:

  • Disconnected employees diminish productivity and innovation, and this disconnection can be a significant factor in their leaving an organization – or worse yet, staying.
  • Incorporating long-term strategies for the next generation of employees to adopt healthy culture is critical for sustained growth
  • Creating a shared confidence in the future and a culture of belonging, connection, and inclusion are key to employee engagement

In this keynote, Dima Ghawi shares findings gathered over decades of conducting hundreds of interviews and workplace surveys on how to create a welcoming and inclusive workforce. Dima’s real-life experiences with organizations around the world, as well as her unique and fascinating upbringing in the Middle East, bring to life for audiences the critical importance of diversity and inclusion.

Through powerful storytelling and personal narratives, she deconstructs conscious and unconscious biases, guiding attendees to address common workplace resistance to DEI. She teaches leaders that increasing inclusion creates a safe and healthy culture. More than picture-perfect diversity, this presentation shows audience members how to foster a sense of inclusion within their workspace.

Audiences will learn:

  • How to create a safe and inclusive workplace culture
  • The meaning of unconscious bias and its effect in the workplace
  • What diverse employees are looking for and how to integrate these needs into management styles

Key attendee takeaways:

  • The insight of a bottom-up approach, the influence of courageous office culture, and the power of affinity groups.
  • What diverse employees are looking for and receive actionable tips to create a courageous and integrative workplace culture.
  • How to create a more productive, engaging, and inclusive workplace for all.

In this keynote, Dima Ghawi guides attendees to acknowledge and appreciate what makes them different, demonstrating the advantages acquired when people embrace their individuality. Through humorous narratives and personal stories drawn from her experiences as a Middle Eastern woman in America, she reveals to participants the incalculable value gained in both professional and social environments when individuals challenge conformity. By the end of this presentation, Dima’s actionable tips and engaging examples leave audiences prepared to liberate, appreciate, and celebrate their inner misfit.

Audiences will learn:

  • How to encourage a mindset that appreciates one’s personal uniqueness.
  • How conformity stifles individuals and negatively impacts their mental well-being.
  • How to liberate one’s inner misfit and embrace that advantage in the social and professional environments.
  • Best practices for facilitating and embracing one’s individuality.
  • Actionable tips for creating a culture of belonging.
  • The practical and emotional benefits of letting one’s differences shine in all environments.

Attendee takeaways:

  • Best practices for facilitating and embracing one’s individuality.
  • Actionable tips for creating a culture of belonging.
  • The practical and emotional benefits of letting one’s differences shine in all environments.

In this keynote, Dima shares lessons derived from her experience globally training, developing, and engaging over 500 millennials for Fortune 100 companies.

She explores the keys to unlocking the millennial mind in order to better engage them in the workplace, give them the purpose they crave in their work, and inspire them to overachieve. Dima guides the audience members through a shift in perception that is essential in order to prepare companies for Gen Z.

By bridging the disconnect between generations, companies will be able to harness the creative and innovative talents of their employees while keeping them dedicated to the company’s mission.

Dima Ghawi is a Jordanian American award-winning author, leadership keynote speaker, and executive coach. She is the founder of a global talent development company dedicated to advancing individuals in leadership. Through her compelling storytelling and insightful presentations, Dima empowers professionals worldwide to shatter limitations and embrace their full potential.

Born in Ankara, Turkey, and raised in Amman, Jordan, Dima’s early life was shaped by the constraints of a conservative Middle Eastern culture. Determined to pursue education and personal growth, she immigrated to the United States at the age of 20. Dima earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from San Diego State University and later obtained an MBA from the University of San Diego. ​

Dima’s corporate career spans two decades, during which she led global teams and developed future leaders across the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. She has held significant roles at Fortune 100 companies, including IBM, Merrill Lynch, and Intuit. At IBM, Dima participated in a selective leadership development program, which included an international assignment in Japan. In 2013, she moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to serve as the talent development manager at IBM’s Technology Development Center. ​

In 2015, Dima transitioned from her corporate career to establish her own talent development company. As a three-time TEDx speaker, she is best known for her “Breaking Vases” presentation, inspired by her personal journey of overcoming cultural limitations. Her memoir, “Breaking Vases: Shattering Limitations & Daring to Thrive – A Middle Eastern Woman’s Story,” has received multiple accolades, including the Writer’s Digest 2018 Grand Prize Award.

Dima’s dedication to leadership development and diversity has been recognized with numerous awards, such as the 2014 President of the United States Bronze Volunteer Service Award, the 2023 American Advertising Federation Mosaic Champion Award, and the 2022 International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge Award. She has been featured in various publications for her professional and philanthropic work. ​

In summary, Dima Ghawi is a distinguished leadership keynote speaker and executive coach whose life story exemplifies resilience and transformation. Her work continues to inspire professionals globally to shatter limitations and pursue their highest potential.​

Hashtags: #Leadership #DiversityAndInclusion #KeynoteSpeaker #ExecutiveCoach #BreakingVases #Empowerment #ProfessionalDevelopment #WomenInBusiness #CourageousLeadership

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