Speaking Engagements
Ready to ignite your audience and transform your organization?
Let’s Do Something Radical Together!
Why work with Melanie?
Melanie Vargas is the Founder and CEO of Radical Ignition. She brings over 30 years of C-level executive experience, with deep roots in startups and high-growth environments. Melanie has coached hundreds of executives and teams across six continents, partnering with organizations ranging from early-stage ventures to Fortune 50 companies.
She is a highly requested speaker on topics such as resilience, change, adaptability, leadership, and empowerment. Her perspective is shaped by decades of hands-on experience navigating uncertainty, scaling companies, and leading through complexity. Clients include leaders from Fresenius Medical Care, CVS Health, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Accenture, ServiceNow, Cedar, and Airtable.
Melanie works with leaders and organizations to meet the demands of modern leadership. Her approach combines real-world insight, practical strategies, and engaging facilitation to spark meaningful, lasting change.
Why Book Melanie?
- Tailored Insights: To meet the unique needs of your audience.
- Real-World Experience: Bring practical strategies backed by years of leadership coaching and organizational development.
- Engaging Delivery: Inspire action through relatable stories, humor, and actionable takeaways.
Let’s Create Impact Together
With experience speaking to a wide variety of audiences, Melanie brings the ability to connect meaningfully with diverse groups across industries and roles. From empowering women in technology and to delivering high-level insights to the C-Suite executives and Boards, her sessions resonate with audiences of all sizes and levels.
Melanie has delivered keynotes and workshops for:
- C-Suite Leaders, Founders, CEO, first time-CEOs, Investors or Boards seeking transformative leadership strategies.
- Conferences bringing actionable insights to large, diverse audiences.
- Colleges or Emerging Leaders developing the next generation of leaders.
- Teams and Organizations navigating change, building resilience, and fostering collaboration.
Her approach is dynamic and customized to ensure every audience gains the tools and inspiration they need to thrive.
to learn how Melanie can bring value to your next event.
Featured Speaking Topics
Leading with Confidence: Learn to Rise and Thrive: Break barriers, embrace strengths, lean into authentic leadership, and lead with purpose. This session inspires confidence and provides actionable strategies to succeed at every level of leadership.- Thriving Through Turbulence: Navigating Change and Transition: Change is inevitable, but thriving through it is a choice. Learn how to lead yourself and your teams with resilience and clarity during times of uncertainty and transformation.
- Fail Forward: How Failure Fuels Innovation and Leadership: Failure is a powerful teacher, and Melanie has learned from more than her share. While she’s been part of several successful liquidity events, she’s experienced even more failures along the way. In this candid session, shares five key leadership lessons forged in the fire of what didn’t work. These hard-earned insights have shaped how she builds strong leaders, teams, resilient cultures, and innovative organizations. This talk challenges the stigma around failure and reframes it as a critical driver of clarity, creativity, and long-term success.
- Radical Resilience: Resilience is more than bouncing back. It’s about bouncing forward and building an adaptable organization. This topic explores how to harness resilience to turn obstacles into opportunities and emerge stronger than ever.
- Glass Ceilings to Boardrooms: Empowering Women to Lead: This empowering session celebrates women’s leadership journeys, providing the tools and inspiration needed to break through ceilings and lead boldly in any environment. This keynote will challenge women in leadership to confront and overcome the inner critic and negative beliefs that often linger, no matter how high we rise. Through personal stories, actionable strategies, and a focus on authentic leadership, this session will empower you to navigate obstacles, lead with confidence, and inspire the next generation of women to rise and thrive. Together, we can redefine leadership for ourselves and others.
- Unleashing Your Leadership Potential: The Power of Emotional Agility: Emotional agility is the key to exceptional leadership. Discover how to navigate complex emotions, build stronger relationships, and make better decisions with confidence and composure.
- Building Influence to Drive Impact: Great leaders influence others not just through power but through trust, vision, and collaboration. Learn how to cultivate influence to inspire action and achieve lasting organizational success.
- Build a Sticky Organization™: It’s harder than ever to build a culture that attracts, engages, and retains top talent. In this session, Melanie shares key lessons and best practices from her decades of experience leading and advising organizations through growth and change. She explores what makes people want to stay and grow from purpose and psychological safety to leadership behaviors that drive ownership and belonging. Leaders will gain practical strategies to strengthen culture and build teams that stay connected, committed, and ready to lead.
- Balancing Ambition and Authenticity: The New Leadership Paradigm: Today’s leaders are redefining success by aligning ambition with authenticity. This session explores how to lead with integrity while achieving bold goals and fostering meaningful connections.
LET’S TALK ABOUT BUILDING A RADICAL SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT FOR YOU.
