Drawing from 20+ years across campaigns, nonprofits, and consulting, Meredith shares how to hire and retain top talent, build equitable cultures, and lead with emotional intelligence in high-stakes environments. This talk equips leaders with practical tools for hiring, managing, and keeping talented staff. It also names what’s often unspoken: how to tell when a role has run its course and it’s time to grow or move on. It also offers strategies to help teams stay nimble, creative, and grounded in their strengths, while navigating the emotional complexity of mission-driven work. Leaders will gain practices to stay centered, hear their own intuition, and create space for their teams to process feelings while remaining focused and effective.

What happens when leaders get sick, overwhelmed, or heartbroken—but still have to show up? In this talk, Meredith shares personal stories of navigating grief, a concussion, Covid, career transitions, and more—while still building teams, leading high-stakes work, and sustaining impact. She speaks to the pressure leaders feel to always appear strong, steady, and unfazed—even when life hits hard. Through honest reflection and practical guidance, Meredith helps leaders give themselves permission to not have it all together, to honor their own needs and limits, and to use vulnerability as a strength. Participants will learn how to lead with honesty, build teams that can thrive even when the leader is down, and cultivate resilience that’s real—not performative.

For the first time publicly, Meredith shares her experience sparking a leadership shake-up at the Southern Poverty Law Center—unseating entrenched leadership and challenging a decades-long culture of harassment and discrimination. Drawing from this and other efforts to shift culture in progressive spaces, she offers honest reflections and practical lessons on transparency, accountability, and the limits of “forever leaders.” This session explores how to build values-aligned, emotionally honest, and resilient teams ready to meet the moment.

For those eager to meet this moment and do more to effect change, this talk supports emerging changemakers in exploring their values, identifying their unique contribution to social justice movements, and embracing non-linear career paths. It also affirms those contributing outside their day job, with guidance for meaningful volunteerism and community engagement. Ideal for colleges and universities, civic leadership programs, community organizations and professional associations.