Drew Dudley

In this practical and provocative keynote, leadership is reframed as a daily choice rather than a set of titles or accolades earned over time. Drew shows that treating each day as if it is “Day One” of a leadership journey results in a stronger daily commitment to acting on one’s core personal and organizational values. 

Drew walks participants step-by-step through the discovery of their personal leadership values, demonstrates how those values can be translated into daily behaviours and shows how values-based decision-making leads to individual and organizational success. 

At each stage, Drew draws on 15-years of personal stories and insights to show how this process led him through battles with alcohol, obesity and personal tragedy. 

Honest, engaging, and above all practical, this presentation helps each audience member understand why they are leader while showing them how to craft their personal “Day One.” 

In this engaging and empowering keynote, Drew demonstrates that there is a form of leadership to which we should all aspire: one that is driven by a daily commitment to acting on six key leadership values:impact, courage, growth, empowerment, class and self-respect. Drew provides six questions that comprise “The Leadership Test,” and while the questions may be simple, the behavioural changes they generate build better careers, stronger organizations and more fulfilling lives. 

Sharing stories from small-town Canada to the deserts of Qatar, and insights from leaders of all types—CEOs, elite athletes, cab drivers, custodians and everyone in between— this presentation changes the way audiences think about leadership in their life and workplace. 

In 2010, fresh off delivering what would be voted one of the “15 most inspirational TED talks of all time” and traveling the world delivering keynotes that led one Oxford University professor to proclaim him “the most motivating and inspiring speaker on leadership out there right now,” Drew was struggling off the stage: battling alcohol addiction, undiagnosed bipolar disorder and a lifestyle that had ballooned him to over 300 pounds. 

In this keynote, Drew melds self-care insights with his own story to present six strategies for embedding self- care and building self-respect into a personal leadership philosophy. Over the past eight years these strategies have helped him achieve and maintain sobriety, lose 100 pounds, manage his mental health and, most recently, process a profound personal tragedy. 

A presentation that acknowledges the dark parts of life and work with humour and compassion, this practical exploration of self-awareness, forgiveness, resilience and healing will remind audiences that we cannot lead others until we can lead ourselves and show them how great leaders know how to put themselves first while still serving others.