Marie Gleeson delivers keynote talks on leadership, resilience, decision-making,
and human performance under pressure.
Drawing on over 25 years of operational leadership experience, her talks
combine practical insight, lived experience, and storytelling that resonates
with leaders, teams, and organisations navigating complexity and change.
Marie’s speaking style is direct, relatable, and grounded in reality.
Her talks move beyond leadership theory to explore what leadership actually looks like in practice — under pressure, during uncertainty, and in environments where trust, communication, and decision-making matter.
Combining operational experience with honest reflection and practical lessons, Marie creates conversations that continue long after the event itself.
How leaders think, decide, and operate effectively in uncertainty and complexity.
Building resilience in individuals and teams while navigating challenge and change.
Why self-awareness, trust, and communication are central to effective leadership.
Understanding how people and teams operate when pressure increases.
Creating environments where teams operate with clarity, alignment, and accountability.
Marie can work with organisations to adapt her content to preferred themes where appropriate
Marie speaks at conferences, leadership events, executive off-sites, corporate events, and organisational development programmes across Ireland and the UK and Europe.
Her audiences include:
“Raw, personal and deeply honest, Marie is an exceptional storyteller. She connected with the audience in that rare way of making everyone in the room feel like she was speaking to them directly, taking them on her journey through the highs and lows of leadership, and life. Her story is a rollercoaster of emotions that reflects the true nature of leadership in all its forms, and will leave you feeling moved, inspired and uplifted.”
“It was fantastic, a very unique perspective. The team were very impressed and thought Marie was excellent. We were very happy with what she delivered.”
“Marie was fantastic! She had the room so engaged and her talk was definitely the highlight of the day for a lot of people. They found her story captivating and insightful, while also being so human.”
“Marie comes highly recommended as a leadership expert. She has a vast array of expertise to draw on and openly shares her knowledge. She reflects on her experiences in a most realistic and eloquent manner. Marie has the ability to capture the attention of an audience, through her story telling and evident compassion. There is no doubt that Marie is a gifted leader and puts people and team at the centre. Her core values, her own learning experiences and her ability to deliver a lecture make her a truly remarkable speaker.”
“Marie Gleeson has provided a number of inputs to our diversity sessions in the health service. Feedback and the response to Marie was outstanding with Marie sharing her experience in leadership, staff engagement and motivation theory. Marie has a relaxed and engaging style always with requests for further inputs.”
“Marie addressed our company (virtually) for the IWD 2021 and did an amazing job sharing her wisdom and insights into Leadership, high performance and authenticity. She is a compelling speaker and it was brilliantly well received.”
“Marie was amazing, the feedback has been super. She was so easy to deal with, such a lovely person and her talk was brilliant!”
“We had the pleasure of having Marie speak to our teams at Trigon Hotels as part of our Data Bites programme recently. Marie is uplifting, inspiring and motivational. She has a unique and powerful story and she tells that story in a way that captures an audience. Whilst the story is unique, it had the ability to resonate with a broad group of people in different ways. Marie’s experience in leadership and team engagement connected strongly with our own team while also having a very human side that gave a real sense of balance. I would highly recommend Marie as she has such an energetic and positive disposition and really is a pleasure to listen to.”
“Marie was the main speaker at one of our recent (virtual) partner events and she was fantastic. She shared her journey in the Irish Navy with a lot of authenticity and humility and shared many valuable leadership learnings with the audience. Feedback has been great, thanks Marie!”
“Marie addressed our company (virtually) for the IWD 2021 and did an amazing job sharing her wisdom and insights into Leadership, high performance and authenticity. She is a compelling speaker and it was brilliantly well-received.”
Marie is available for keynote speaking engagements, conferences, leadership events, and executive sessions across Ireland and the UK and mainland Europe.
