Shadé Zahrai

Biography

Shadé Zahrai is a leadership ‘alchemist’ known for her superhuman ability to translate the latest in neuroscience and psychology research into practical and actionable strategies that drive mindset shifts and behavioural change in a systemic way.

She’s a dynamic speaker who skillfully blends a wealth of experience in corporate and consulting Fortune 500s around the world, with her approach as a scholar-practitioner and her PhD research in leadership and career performance.

She’s spent countless hours with hundreds of teams from startups to Fortune 500s, observing clear behavioural trends behind the happiest and most successful people. Now through her company, along with her PhD research in career performance, she is leveraging the latest insights in high performance and leadership into commercially sound strategies for people and companies to do their best work by putting emotional intelligence and ‘humanness’ at the core.

A former commercial lawyer that transitioned to a successful career in banking and strategy consulting, she has since become a bestselling author, Harvard-trained leadership coach, TEDx speaker and was recently recognised as Adweek’s Careers Creator of the Year has amassed a global community of over 2.1 million followers on social media. She’s been featured in Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk, Adweek, the New York Times & Yahoo Finance, and is a former member of the Forbes Coaches Council, contributing articles focussed on career development, leadership and high performance.

She runs Influenceo Global Inc., a leadership development, consulting & research firm, that works with Fortune 500s across the globe including McDonald's, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble & JP Morgan, empowering their teams to thrive during these turbulent times. Shadé is very in touch with the human side of the business and how to drive sustained performance, and she also has a passion for delivering programs for women in leadership to maximise confidence and supercharge success. She was the season one host of Commonwealth bank’s Leading Women podcast.

Shadé’s deep academic understanding of the art and science of peak performance blended with her commercial acumen, data-driven content and captivating storytelling, combines to make her an in-demand global speaker. Shadé’s keynotes are characterised by authenticity, practicality and creating lasting impact.

Shadé is also a 3x Australian champion Latin dancer, so salsa lessons are an added perk.

Previous Experience

Awards and Accolades: Recently named Adweek’s Careers Content Creator of the Year in the Creator Visionary Awards, a past member of the esteemed Forbes Coaches Council and a former contributor to Forbes.com. Shadé was named Mentor of the Year in the 2019 Women in Financial Services Awards, a finalist in the prestigious Telstra Women in Business Awards in 2019 and 2020, finalist in the Women in Finance Awards 2019, a Future Business Council Scholar and Future Leader Scholar in 2017 and 2018, and a Westpac Woman of Influence in 2016.