The medals make her interesting. The story is what your people will recognise.
Four Olympic Games, three medals, an accident ten weeks before the biggest race of her life, and more than thirty years of thinking honestly about what it taught her. She does not arrive with polished answers. She tells the true version, so the people listening can find something of their own in it.
Three talks, each built on something she actually lived.
- 01
Opening and closing keynote
Seventy-Three Days
The comeback, told honestly. Ten weeks between a shattered leg and an Olympic final, including the fear and doubt that never make the highlight reel. Not a formula for toughness. A story people recognise themselves in.
- How to act while the outcome is still unknown
- Why the first plan almost never survives
- What a team owes someone in the worst week of their life
- 02
Leadership and culture
Inflection Time
Every organisation has turning points it only recognises in hindsight. Drawing on more than twenty honest, long-form conversations, Silken shows what people learn when they tell the truth about the moments that changed them, and how a team can make room for those stories.
- Reading a turning point in real time
- The questions that help a team name what it has been carrying
- Making a decision without complete information
- 03
Wellbeing and mental health
Unsinkable
The founder of a national mental health platform on what actually helps: telling the true version of the story, out loud, to people who will not flinch. When people recognise themselves in someone else’s experience, shame loosens its hold. Built for workplaces ready to move past awareness week.
- Why a story changes a culture in ways a policy rarely can
- Making it safe to say the hard thing at work
- What leaders get wrong about resilience
However your programme is shaped.
- Opening keynote 45 to 60 minutes, plus Q&A
- Closing keynote Sends people back into their own lives, not home with a medal story
- Fireside conversation Hosted or interviewed on stage
- Workshop Half day, built around the stories your team is already carrying
Rooms she knows.
- Government
- Financial services
- Education
- Healthcare
- Sport
- Technology
Engagements span government, finance, education, and the private sector. Silken books early; most dates are held six to twelve months out.
From the room
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Tell us about the room.
The more you can say here, the faster the answer comes back. Every enquiry is read by Silken’s office, and you will hear back within two business days.