KEYNOTES
Keynotes for Authentic Leadership, Belonging, and Moving Business Forward
Rhodes Perry delivers more than a keynote. Through powerful storytelling, practical insight, and engaging audience experiences, he challenges leaders to rethink how they show up, lead with greater authenticity, build trust, and create the conditions where people and organizations can thrive.
From cultivating cultures of belonging to developing the grounded presence needed to lead through uncertainty, Rhodes gives audiences ideas they can immediately put into practice. His signature keynotes blend deeply human stories with proven leadership practices to help people strengthen connection, navigate change, and turn insight into meaningful action.
Transformative Keynotes That Turn Belonging Into Action
Rhodes Perry brings embodied leadership, authenticity, and belonging to life through keynotes that help people lead differently long after the event ends.
Rhodes Perry brings audiences into the conversation from the moment he takes the stage. Drawing from his experience as an award-winning speaker, bestselling author, workplace culture strategist, and somatic coach, Rhodes combines compelling personal stories with ideas leaders can immediately connect to the challenges inside their own organizations. His keynotes explore the human forces behind organizational performance—authenticity, trust, belonging, presence, and the capacity to stay grounded when the path forward isn’t clear.
For organizations looking for more than an hour of inspiration, Rhodes gives audiences something they can carry back to work. Attendees leave with a deeper understanding of how their presence and everyday choices shape culture, practical approaches for strengthening connection and trust, and new ways to lead through change without simply powering through it. Whether your event focuses on leadership, culture, employee engagement, or organizational transformation, Rhodes creates an experience designed to spark reflection in the room and meaningful action long after the event ends.
KEYNOTE 1
Lead Embodied: Navigate the Unknown
Traditional leadership development must evolve. In an era defined by rapid technological disruption, cultural friction, and impending climate collapse, executives are consistently taught to double down on external strategies. But strategy alone is often just a survival tactic used to avoid the terrifying, necessary work of internal transformation. The cost of this status quo is devastating: chronic reactivity, silent executive burnout, and leadership teams acting as emotional sponges—absorbing their team’s stress while completely suppressing their own.
In his groundbreaking signature keynote, Lead Embodied, award winning author Rhodes Perry teaches audiences that the true catalyst for external change begins within. Moving far beyond traditional, intellectual “chalk-and-talk” lectures, Rhodes delivers a deeply moving, cinematic stage performance. He shares vulnerable, unarmored stories of his own personal and professional
evolution—from the halls of the White House to the profound embodied transformation learned during his gender transition—to demonstrate how being a trusted leader requires us to drop our defenses and lead from a place of deep embodied wisdom.
Audiences will not simply sit and listen; they will actively participate. Rhodes guides the entire room through a live, experiential somatic practice, teaching leaders how to regulate their nervous systems, shift their attention, and clear mental clutter in the moment. Sourced from his upcoming book, Leader Embodied: Taking Roads Less Traveled to Authentic Leadership (September 2026), alongside insights from his bestsellers Belonging at Work and Imagine Belonging, this high-impact address equips your leaders to move away from relying on obsolete strategies and towards embodied leadership.
The most vital takeaway your attendees will gain is a paradigm shift: leading with grounded presence is no longer an optional wellness goal—it is the foundational prerequisite for navigating the unknown, building deep relational trust, and executing sustainable organizational breakthroughs.
Key Takeaways
● The Illusion of Strategy. Discover why traditional leadership frameworks fail when they lack internal, somatic alignment, and how to identify your own survival conditioning under pressure.
● The 3-Part Embodied Framework. Learn a repeatable architecture—Imagine, Practice, Transform—to systematically move your leadership style from cognitive effort to tissue-level mastery.
● Live Somatic Regulation. Experience a live, in-the-room somatic conditioning practice (such as micro-centering and mutual connection) to instantly discharge workplace stress and find your center.
● Navigating Collective Grief. Gain practical tools to stop absorbing your team’s stress and collective anxiety as an emotional sponge, shifting instead to a state of grounded presence.
● Building a Culture of Trust. Understand how a leader’s physical posture and authentic vulnerability directly establish the psychological safety required to establish a high-trust team
capable of high-level performance.
● From Powering Through to Presence. Transition away from the unsustainable habit of “resiliently” forcing your way through barriers, moving toward an authentic leadership style rooted in fortitude, ease, and clarity.
Explore Having Rhodes Do a Keynote for Your Event
KEYNOTE 2
Imagine The Power of Belonging
Traditional approaches to workplace inclusion must evolve. In his signature keynote, Imagine the Power of Belonging, Rhodes Perry teaches audiences how to begin by imagining and then building an emotional outcome of belonging at work. This move upends the epidemic of workplace exclusion, which costs U.S. businesses $1.05 trillion annually due to employee disengagement, low productivity, and high turnover (Accenture). Even worse, most employers aren’t even accounting for these expenses.
Rhodes will show you how to embody essential inclusion skills any employee can practice, offering tips on establishing psychological safety and trust, the foundation for belonging at work. You’ll learn why businesses that build belonging cultures enjoy the most significant financial returns through the distinctive stories Rhodes shares from his extensive career as a globally recognized belonging culture thought leader, coupled with cutting-edge research and powerful insights sourced from his two bestselling books, Imagine Belonging and Belonging at Work, in this high-impact keynote address.
Rhodes’ powerful insights on creating the conditions for building belonging spaces at work and beyond are globally recognized as dynamic and impactful. His heartfelt storytelling ability means your attendees will remain engaged throughout his keynote – and implement the strategies offered long after his talk. Your outcome will be an audience prepared to lead inclusively and build cultures of belonging no matter their role.
Key Takeaways
Define Your Culture. Clarify the culture you want to create and learn how to translate it into everyday behaviors across your organization.
Strengthen Psychological Safety. Assess your own experience of trust and safety at work and understand how these foundations influence engagement, retention, and performance.
Build the Conditions for Belonging. Learn the four essential ingredients that create the conditions for people to experience genuine belonging at work.
Lead Through Action. Identify practical actions anyone can take to strengthen workplace culture and create more inclusive experiences for others.
Expand Inclusive Leadership. Strengthen the leadership skills and mindsets needed to model inclusive behaviors and build workforce capability.
Turn Vision Into Practice. Gain greater clarity about what it takes to move from a vision for belonging to meaningful, sustained organizational change.
Bridge Across Differences. Explore intercultural communication approaches that build understanding, connection, and trust across differences.
Continue the Journey. Access complimentary resources and community through the Belonging Movement to keep learning, practicing, and growing.
Looking for a Keynote Tailored to Your Organization? Let’s Chat!
Beyond the Keynote
Extend the Conversation. Deepen the Impact.
Rhodes Perry’s work doesn’t have to end when the keynote does. Organizations can create a more immersive experience through panel discussions, facilitated retreats, workshops, and breakout sessions designed to turn powerful ideas into practical skills and meaningful action.
Whether you’re planning a leadership retreat, adding an interactive session to your conference, or bringing together thought leaders for an important conversation, Rhodes can customize the experience around your audience, organizational goals, and vision for building a stronger culture of belonging.
Panel Discussions & Moderation
Bring greater depth and perspective to conversations about belonging, leadership, workplace culture, and organizational change. Rhodes is available both as an experienced panel moderator and as a thought-provoking panelist, helping create engaging conversations that challenge assumptions, invite new perspectives, and give audiences something meaningful to take with them.
Leadership & Team Retreats
Turn time away from the day-to-day into an opportunity for greater clarity, connection, and alignment. Rhodes facilitates customized retreats for executive teams, people and culture leaders, and workplace teams designed to strengthen relationships and align purpose, values, team agreements, and organizational culture. From strategic planning to leadership development, each experience is built around the needs and goals of your organization.
Workshops & Breakout Sessions
Take the learning deeper with interactive workshops and breakout sessions that build upon Rhodes’s keynote themes or stand on their own. Available virtually or in person—from focused conference breakouts to executive workshops and multi-day learning experiences—these sessions help leaders develop the practical skills to stay steady under pressure, navigate uncertainty and disruption, make values-aligned decisions, communicate with authentic impact, strengthen team safety and trust, and lead with greater purpose and resilience.
What Leaders Are Saying
Hear directly from leaders who have partnered with Rhodes to create stronger teams, healthier workplace cultures,
and lasting organizational change.
“Rhodes’ keynote empowered attendees to move from covering and conformity to curiosity and courage. His message challenged us to ask the hard questions about belonging and gave us practical guidance for leading more inclusively. The impact was obvious—the chat was nonstop with attendees sharing what resonated.”
~ Jelisa Dallas, M.S. Ed., Faith & Belonging Thought Leader, Consultant & Author
“Rhodes was one of the highest-rated keynotes we’ve hosted. His engaging, inclusive approach and practical guidance on embodied leadership, authenticity, inclusion, and workplace belonging brought new understanding to our members and framed our conference in a truly meaningful way.”
~ Amy Roth, Event Director, Association of Oregon Recyclers
“Rhodes’ story, expertise, and compassion are transformative. He helps people see beyond group differences while giving organizations the thought partnership they need to build enduring cultures of trust, learning, and connection. He brings genuine care and an indefatigable drive for meaningful impact.”
~ Paul Gimenez, Former VP, People & Culture, Guitar Center