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
- 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.
Mariana Atencio’s Videos
Moderating, Interviewing & Hosting Reel
A Life-Changing Event
Q&A: Staying True to Yourself
Real Trust is Built at Eye Level
Team Trust: Who Do You Rely On? (Interactive Example)
Selt-Trust in an AI World (Interactive Example)
The Power of Authenticity
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.
Read More >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.
Read More >
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.
Read More >POST-KEYNOTE BREAKOUT AND WORKSHOP OPTIONS
Stand Out: Communicating with Authority
Lead Anyway: When the Path Isn’t Clear and Certainty Isn’t Coming
Read More >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.
Read More >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.
Read More >
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.
Read More >POST-KEYNOTE BREAKOUT AND WORKSHOP OPTIONS
Stand Out: Communicating with Authority
Lead Anyway: When the Path Isn’t Clear and Certainty Isn’t Coming
Read More >What People Say About Mariana
