Expert on Trust, Communication, and Resilience; Journalist; Author
Keynotes – Workshops – Moderating/Hosting
Key Speech Themes
Leadership • Trust • High-Performance Culture
Team Alignment • Resilience • Leading in Uncertain Times
Leading Big Change • Executive Communication
Confidence • Well-Being • Burnout • Authenticity
Mariana’s Story
- Peabody Award-winning journalist; her work allowed her to study decision-making under pressure.
- Helps leaders foster trust so teams move faster, collaborate better, and execute with clarity when the stakes are high.
- Creator of tools designed to strengthen credibility, align teams, build high-trust cultures, and communicate clearly.
- Bestselling author whose TEDx talk has over 25 million views.
- Interactive and high-energy speaker who also hosts and moderates for top companies and organizations globally.
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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.
Mariana Atencio’s Videos
Moderating, Interviewing & Hosting Reel
A Life-Changing Event
Building Trust in an AI World
Q&A: Staying True to Yourself
Team Trust: Who Do You Rely On?
TEDx – What Makes You Special?
Speech Descriptions
Real Matters: Building Trust in an Unreal World
(Theme: Trust as a leadership and business advantage)
Curated feeds. Corporate spin. AI-generated everything. Building trust in modern times is harder than ever. It’s also one of the most valuable assets a leader or organization can possess. Employees, customers, and stakeholders are attracted to what feels real – and they can sense inauthenticity in an instant. When leaders show up with authenticity, they create cultures rooted in trust, engagement, and collaboration; the foundations of high-performing teams. Being real is the most powerful way to stand out in an unreal world of filtered perceptions and manufactured narratives. This doesn’t mean rejecting technology – quite the opposite. It means embracing it without losing the human touch in leadership and processes.
Read More >Perfectly You: Leveraging the Power Within
(Theme: Embracing your authentic self to thrive personally and professionally)
Everywhere we look, we are pressured to perform, conform, and be perfect. In the workplace, that pressure shows up as overthinking, burnout, and a fear of being judged. But when people feel safe to show up as they are, they communicate more clearly, build stronger relationships, and lead with greater confidence.
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 Mariana Atencio shares her journey from chasing perfection to using her differences as an advantage.
Read More >Communicating with Authority – Cut Through the Noise and Get Heard
(Post-Keynote Breakout or Separate Keynote)
For everyone in business, delivering a message efficiently – internally and in different media – has gotten infinitely more complex in the age of AI. This interactive presentation will help attendees sharpen their communication skills. Mariana equips leaders from entry level to the C-Suite with practical tools and tested principles to speak confidently, authentically, and effectively – whether it’s for client meetings, internal communications, an important presentation, a traditional media interview, a digital clip, and/or a conference stage.
Read More >Moderating, Interviewing, and 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.
Read More >Speech Descriptions
Real Matters: Building Trust in an Unreal World
(Theme: Trust as a leadership and business advantage)
Curated feeds. Corporate spin. AI-generated everything. Building trust in modern times is harder than ever. It’s also one of the most valuable assets a leader or organization can possess. Employees, customers, and stakeholders are attracted to what feels real – and they can sense inauthenticity in an instant. When leaders show up with authenticity, they create cultures rooted in trust, engagement, and collaboration; the foundations of high-performing teams. Being real is the most powerful way to stand out in an unreal world of filtered perceptions and manufactured narratives. This doesn’t mean rejecting technology – quite the opposite. It means embracing it without losing the human touch in leadership and processes.
Read More >Perfectly You: Leveraging the Power Within
(Theme: Embracing your authentic self to thrive personally and professionally)
Everywhere we look, we are pressured to perform, conform, and be perfect. In the workplace, that pressure shows up as overthinking, burnout, and a fear of being judged. But when people feel safe to show up as they are, they communicate more clearly, build stronger relationships, and lead with greater confidence.
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 Mariana Atencio shares her journey from chasing perfection to using her differences as an advantage.
Read More >Communicating with Authority – Cut Through the Noise and Get Heard
(Post-Keynote Breakout or Separate Keynote)
For everyone in business, delivering a message efficiently – internally and in different media – has gotten infinitely more complex in the age of AI. This interactive presentation will help attendees sharpen their communication skills. Mariana equips leaders from entry level to the C-Suite with practical tools and tested principles to speak confidently, authentically, and effectively – whether it’s for client meetings, internal communications, an important presentation, a traditional media interview, a digital clip, and/or a conference stage.
Read More >Moderating, Interviewing, and 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.
Read More >What People Say About Mariana
