Erica Dhawan
Leading Authority on 21st-Century Teamwork, Collaboration, and Innovation | Bestselling Author
Book Sabina Nawaz, Management Strategy Speaker
About This Speaker
Sabina Nawaz is a global executive coach. She advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. Her clients include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Intel, the United Nations, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sabina delivers dozens of keynotes, seminars, and conferences each year. She also teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel University, and has spoken at TEDx.
During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, Sabina managed software development teams. She later led the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives. Her work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, NBC, Nasdaq, and MarketWatch.
Sabina is the author of You’re the Boss, Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need), published by Simon & Schuster.
Sabina believes the greatest opportunities for her clients lie at the nexus of power and pressure. Left unchecked, pressure can corrupt actions, and power can blind people to their impact on others. Using counterintuitive, often provocative frameworks, Sabina helps clients transform pressure into high-impact results. She gives them practical, road-tested tools to bridge the gaps that open up as they climb the career ladder. Through her newsletter, Pressure Proof, Sabina shares strategies for thriving amid pressure at work, at home, and in the world.
Speaker Fee: $20,000 - $50,000
Contact an agent to get Sabina's availability and ratesSpeaking Topics: Sabina Nawaz
Pressure-Proof: How to Stay Clear, Connected, and Effective When the Stakes Are High 
This keynote is based on Sabina Nawaz’s USA Today bestselling book You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need).
Work today doesn’t just demand speed—it demands precision, judgment, and trust under pressure. But pressure has a cost. It changes how we show up. It shortens patience, distorts communication, and widens the gap between what we intend and how others experience us. Power dynamics amplify it—silencing concerns, softening feedback, and turning small misalignments into costly mistakes.
The result? Smart, capable people start missing signals, second-guessing decisions, and moving away from each other—exactly when alignment matters most.
In this fast-moving, deeply relatable talk, Sabina introduces the Pressure-Power Grid—a simple way to recognize what’s happening in real time, before pressure and power erode trust.
Through vivid stories, sharp humor, and field-tested tools, she shows how to stay clear-headed, close critical communication gaps, and protect the connection that drives strong execution—no matter your role. Because when the stakes are high, connection isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s what keeps teams aligned, decisions sharp, and companies moving forward.
Audiences will leave with:
• Practical tools to surface hidden concerns and unspoken feedback before they turn into costly mistakes
• Simple habits to stay clear-headed under pressure and make sharper, more consistent decisions
• Strategies to reduce power gaps so you and others speak up, align faster, and execute better
Work today doesn’t just demand speed—it demands precision, judgment, and trust under pressure. But pressure has a cost. It changes how we show up. It shortens patience, distorts communication, and widens the gap between what we intend and how others experience us. Power dynamics amplify it—silencing concerns, softening feedback, and turning small misalignments into costly mistakes.
The result? Smart, capable people start missing signals, second-guessing decisions, and moving away from each other—exactly when alignment matters most.
In this fast-moving, deeply relatable talk, Sabina introduces the Pressure-Power Grid—a simple way to recognize what’s happening in real time, before pressure and power erode trust.
Through vivid stories, sharp humor, and field-tested tools, she shows how to stay clear-headed, close critical communication gaps, and protect the connection that drives strong execution—no matter your role. Because when the stakes are high, connection isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s what keeps teams aligned, decisions sharp, and companies moving forward.
Audiences will leave with:
• Practical tools to surface hidden concerns and unspoken feedback before they turn into costly mistakes
• Simple habits to stay clear-headed under pressure and make sharper, more consistent decisions
• Strategies to reduce power gaps so you and others speak up, align faster, and execute better
Pressure-Proof: Become the Manager You Want and Others Need
Managing today feels like a trap: too much to do, too little trust, and no time to build relationships that make teams thrive. This provocative session draws on over two decades of experience with Fortune 50 executives and over 12,000 pages of interview data to reveal two surprising truths: pressure—not power—corrupts, and power creates distance. Left unchecked, both warp your best intentions. But when managed well, they drive clarity, connection, and trust. You’ll leave with practical tools to rethink your role, reset your relationships, and lead with more impact.
• Expose the hidden power gaps that kill trust, silence feedback, and stall progress—then learn how to close them
• Decode your pressure triggers before they hijack your behavior—allowing you to turn stress into clarity
• Use relationship-reset tools to de-escalate conflict, earn influence fast, and lead through tough moments with confidence and calm
• Expose the hidden power gaps that kill trust, silence feedback, and stall progress—then learn how to close them
• Decode your pressure triggers before they hijack your behavior—allowing you to turn stress into clarity
• Use relationship-reset tools to de-escalate conflict, earn influence fast, and lead through tough moments with confidence and calm
Preventing Mental Malware: The Surprising Secret of the World’s Most Successful Executives
As human beings, we’re all susceptible to “junk mail” in our minds. These messages signal that we don’t measure up and need riches, power, and external validation to succeed. When our filters fail us and we “click” on these messages, they release malware in our minds. The resulting onslaught of negative messages has the power to stall our careers, our performance, and our goals.
This insightful session reveals how the most successful high-level executives design the right kinds of filters to deal with their mental junk mail more effectively so they can continue advancing business growth and achieve their goals.
This keynote is perfect for any career-focused audience:
• Feeling stuck in negative thought spirals or paralyzed by a fear of failing
• Lacking the confidence to pursue their goals and aspirations boldly
• Taking action to move forward in their career but not seeing any progress
The audience will leave with:
• An insider look into how successful people overcome negative thought patterns
• The three most effective filters they can use (Pause It, Name it, Accept It) to limit the voices of discouragement and fear in their heads
• The four action steps they can take immediately to overcome negative thought patterns and build the positive ones that will help them • • achieve their goals:
• Start small
• Focus on something else
• Embrace compliments
• Talk to someone else
This insightful session reveals how the most successful high-level executives design the right kinds of filters to deal with their mental junk mail more effectively so they can continue advancing business growth and achieve their goals.
This keynote is perfect for any career-focused audience:
• Feeling stuck in negative thought spirals or paralyzed by a fear of failing
• Lacking the confidence to pursue their goals and aspirations boldly
• Taking action to move forward in their career but not seeing any progress
The audience will leave with:
• An insider look into how successful people overcome negative thought patterns
• The three most effective filters they can use (Pause It, Name it, Accept It) to limit the voices of discouragement and fear in their heads
• The four action steps they can take immediately to overcome negative thought patterns and build the positive ones that will help them • • achieve their goals:
• Start small
• Focus on something else
• Embrace compliments
• Talk to someone else
From Critic to Champion: Harness Your Inner Dialogue to Achieve Your Dreams
Everyone can relate to the idea of a critical voice holding us back, but what if there was a systematic way to re-think the role and expression of our interior voices? What if, instead of holding us back, they could help us find a way to our most daring ideas, wildest dreams, and innovative solutions?
In this inspiring, deeply personal keynote, Sabina reveals a five-step process anyone in your audience can take to reliably shut down the voice of their inner critic, pursue their dreams, and unleash their most courageous self.
This keynote is perfect for any professional:
• Trying to fulfill their dreams but finding something holding them back
• Feeling stuck or frustrated with where they are in their career or life
• Struggling to articulate their desires or goals
The audience will leave with:
• A deeper understanding of the role interior voices currently play in their successes and failures
• Concrete steps they can take to attract, cultivate, and curate positive voices to help them achieve their dreams
• Five practical steps they can take to conquer their fear, propel themselves to action, and achieve their dreams
In this inspiring, deeply personal keynote, Sabina reveals a five-step process anyone in your audience can take to reliably shut down the voice of their inner critic, pursue their dreams, and unleash their most courageous self.
This keynote is perfect for any professional:
• Trying to fulfill their dreams but finding something holding them back
• Feeling stuck or frustrated with where they are in their career or life
• Struggling to articulate their desires or goals
The audience will leave with:
• A deeper understanding of the role interior voices currently play in their successes and failures
• Concrete steps they can take to attract, cultivate, and curate positive voices to help them achieve their dreams
• Five practical steps they can take to conquer their fear, propel themselves to action, and achieve their dreams
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