Keynotes & Conversations
Are you ready to bridge the gap? Let's create a world where everyone feels welcome, valued and inspired. Book Speaker Connection CallMore About GryConversations That Sparks Change
Bridging AI, innovation, and inclusion to shift perspectives and unlock potential.
Why Leading Organisations Book Gry
Because insight alone isn’t enough — Gry brings lived experience, edge, storytelling and impact.
Gry loves to share her observations from over 30 years as an “IT Girl” — aka Woman in Tech — with a knack for translating between people and technology, complexity and clarity.
She brings lived experience as a problem solver, changemaker, and often the only woman or neurodivergent voice in the room. She believes technology should serve humanity — not the other way around — and has spent decades helping others use tech to do good, not just do more.
Gry’s journey with AI began in 1986 during her computer science studies in the UK. She worked with early rule-based systems through the 1990s and later took centre stage at TEDx in 2018, sharing her bold vision for combining artificial and human intelligence to build a more inclusive world.
She has worked across industries, continents, and company stages — from early-stage startups to global organisations — designing products and cultures that centre ethics, equity, and innovation. She’s the creator of the rAIse IT right™ framework, helping leaders make AI and tech decisions that are as human as they are strategic and turn AI into their most valued growth asset.
Audiences consistently describe Gry’s talks as eye-opening, energising, and refreshingly real. Whether she’s speaking to executives, educators, entrepreneurs, or future-focused teams, she invites people to see things differently — and walk away with clarity, courage, and practical tools to lead in a changing world.
Her mantra is “same, same and different,” and her mission is simple: help more people thrive by leading with difference – together.
Let's celebrate differences and build a more connected world underpinned by meaningful technology.
Let's talk about topicsMore about GrySIGNATURE TOPICS
Gry Stene delivers high-impact, high-energy keynotes and workshops for leaders, teams, and organisations ready to lead bravely – across AI, innovation, digital transformation and belonging. Book Gry to inspire, challenge, and equip your people for the future.
Every talk is tailored to the audience and context. These are some of Gry’s most requested themes, shaped to meet the moment and the people in the room.
Leading With Humanity in the Age of AI
A practical, human first guide to ethical and meaningful AI, powered by the rAIse IT right™ approach.
Ethical AI starts with us. The choices we make today shape not just technology, but the world we leave behind.
AI is everywhere, fueling new products, changing industries, and raising questions most leaders never imagined they’d have to answer. But for all its power, AI is still a reflection of the people behind it. The true challenge isn’t just building smart systems; it’s raising technology that serves humanity, not the other way around.
In this high-impact session, Gry Stene – creator of rAIse IT right™ and a 30-year veteran in AI, tech and transformation – shows how leaders can move beyond buzzwords to lead with clarity, courage, and real-world impact. Gry’s sessions blend sharp insight with story, humour, and practical action. You’ll learn why “parenting” your AI and digital decisions with values, vision, and radical empathy is the new competitive advantage.
You’ll leave with:
- A clear lens to make smarter, safer, more strategic AI choices, in real life, not just theory.
- Ways to spot risks, cut through hype, and guide your team toward ethical innovation.
- Practical tools to build trust, confidence, and people-first impact in your team.
Ideal for:
C-suite leaders, innovation teams, and transformation decision-makers looking to lead responsibly in an AI-enabled future.
Delivery Formats:
- Keynote (30–60 minutes)
- Interactive workshop (2 hours)
- Executive roundtable or strategic advisory session
Why Most Digital Transformation Fails – and How to Make Yours Work
We don’t need more tech. We need tech that fits the humans it serves.
Ethical AI starts with us. The choices we make today shape not just technology, but the world we leave behind.
For this topic, Gry Stene draws from decades of experience leading transformation across tech, health, mining, logistics, manufacturing and education to show why real change starts not with the tech, but with the trust.
This talk helps leaders and teams get honest about resistance, capability, and the cultural gaps that stall momentum. You’ll walk away with tools to co-design transformation that feels natural, not forced – and that actually sticks.
Because digital success isn’t just about speed – it’s about fit.
You’ll experience Gry’s signature rAIse IT right™ method for getting tech to truly fit your people, your culture, and your goals.
You’ll leave with:
- Understand the top reasons digital transformations stall or fail.
- Learn how to assess readiness and resistance within teams.
- Apply the rAIse IT Right framework to lead smarter, people-first transformation
Ideal for:
Transformation leaders, change managers, tech executives, and people & culture teams navigating fast-moving systems change – including digital inclusion advocates and public interest innovation groups.
Delivery Formats:
- Keynote (30–60 minutes)
- Workshop (2–4 hours)
- Executive advisory or consulting series
- Masterclass for people leaders
The Cost of Invisibility: Why Being Seen Is Every Leader’s Strategic Edge
When talented leaders go unseen, organisations lose out. This is your guide to standing out, claiming your space, and helping teams tap into hidden strengths.
Many high-potential leaders, especially women and those who don’t fit the traditional mould, are told to “lean in.”
But what if true visibility isn’t about leaning in, but about standing out on your own terms?
Drawing on over three decades in tech, product, and transformation, often as the only woman neurospicy leader at the table, Gry Stene shares real stories and tools from her journey (captured in her book Full Throttle & Torque).
Her bold, high-energy session gives both individuals and organisations the playbook for unlocking hidden talent and shifting from survival mode to visible, strategic impact.
You’ll discover how to reclaim your voice, presence, and influence, not as a luxury but as a leadership imperative.
You’ll leave with:
- New tools to spot and address the real cost of invisibility, to individuals, teams, and organisations.
- A lens for unleashing and supporting hidden talent in women and other underestimated leaders.
- Strategies to stand out, advocate, and ascend without burnout or self-doubt.
Ideal for:
Senior leaders, people managers, and diverse talent champions – plus anyone ready to unlock hidden potential and amplify underrepresented or underestimated voices.
Delivery Formats:
- Keynote (30–60 minutes)
- Workshop (2–4 hours)
- Coaching or leadership intensives
- Retreat experience or panel anchor
Celebrating Differences: Why Inclusion and Difference Fuel Innovation and Impact
Your team’s greatest edge and your organisation’s biggest impact comes from the brains and backgrounds that don’t follow the script, but blaze their own path.
In a world craving innovation, the most overlooked resource isn’t more tech, it’s diverse perspectives.
This topic explores the hidden value of difference – across brains, age, gender, backgrounds, and lived experience – and shows how truly inclusive leaders unlock breakthrough ideas.
Gry draws on lived experience as a neurospicy, intersectional bridge-builder who has led high-impact, diverse teams across industries and cultures. Through research, story, and sharp insight, she challenges assumptions, reframes inclusion as a strategic driver of innovation, and delivers practical tools for leaders ready to build teams where everyone belongs and contributes their best.
This talk sits at the intersection of inclusion, innovation, and impact – and will shift how you see the minds around you (and your own).
You’ll leave with:
- Understand why cognitive diversity fuels innovation and resilience
- Learn how different talent experiences the workplace – and what needs to shift
- Apply inclusive leadership practices that spark creativity, psychological safety, and high performance
Ideal for:
HR, DEI, innovation leaders, team managers, and change agents building inclusive cultures that spark big ideas – including neurodiversity advocates, inclusion-focused forums, and women’s leadership or advocacy conferences aligned with inclusion, innovation, and impact.
Delivery Formats:
- Keynote (30–60 minutes)
- Workshop (90 min to half-day)
- Panel or fireside chat anchor / moderator
- Leadership development series
Seen. Heard. Transformed.
Gry’s talks don’t just inform – they ignite change. But don’t take our word for it.
Gry Stene is a dynamic speaker known for her thought-provoking presentations on ethical AI, inclusive innovation, and people-centred digital transformation. Her conference talks blend deep technical expertise with lived experience, storytelling, and a strong focus on equity and belonging. At THETA, Gry challenged the audience to think of AI not just as a tool, but as something we are “raising”, shaping its development with ethical and inclusive values.
Gry brings her high energy, rebel humour, and metaphor-rich storytelling. Her sessions leave audiences feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to lead change with courage and clarity
OTHER TALKING POINTS
Gry is happy to contribute to just about any conversations relating to her industry, women in IT, diversity, inclusion & belonging, and enabling, empowering & inspiring underrepresented people to find their voice and stand their ground, here are some more topics that excite her:
- Culture as a catalyst in building building technological solutions and capability
- The future of work & jobs of the future
- Bridging the gap and building a new talent pipeline
- Attracting, retaining and developing talent for tech roles and organisations
- Shaking up our education system | Differentiated, integrated learning
- Women in tech & entrepreneurship
- Streamlining your organisation for innovation | Getting the right mix | Digital transformation
- Engaging, empowering and inspiring people to discover their superpower in tech
- Customer centred, meaningful technology
- Design thinking and learner-lead approaches to knowledge acquisition
- Tech and innovation for social change, impact and positive outcomes
- Injecting arts and humanities into STEM to create the STEAM we need to power our future
- Same same but different. Let’s celebrate differences. Intersectionality.
Looking for a keynote speaker, a panellist, an interactive workshop, a host and facilitator, or an intimate fireside chat? Let's make it happen.
Let's discuss your needsMore about GrySpeaking highlights
Gry delivers keynotes, participates in panel discussions and runs interactive worshops in a variety of forums. The engagements can be private or public, on the job or volunteering, local or global. Highlights include:
- THETA Conference 2025: Raising AI, Reimagining Work: Building Inclusive Futures with Tech That Serves Us All
- Kimberley Economic Forum 2025: AI in Real Life: A Human-Centred Approach for Regional Innovation
- TEDxUWA: Powering our future with AI and STEAM
- STEAM Powered Show with Michele Ong: Cultivating Careers and Diversity in Tech
- WiTWA Tech [+] Conference: Host for “Sustainability & Tech” panel discussion
- WiTWA Tech [+] Conference: Host for “Same same and different” panel discussion on intersectionality
- LaunchDay Podcast: Fun chat with Dean Cvetoski aka WhoDean about all things diversity, inclusion, belonging and identity. Let’s call it Neurspicy view on the world (March 2024)
- IT Girls Rock – Hosting a variety of panels and conversations (June 2022 – Present)
- Future Learning Magazine by STEMpunks: Interview in STEMINISM Issue for #IWD2021
- WiTWA Techtrails: Inspiring STEM Stories
- Ingenica Australia: International Women’s Day Talk #IWD2021 #ChooseToChallenge
- IT Takes a Spark EduConference: Around YOUR World in Eighty Minutes
- WiTWA [+] Conference: In conversation with Julian Guthrie, Paul Dunn, Masami Sato and Lan Tran
- WiTWA Techtrails: Guest speaker at STEM and Future of Work Incursions
- Women in Tech Podcast by Signify Technology UK: My journey and life in Tech
- Stories from the Heart: Heroes and Legends
- Emerging Young Leaders Unconvention: What’s possible for the community sector? (DX)
- Various universities: Guest speaker on innovation and entrepreneurship underpinned by technology
- BDO Perth: International Women’s Day Talk #IWD2018 #PressoForProgress
- Women in Tech WA (WiTWA): Jobs of the Future panel discussion
- ACSW Ignite Talks: The Biggest Dream
- Women in Mining WA (WiMWA): My Life as an Alien