Mariana Atencio
Journalist; Author Keynotes – Workshops – Moderating/Hosting
Why Book Mariana Atencio
- BUILD TRUST AT CRITICAL MOMENTS: As a journalist, Mariana learned to create trust quickly with world and business leaders. She also led her team into the unknown to cover hurricanes, earthquakes and conflict. Mariana shares real-world skills that everyone can use every day.
- INCREASE SELF, TEAM, AND ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST: Mariana’s signature Architecture of Trust is a force multiplier. It closes the trust gap so decisions, collaboration, and execution all improve.
- COMMUNICATE WITH GREATER IMPACT: Mariana helps leaders move forward in unpredictable times with confidence and communicate with clarity, authority, and authenticity.
- TURN AUTHENTICITY INTO A BUSINESS ASSET: People learn to identify what makes them different and turn it into an advantage.
- INTERACTIVITY CREATES CONNECTION: Mariana’s energy captivates people. She compels the audience to engage with her and each other, making her learnings personal so they stick.
- BEYOND KEYNOTES – AN UNFLAPPABLE MODERATOR & HOST: Mariana spent 15 years as an award-winning television news reporter and anchor. Her energy, poise, and intelligence elevate any event to new levels.
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From her earliest days, Mariana Atencio was drawn to people and stories. Combining them into a career in journalism was a natural fit. It was there Mariana honed an essential skill for her work – the ability to build trust and connection on purpose. That work gave Mariana a window to study human nature and organizations that led her to become an expert on trust.
The journey there wasn’t so simple. It began when she was mugged on a mountain trail in her native Caracas, Venezuela. As she knelt with a gun pressed to her forehead, she realized Caracas was a deteriorating place and she decided to pursue journalism in America.
Mariana knew America from spending summers there with her younger sister. Years later she spoke on the TEDx stage about those trips and the feeling of being an outsider struggling to adjust to a new country. That TEDx talk, “What Makes You Special,” catapulted Mariana onto the global stage and has been viewed more than 25 million times. It established her as a global authority on the power of authenticity as a trust multiplier.
A scholarship to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism School paved the way for Mariana’s 15-year career. She went on to become a hard-working news anchor for Univision and a national correspondent for NBC News, also filing for ABC. Her reporting has been honored with a Peabody Award, a Gracie Award, and three national Emmy nominations.
Mariana reported from environments where the stakes were high and lives were upended – anything from Cat 5 hurricanes to international conflict zones. “I would engage people at one of the worst times of their lives, and I needed to build trust fast so they understood I was trying to bring their story and an understanding of their situation to the viewers,” she said.
Mariana also interviewed top leaders from politics, culture, sports, and business – from Pope Francis and the King of Spain to icons like Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. Mariana translated their lessons into practical, leadership-ready frameworks. Today, she brings those tools to organizations and leadership teams, helping them close the Trust Gap so decisions move faster, collaboration strengthens, and execution becomes more consistent especially during periods of change.
The success of Mariana’s TEDx talk led her to expand her message in her bestselling book Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real, showing why “being real” is not a soft skill but the secret weapon in a world saturated with noise and AI-generated content.
Since leaving network news, Mariana has become a sought-after speaker on leadership, organizational culture, trust, and executive communication – as well as a host and moderator for high-profile gatherings, where she is known for guiding leaders in deep and candid conversations that deliver real insight. She is also the creator of The Trust Advantage newsletter.
Mariana is a frequent on-air analyst across major news networks, a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and serves on the board of the future Smithsonian American Latino Museum in Washington, D.C.
Speech Descriptions
Real Matters: Building Trust at Eye Level
Everyone now has the same AI, the same data, the same tools. What separates you is whether people trust you – and trust is the one thing that cannot be faked. It builds higher-performing teams, more sales, and more revenue.
Peabody Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Mariana Atencio had to earn it when the stakes were highest – from interviewing world leaders making impossible decisions, Pope Francis to the King of Spain, to the teams she led into hurricanes and earthquakes. That is the ask now, at every level: lead people into the unknown without having all the answers.
Mariana delivers her Architecture of Trust: three layers, built in sequence – Self-Trust, Team Trust, and Organizational Trust – grounded in two decades of reporting and ongoing research with her global community of 1.7 million.
Then the audience proves it. Mariana leads a sixty-second exercise built on NYU neuroscience. It becomes the moment they talk about for the rest of the event, and a practice that changes how they show up in any room.
Real trust is built at eye level. Through strategic storytelling, humor, and live interaction, participants leave ready to build trust with colleagues, stakeholders, and customers. Because when organizations are real, they thrive.
Mariana unpacks how trust strengthens team resilience, drives innovation, and builds credibility both inside and outside the organization. Through strategic storytelling and powerful interactive exercises, Mariana delivers practical insights leaders can apply immediately: how to develop trust with those they lead, build authentic brands, and create workplaces where people want to bring their best every day – because when organizations are real, they thrive.
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Key Takeaways:
- Understand trust as the most valuable currency in the age of AI.
- Build self-trust on evidence you can point to, not a pep talk.
- Earn others’ trust in 60 seconds – at eye level, not in your inbox.
- Make your purpose visible, so people believe in what you’re building.
- Convert trust into faster decisions, shorter sales cycles, and people who stay.
- Practice it live in an exercise the whole room does together.
Audience: Leadership and business audiences – executive teams, leadership summits, all-hands and all-company meetings, sales kickoffs, and leadership development or high-potential programs. Strongest in technology, financial services, professional services, and any organization operating under pressure, change, or public scrutiny. Built for everyone carrying responsibility, not only the people with “leader” in the title.
Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real
Everywhere we look, we feel pressured to perform, conform, and be perfect. In the workplace – especially in times of change – that pressure shows up as overthinking, burnout, and a fear of being judged. But when people choose to show up as they are, they communicate more clearly, build stronger relationships, and work with greater confidence. For organizations, that brings increased engagement, performance, and retention.
Drawing from her viral TEDx talk “What Makes YOU Special?” (seen over 25 million times and translated into 13 languages) and her bestselling book Perfectly You, Peabody Award-winning journalist and executive communication coach Mariana Atencio shares her journey from chasing perfection to using her differences as an advantage.
In this presentation, Mariana’s signature energy, storytelling, and interactive approach give audiences practical tools to drop the armor and bring more of their real voice into how they work and live.
At the center of this keynote is Mariana’s four-step Authenticity Framework: [Your Uniqueness + Vulnerability + Purpose] × Network = Your Authentic Influence.
Audiences leave energized, connected, and ready to stand out, navigate change, and contribute – not by trying to be perfect, but by having the courage to be real.
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Key Takeaways:
- Replace the pressure to be perfect with the confidence to be real.
- Learn and apply the four-step Authentic Influence Framework: [Uniqueness + Vulnerability + Purpose] × Network.
- Mariana’s signature “Perfectly You” card exercise helps people identify what makes them different and turn it into their greatest advantage.
- Learn the one prompt that strengthens your network on the spot.
- Three moments of interactive, full-room connection that will completely change the way you show up in your personal and professional life.
Audience: Company-wide and community audiences – annual employee gatherings, associations and industry conferences, Women’s events, and Latino, cultural, and community groups. A strong keynote for recognition and award ceremonies, and for teams moving through change, restructuring, and rapid growth.
Moderating – Interviewing – Hosting
Mariana has been moderator, interviewer, and host at high-stakes events for companies and organizations all over the world. In fact, she is a fixture at some events that wouldn’t think of having the event without her.
More than just an onstage presence, Mariana brings her journalism skills to every assignment. She acts as an editorial partner, helping shape the throughline of a program; developing questions that match the moment and navigating complex topics with clarity. From geopolitics and technology to finance, media, and culture, Mariana works seamlessly with the production team to ensure technical execution is as polished as the content. She brings structure without stiffness and energy without chaos, so momentum stays high across multi-session and multi-day programs.
Mariana has interviewed and shared the stage with world leaders, cultural icons, and business executives, including Pope Francis, King Felipe VI (Spain), Michael Bloomberg, Bill Ackman, Arianna Huffington, Tyler Perry, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams. She has a reputation for putting guests at ease and getting surprising and valuable takeaways that resonate with audiences beyond the event.
POST-KEYNOTE BREAKOUT AND WORKSHOP OPTIONS
Stand Out: Communicating with Authority
Media training used to be reserved for the corner office. Now the people asked to present on Zoom, record a message, or post on LinkedIn are expected to do it well – and no one ever taught them how.
This hands-on training is led by Mariana Atencio, Peabody Award-winning journalist, three-time TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and executive communication coach, whose digital community reaches 1.7 million people.
Mariana teaches this method year-round in monthly executive cohorts, and more than 7,000 professionals have completed the program. Graduates have gone on to earn promotions and deliver their first talks on stage. They post on LinkedIn without second-guessing, introduce themselves with confidence at networking events, and lead virtual meetings with ease.
In this session, attendees practice in real time, receive direct feedback, and leave with skills they can use immediately. When an organization needs specific messaging, Mariana tailors the session to help leaders craft it and develop a communication plan the team can execute.
Key Takeaways:
- Practice power introductions that establish authority in the first thirty seconds.
- Apply the VIP Framework – Verdict, Impact, Proof – to craft messages that stick and land the first time.
- Cut any message to its essentials when you have ninety seconds and one shot.
- Develop an executive-ready presence on camera and in the room.
- Shoot, cut, and post professional-quality video from your phone – for the moment that cannot wait.
Audience: Leaders and teams asked to present to boards, go on camera, and communicate to a multi-generational audience – from technical experts and back-office teams to the C-suite.
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Lead Anyway: When the Path Isn’t Clear and Certainty Isn’t Coming
You cannot lead others through what you have not yet built in yourself.
For established leaders or newly minted ones, the qualities they relied on to succeed won’t necessarily help them lead others through uncertainty, make difficult decisions, and create meaningful impact.
In this fully interactive breakout, Peabody Award-winning journalist, author, and trust-builder Mariana Atencio helps leaders move from reflection to action through three connected practices: Experience, Embody, and Expand.
First, participants take stock of the evidence they already carry. Next, they identify where they have been surrendering their agency, and practice taking action on the decisions, conversations, and changes within their control. Finally, they work to replicate that change in those they lead, recognizing that what a leader models becomes what a team repeats. Rolling out that distinctive leadership approach can become an organization’s competitive edge.
Designed as a standalone experience or as a deeper continuation of “Real Matters: Building Trust at Eye Level,” this highly interactive session transforms leadership insight into deliberate, hands-on practice.
Key Takeaways:
- Leaders identify everything they have built, held, and lived through – then access that versus doubting themselves under pressure.
- Attendees learn to stop focusing on what they can’t control and focus only on what they can control.
- Participants learn how to deliberately transfer this mindset to those they lead, and this new mindset becomes a cultural competitive advantage.
- Experience three hands-on practices that transform leadership insight into immediate action.
Audience: Leadership teams, ERGs, high-potential cohorts, and emerging or senior leaders navigating change, uncertainty, or a critical inflection point.
All keynotes and workshops available in English and Spanish.
Speaker Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Mariana Atencio is a Peabody Award-winning journalist, bestselling author, media entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and event host and moderator. A former NBC News and Univision journalist, she has spent her career learning how trust is built when the stakes are high—from interviewing world and business leaders to reporting from hurricanes, earthquakes, and conflict zones.
Today, Mariana brings those lessons to organizations and leadership teams, helping people build trust, communicate with greater impact, lead through uncertainty, and turn authenticity into an advantage. Her viral TEDx talk, “What Makes YOU Special?”, has more than 25 million views and has been translated into 13 languages.
Mariana speaks about trust, leadership, communication, resilience, authenticity, team alignment, and leading through change and uncertainty.
Her work explores a timely question: How do we build real trust in ourselves, our teams, and our organizations in a world increasingly shaped by AI, disruption, and uncertainty?
Drawing on nearly two decades of journalism, Mariana combines original frameworks, real-world stories, research, humor, and audience interaction to give people practical ways to strengthen trust and human connection.
Mariana’s current keynote programs include:
Real Matters: Building Trust at Eye Level
Mariana’s signature trust keynote explores why trust has become one of the most valuable currencies in the age of AI and how leaders can deliberately build it. She introduces her Architecture of Trust—three layers built in sequence: Self-Trust, Team Trust, and Organizational Trust—and brings the framework to life through strategic storytelling and highly interactive audience experiences.
At the heart of the keynote is a simple idea: Real trust is built at eye level. Audiences leave with practical ways to build trust in themselves, strengthen connection and performance across teams, and make their purpose visible to the people they lead and serve.
Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real
Drawing from Mariana’s viral TEDx talk and bestselling book Perfectly You, this keynote helps people replace the pressure to be perfect with the confidence to be real. Mariana introduces her Authentic Influence Framework—[Uniqueness + Vulnerability + Purpose] × Network—and helps audiences identify what makes them different and turn it into an advantage.
Both programs are highly interactive and can be tailored to the audience and event.
Mariana combines the credibility and preparation of an award-winning journalist with the energy, warmth, and audience connection of a gifted storyteller.
Her journalism career taught her how to build trust quickly, listen closely, communicate clearly, and lead when the stakes are high. Today, she translates those experiences into practical frameworks audiences can use immediately.
Mariana doesn’t simply speak at a room. Her keynotes invite audiences to participate, reflect, connect with one another, and experience the ideas themselves—helping the lessons stay with them long after the event.
Mariana works with leadership and business audiences, executive teams, company-wide gatherings, associations, sales organizations, technology and financial services companies, professional services organizations, women’s leadership programs, Latino and cultural communities, and teams navigating significant change.
Her programs are especially relevant for leadership summits, all-hands and company meetings, sales kickoffs, association and industry conferences, leadership development programs, employee gatherings, recognition events, and organizations operating under pressure, disruption, or rapid change.
Audiences can expect strategic storytelling, humor, meaningful reflection, live interaction, and practical ideas they can immediately apply.
In Real Matters, Mariana takes audiences through the three layers of her Architecture of Trust—Self-Trust, Team Trust, and Organizational Trust—and invites them to experience trust rather than simply hear about it. One signature exercise asks participants to connect at eye level for 60 seconds, turning an abstract idea about human connection into something the entire room can feel.
The result is a keynote designed to leave audiences energized, connected, and equipped with concrete ways to build trust when it matters most.
Yes. Mariana invests significant time in understanding an organization’s audience, objectives, challenges, business context, and event theme.
She uses that preparation to tailor her stories, examples, messaging, and takeaways so the larger ideas connect directly to what the audience is experiencing. Her background as a journalist is central to that process: she researches the organization and audience before stepping onstage so the presentation feels relevant rather than off-the-shelf.
Yes. Mariana offers interactive workshops and breakout sessions that can stand alone or extend the learning from her keynote.
Current options include Stand Out: Communicating with Authority, a hands-on communication training that helps participants establish authority, sharpen their message, and develop greater confidence on camera and in the room.
She also offers Lead Anyway: When the Path Isn’t Clear and Certainty Isn’t Coming, an interactive leadership breakout designed as either a standalone experience or a deeper continuation of Real Matters: Building Trust at Eye Level. Participants move through three connected practices—Experience, Embody, and Expand—to strengthen self-trust, focus on what they can control, and model that mindset for the people they lead.
Mariana’s keynotes and workshops are available in English and Spanish.
Yes. Mariana is an experienced event host, moderator, and interviewer who spent 15 years as a national network journalist and reporter.
She brings those journalism skills to every assignment—not only appearing onstage, but serving as an editorial partner who can help shape a program’s throughline, develop thoughtful questions, navigate complex subjects, and keep multi-session or multi-day events moving with energy and clarity.
Mariana has interviewed and shared the stage with world leaders, cultural icons, and business executives. Her experience spans subjects including technology and AI, finance, geopolitics, healthcare, media, culture, leadership, and organizational change.
She is known for her preparation, curiosity, warmth, poise, and ability to put guests at ease while drawing out insights that matter to the audience.
Yes. Mariana’s versatility allows organizations to use her in multiple ways across the same event. Depending on the program, she can deliver a keynote and then moderate a panel or fireside chat, lead a breakout or workshop, interview executives or special guests, or serve as the host who connects the entire program.
Her experience as both a journalist and speaker allows her to move naturally between these roles while maintaining a consistent throughline for the audience.
Contact the D’Amelio Network to check Mariana Atencio’s availability, discuss your audience and event objectives, and determine the keynote, workshop, hosting, moderating, or interviewing format that best fits your program.
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