Your audience already knows how to survive.
Help them understand who they are now.
Most keynotes give people a framework for getting through hard things.
Amanda's talks give them language for what comes after — the identity
shift, the confidence gap, the disorienting work of becoming someone
new on the other side of change.
Grounded in organizational psychology and shaped by lived experience.
Audiences leave having named something they've been carrying without
language for.
About Amanda
The research and the reality — in the same room.
Amanda Lentz is a keynote speaker and podcast host whose work sits at the intersection of organizational psychology, adult learning, and the lived experience of navigating change.
She holds an M.S. in Organizational Psychology, an M.Ed in Training & Development from NC State, and an MBA — and spent nearly a decade as an HR Business Partner at Biogen and CSL, helping organizations support their people through disruption, transition, and growth.
Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 34. And she discovered exactly what was missing from every framework she'd ever learned: what actually happens to a person's identity, confidence, and sense of self after the hardest thing. That's not a clinical problem. It's a human one.
Her talks bring the science and the story into the same room — and give audiences language for the experience they've been living but couldn't quite name.
Full bio & background →What makes these talks different
Who Amanda speaks to
Right for your event if your audience includes…
Amanda's talks work across multiple markets — because change, identity, and resilience are not condition-specific. If your audience has been through something that changed them, this is the right room.
Signature talks
Five talks. One through line.
Each talk is a different entry point into the same territory — what happens to people when change rewrites everything, and what it actually takes to become someone new on the other side.
Most change management keynotes give people a framework. This one gives them language
for what the framework misses — the identity disruption, the confidence gap, and the
psychological reality of what it takes to not just survive organizational change,
but become someone capable of leading through it.
Drawing on organizational psychology research and the lived experience of navigating
major change mid-career, this talk helps leaders understand what their people are
actually going through — and gives everyone in the room language to name it.
- A framework for understanding the identity disruption that happens during organizational change — not just the process disruption
- Language to normalize the disorientation their teams are experiencing
- Practical tools for supporting people through the in-between, not just the transition
What do you do when your crisis doesn't fit the available category — when you're
too young or too old, too sick or not sick enough, always somewhere in between?
This talk is for the person building a framework for territory that had no name.
Everyone celebrates the all clear. Nobody prepares you for what comes next. When
the calendar empties and the casseroles stop coming, you're left standing in a
life that's supposed to feel like normal — except it doesn't. This is the talk
every survivor needed and nobody gave them.
- A name for the experience of living in the in-between — and relief that they're not alone in it
- A reframe of "the all clear" that reduces the isolation and confusion of survivorship
- A framework for rebuilding identity when the version of yourself that existed before no longer fits
You can be grateful and grieving at the same time. This talk refuses the clean
recovery arc and makes space for both. The world already knows how to hold the
gratitude side of your story. This talk is for the part that doesn't fit the
narrative — the grief, the loss, the anger that sits right alongside the relief.
For anyone who has ever felt the pressure to perform resilience rather than live it.
- Relief that the complexity of what they're feeling is not a failure of gratitude
- Tools for holding grief and gratitude simultaneously without minimizing either
- A framework they can bring back to their teams, families, and communities
After restructuring, a pandemic, layoffs, or collective disruption, teams carry
invisible weight that affects everything — performance, trust, collaboration,
and the simple ability to show up. This talk gives leaders the language and
framework to understand what their people are actually navigating, and what
organizations can do about it.
Grounded in organizational psychology and the real experience of supporting
people through change inside major organizations.
- Language for the psychological reality of what teams carry after collective disruption
- A framework for building cultures that hold human complexity alongside performance
- Practical approaches for managers supporting people through the in-between
Treatment changes your body in ways the medical team prepares you for — and ways they don't. This talk addresses the identity work that happens after: rebuilding a relationship with a body that changed without your permission, and reclaiming the internal authority to say "I know what I need."
- Language for the specific grief of losing the body you had — distinct from grief over health or mortality
- A framework for rebuilding body identity that doesn't require acceptance before they're ready
- Concrete language they can use with providers, partners, and themselves
Engagement formats
How we can work together.
Every engagement is tailored to your audience and event goals. Amanda works with your team in advance to ensure the content lands.
Ready to book
Let's talk about what your audience needs.
Amanda is currently booking keynotes and live podcast events for 2026. Speaking inquiries are responded to within 48 business hours. Fees vary based on event format, travel, and organization type.
— Amanda Lentz