Speaking Engagements
Keynotes & Talks That Build Trust, Momentum, and Meaningful Engagement
Our speaking engagements are designed for leaders, teams, and communities navigating growth, change, skepticism, and an increasingly noisy, automated world. Led by NEWaukee CEO and co-founder Angela Damiani, these talks blend real-world experience, strategic frameworks, and human-first thinking to help audiences move from insight to action.
Whether you’re hosting a conference, leadership retreat, internal summit, or community gathering, our sessions are built to challenge assumptions, spark clarity, and leave people with language, tools, and momentum they can actually use.
Featured Speaking Sessions
From Curious to Committed: How to Build Audiences Who Care
Connection is no longer optional — it’s the foundation of growth.
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In today’s crowded attention economy, connection isn’t a nice-to-have - it’s the foundation of sustainable influence, growth, and impact. In this keynote, CEO and founder Angela Damiani shares the proven four-step engagement framework that helps organizations of all kinds - from brands and nonprofits to HR leaders and employee-centric companies - build authentic relationships that drive action, loyalty, and long-term value.
Drawing on more than 15 years of experience helping organizations unlock meaningful engagement, Angela unpacks how to:
Move beyond transactional interactions to create empowered and connected communities
Apply a repeatable formula based on Empowerment, Connection, Mechanisms for Change, and Consistency
Think strategically about owned audiences and why audience data matters more than ever
Set meaningful KPIs that measure relationship strength (not just vanity metrics)
Leverage modern tools - including AI - without losing the human touch
Whether you’re looking to deepen customer loyalty, strengthen internal culture, or activate community advocacy, this keynote gives leaders actionable insights and a strategic roadmap for connecting more deeply with the people who matter most.
Appropriate For:
Marketing, brand, and communications leaders
Founders and executive leadership teams
HR, People Ops, and employer branding teams
Community, membership, and nonprofit leaders
Civic, public-sector, and economic development organizations
The Joy Advantage: Designing Human Experiences that Build Trust, Loyalty & Lasting Engagement
Joy isn’t fluff. It’s a strategic advantage.
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In a world overloaded with content, automation, and noise, joy may be the most strategic asset an organization can cultivate. In this talk, NEWaukee CEO Angela Damiani reframes joy not as something nice-to-have, but as a designer’s lens, an engagement strategy, and a trust-building engine — one that breaks through saturated feeds and superficial interactions to create experiences people feel in their bodies and remember in their lives.
Drawing on NEWaukee’s declaration of 2026 as the Year of Joy, Angela explores why joy matters now, how it creates space for connection and trust, and how leaders can intentionally embed joyful design into their brand, culture, and community moments.
Attendees will walk away with a practical playbook for:
Recognizing joy as a strategic metric (not just a mood) that drives real behavioral outcomes like advocacy and loyalty.
Designing moments that spark joy, deepen belonging, and make people feel seen and welcomed.
Leveraging human-first experiences to cut through generic AI content and digital noise.
Linking joy to measurable trust outcomes via frameworks like the Brand Trust Quotient.
This talk blends story, strategy, and actionable thinking, equipping leaders with tools to anchor their organizations in human experience — not just algorithms — so they can engage audiences in ways that feel real, memorable, and undeniably joyful.
Appropriate For:
Brand, marketing, and experience leaders
Customer experience and loyalty teams
HR, People Ops, and culture builders
Community and civic engagement professionals
Nonprofit and association leaders
Innovation, design, and strategy executives
Trust is the New Differentiator: How Brands Win in an Era of Skepticism
Visibility gets attention. Trust earns loyalty.
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In today’s landscape of fragmented attention and AI-generated content, brand trust — not awareness, not performance alone — is the advantage that separates fleeting recognition from long-term loyalty and advocacy. In this keynote, NEWaukee CEO Angela Damiani reframes trust as the most strategic brand asset of our time: a measurable, actionable force that drives connection, resilience, and real business outcomes.
Attendees will explore why the brands that win tomorrow are the ones investing as much in belief as they do in visibility, and how leaders can design experiences that earn trust one moment — and one relationship — at a time. You’ll gain a practical framework for anchoring your brand in human truth (not hype), so it can stand out — and stay remembered — in a world overloaded with noise and sameness.
In this talk, Angela unpacks how to:
Navigate the shift from performance first to trust first brand strategy
Build authentic human connection in an AI-saturated ecosystem
Design experiences and communications that reinforce promise + delivery consistently
Deepen trust to fuel loyalty, advocacy, and resilience through change
Measure brand trust as a strategic business metric with real impact
This session combines story, strategy, and practical tools to help leaders everywhere turn trust from a buzzword into a differentiator with measurable value in their organizations.
Appropriate For:
Marketing, brand, and communications leaders
Customer experience and loyalty teams
Executive leadership and board strategy groups
HR & internal engagement professionals (employer brand + culture)
Nonprofit, civic, and community engagement leaders
Uncompromising Momentum Forward: Embracing Change — Always & All Ways
Change is inevitable. Stalling is not.
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Change is inevitable — but paralysis is optional.
In Uncompromising Momentum Forward, Angela Damiani, CEO of NEWaukee and serial entrepreneur, shares a candid look at her personal and professional journey navigating constant change — from building and rebuilding companies, to leading through uncertainty, growth, burnout, reinvention, and moments where the path forward was anything but clear.
Rather than treating change as something to manage or minimize, Angela challenges audiences to reframe it as something to move with — intentionally, honestly, and without apology. This keynote isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending uncertainty doesn’t exist. It’s about building the internal and organizational muscle to keep moving forward even when conditions are unstable.
Through real stories, practical frameworks, and grounded reflection, Angela explores how individuals and teams can:
Reframe fear, uncertainty, and disruption as signals — not stop signs
Take ownership of what can be controlled while releasing what cannot
Maintain momentum without burning out or losing trust
Lead themselves (and others) through ambiguity with clarity and conviction
Create forward motion even when the next step isn’t fully visible
Attendees leave with actionable tools, mindset shifts, and language they can immediately apply — whether they’re navigating organizational change, personal transition, market volatility, or leadership fatigue.
At its core, this talk is a reminder that momentum doesn’t come from certainty — it comes from choice. The choice to keep going. The choice to adapt. The choice to move forward without compromising your values, your people, or yourself.
Appropriate For:
Founders & entrepreneurs
Executive leadership teams
HR, people ops & culture leaders
Community builders & nonprofit leaders
Organizations navigating growth, restructuring, or change initiatives
About your facilitator, Angela Damiani:
Angela Damiani is the CEO and co-founder of NEWaukee, an experience design firm based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A visionary leader and community builder, Angela has dedicated her career to reimagining how people connect — to brands, workplaces, and each other.
She is a serial entrepreneur and the lead curator of the Midwest Founders Community, where she supports collaboration and mentorship among entrepreneurs across the region. Under her leadership, NEWaukee has become a nationally recognized organization, known for transforming public spaces, activating communities, and driving economic development through human-centered experiences.
Angela is a sought-after keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator. She is a TEDx speaker, frequent podcast guest, and host of NEWaukee’s Making New Possible podcast. Her work consistently bridges strategy, creativity, and civic impact — grounded in the belief that progress starts by asking, “But what if we could?”
Booking & Inquiries
Angela Damiani is available for keynotes, panels, workshops, and moderated conversations for conferences, corporate events, leadership retreats, and community gatherings.
To inquire about availability, formats, or customization, please contact us.
Let’s make connection, trust, and momentum possible — together.