Angelina “Strike” Stephens
Angelina “Strike” Stephens is a powerhouse keynote speaker, transformational leader, and unapologetic truth-teller on a mission to reshape how we lead in high-pressure environments. With decades of experience building elite teams, navigating global complexity, and leading through crisis, Angelina delivers keynotes that challenge conventional thinking and ignite cultural change.
Through raw storytelling and real-world insights, she equips leaders to break through fear, build trust, and foster environments where high-performing teams don’t just survive uncertainty—they grow through it. Whether she’s guiding an executive team through hard conversations or helping 3,000-person organizations move from silence to action, her message is clear: leadership in today’s world starts at the end of your comfort zone.
Her leadership has shaped outcomes in some of the world’s most volatile arenas. From aerospace and defense to intelligence, innovation, and international negotiation, she’s driven game-changing results across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia—advising senior leaders, directing complex operations, and leading culture shifts that stick. She culminated her military career as a strategic advisor to the Department of the Air Force’s most senior executives, helping steer a 300,000-member organization through its toughest challenges.
As a keynote speaker and trusted voice on modern leadership, she helps leaders navigate complexity with clarity—and create cultures where trust, truth, and performance are non-negotiable.
Angelina lives in Idaho with her husband, two kids, three horses, and a pack of dogs—living her message out loud: life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.
Presentation Topics & Descriptions
Beyond the Comfort Zone: Unleashing the Superpower of High-Performing Teams
What if fear wasn’t a stop sign, but a gateway to transformation?
This keynote invites audiences to explore the pivotal moment of hesitation that lives between fear and growth, and how, by stepping past it, we can transform ourselves, our teams, and our culture.
In high-stakes environments, uncertainty can stall progress, limit innovation, and erode confidence. Beyond the Comfort Zone examines what it takes to lead through that uncertainty with clarity and conviction.
Built on lived experiences forged through decades of leadership under pressure, it challenges conventional ideas of struggle and strength, offering a powerful perspective on how resilient, high-performing cultures evolve when fear is a gateway, not a stop sign.
It isn’t just a story, it’s a call to action. With insight, empathy, and courage, this keynote equips leaders to shift mindset, strengthen connection, and fuel cultures that deliver under pressure. Because the catalyst for thriving teams begins at the edge of your comfort zone.
Your audience will learn how to:
Lead through uncertainty with clarity and conviction
Reframe struggle as an opportunity for growth
Strengthen connection and trust to fuel performance under pressure
The Cost of Silence: Creating Cultures Where People and Performance Flourish
What if we stopped chasing work/life balance and both work and life improved as a result?
When work/life balance is framed as the path to high performance, it creates the illusion the scales will balance themselves, while the unspoken weight of struggle keeps tipping them out of reach. Over time, that silence compounds: burnout rises, health declines, and both individuals and organizations pay the price.
The Cost of Silence calls for a different approach: building a culture of psychological safety where tough conversations aren’t the exception, they’re the expectation. Through lived experience, powerful stories, and actionable tools, Strike shows how reframing struggle strengthens resilience, deepens trust, and fuels lasting performance. The first step in unlocking resilience and performance is creating a culture where every individual can thrive as the best version of themselves, both personally and professionally.
By sharing her own journey, and the thousands of stories shared with her, Strike reveals a simple truth: we are never truly alone. In moments of struggle, personal or professional, psychological safety fuels courage; connection builds strength.
Your audience will learn how to:
Understand how unspoken struggle erodes both individual wellbeing and organizational resilience
Build a culture of psychological safety that turns tough conversations into courageous dialogue
Reframe struggle as a catalyst for resilience and high-impact results