Insights | March 7, 2025

So Your Corporate Event Wants An Inspiring A-List Speaker. Now What?

The idea of booking a world-class speaker to bring next-level inspiration to your corporate event can feel daunting. And that feeling is valid: after all, we’re talking about picking someone who’s helped shape our culture, our fandom, or even our world, and dropping them into your world, to speak directly to you, your coworkers, your clients and other special attendees. 

But deciding you want to invest in a big-name speaker is only the first step – it’s not the answer itself, in the same way that deciding to buy a Super Bowl commercial slot doesn’t mean you’re magically done making the commercial, too. 

Figuring out exactly which speaker to book is where the real work begins – and when you think about just how many inspiring speakers there are to choose from, from all walks of life and with all styles of expertise and experience, that work can soon prove to be as challenging as you might expect. (If you’re anything like us, it’s as exciting as you might expect, too.) 

Whether you’re feeling stuck in your speaker search or you’re just looking for a little inspiration, maybe it’s time to stop thinking only about specific individuals that might feel exciting, and instead to focus on the potential impact that might be transformative.

This might sound obvious, but there’s far more than one kind of inspiring talk. That’s a good thing, too, because there’s also far more than one kind of inspiration you might want to provide your audience. In fact, we find that when we can take the time to clearly align on the strategic impact we want a speaker to create, the ideas for specific options come into focus much more clearly.

So to get your wheels turning, we’ve laid out six common types of inspiration an event might call for – and example speakers who could bring the corresponding heat.

Ignited Passion

Is your company unveiling an enormous new initiative that will require massive buy-in to achieve? Or perhaps you’re in the middle of that big initiative and you want to ensure people keep feeling the fire. Maybe you could use a fiery locker room pep talk from a hall-of-fame coach like Nick Saban – or even a high-achieving athlete themselves, like in this goosebumps-giving example from Tom Brady. 

Emboldened Leadership

Does your company have a culture of professional growth, in which disciplines like leadership and effectiveness aren’t just talked about, but actively pursued? It’s no surprise that many organizations value hearing from thought leaders who have extensively researched how world-class businesses operate – or perhaps better yet, from those world-class business leaders themselves. Take, for example, the real estate mogul, investor and Shark Tank host, Barbara Corcoran, talking about six characteristics shared by every successful entrepreneur she knows.

Inspired Connection

Taking a different approach, does your company have a people-focused culture that differentiates itself by providing personal growth opportunities amidst professional contexts? Maybe you could use a talk designed to nourish the soul of each attendee, as well as your company at large. Perhaps an expert from the wellness world might be right for you – like former monk-turned-bestselling author and podcaster Jay Shetty reminding us about the importance of giving love.

Instilled Purpose

Is your company highly mission-forward? Sometimes getting to hear from external leaders who share lessons from their own inspiring missions can help remind attendees of the importance of their work. For instance, consider the potential impact of humanitarian and chef José Andrés talking about putting his talents to work feeding hundreds of millions during humanitarian crises – and how that might inspire your audience to bring reinstilled purpose to their own roles. 

Enhanced Wonder

Despite the truly important work of your company, do you think your audience might struggle with their day-to-day tasks feeling somewhat insignificant? In this case, maybe attendees could benefit from a little dose of scientific wonder to help recontextualize things. It might not seem obvious to look to the field of science for your big-name guest speaker, but you’d be amazed at how moving a description of the universe’s mysteries can be. Just listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson explain how scientifically miraculous it is that you are even alive today.

Embraced Laughter

Maybe it’s been a long year. Hey, maybe it’s just been a long event. To us, it’s never a bad choice to help people let their guards down and laugh together. After all, there’s something magical about laughter’s ability to disarm, refresh and connect us to each other. Seriously, imagine ending a long day of serious programming by watching Jim Gaffigan talk about something as silly as his wife’s relationship to their dog.

Of course, this list of categories isn’t exhaustive. There are certainly more flavors of inspirational talks – and beyond inspiration, there are even more ways to creatively integrate top-tier talent into your corporate event. As the nation’s leading talent buying agency for special events and meetings, we’ve helped strategize, identify, book and manage everyone from stadium-level headliners to thought-leader keynote speakers, world-class comedians and everything in between to help create lasting memories for event attendees.

But the first question should never be, “what’s the biggest name we can get?” Rather, in every case, the most helpful question you can ask yourself is, “what’s the biggest impact we can create?”