Why Tianna Faye Soto is a Great Fit for Menlo College

• Speaks to the Heart of the Student Experience: As a wellness expert and mental health educator with deep personal experience navigating college as a first-gen student, Tianna’s message directly resonates with Menlo’s diverse, high-achieving, and international student body.

• Bridges Science and Storytelling: With academic training in positive psychology, leadership development, and counseling from Columbia University, Tianna brings evidence-based strategies to life through storytelling—making topics like stress, identity, and confidence both accessible and empowering.

• Deep Alignment with the Public Speaking Center: Tianna’s emphasis on voice, presence, and storytelling as tools for personal transformation aligns powerfully with the mission of the Public Speaking Center. Her keynotes offer both inspiration and practical frameworks that support students in becoming more confident, effective communicators.

• Expert on Mental Health and Identity: Tianna is passionate about making conversations around wellness inclusive, especially for first-gen, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ students. Her work on self-awareness, cultural identity, and resilience is both timely and highly relevant across academic, social, and leadership spaces.

• Proven, Nationally-Recognized Speaker: With over 100 speaking engagements to audiences ranging from university students to corporate teams at Meta, Boeing, and StockX, Tianna is known for creating warm, transformative experiences that leave lasting impact.

Recommended Keynotes:

1) Stress, Success, & Duck Syndrome

All-nighters, jam-packed schedules, and overflowing cups of coffee. It’s no secret that being a college student these days can feel overwhelming. As the first in her family to attend college, Tianna knows what it’s like to juggle multiple majors, roles, and responsibilities while secretly struggling with anxiety, burnout, and perfectionism. One day, she discovered a term for what she was experiencing — “duck syndrome” — a common phenomenon where college students appear cool and calm on the surface while paddling hard underneath.

Tianna’s journey to self-care began during her senior year of college when she learned to overcome duck syndrome through holistic wellness. Since then, Tianna has been on a mission to connect with students and ensure that they’re equipped with the knowledge, tools, and resources to navigate the ups and downs of college life. In this program, Tianna teaches students how to care for their mental health and wellness through a holistic lens, and offers practical wisdom for how to navigate the college journey with clarity and confidence.

Learning Outcomes

As a result of attending this program, students will learn:

• What duck syndrome is, and how it may be hindering their mental health & wellness
• How to recognize signs of duck syndrome when they arise
• Tangible wellness tools to combat stress, anxiety, and burnout
• How to reframe their idea of success and navigate college with clarity and confidence

2) Living Between Worlds

As a Puerto Rican, Jamaican-Chinese woman born and raised in the south in a family of New Yorkers, Tianna understands what it’s like to exist between worlds. Apart from being a multiethnic woman, she has also existed between many worlds and professions, like music, mental health, media, and advocacy. Time and time again, Tianna has discovered that the more we embrace and celebrate our unique identity, the greater opportunity we have to serve others.

Regardless of your background or upbringing, exploring identity is a key part of the college student experience. It can often be the most challenging aspect of navigating college life, with the rise of important questions like “Who am I?”, “What do I stand for?”, “What kind of life do I want to lead?”. When you feel empowered to explore your personal story and can celebrate who you are, you give others a safe space to do the same.

In this program, Tianna invites students into her world as a person with multiple intersecting identities while encouraging students to reflect on their own personal narratives. Through storytelling, a touch of humor, and a warm, encouraging tone, Tianna inspires students to explore their personal identity, celebrate the journey, and feel confident in their unique strengths.

Learning Outcomes

As a result of attending this program, students will learn:

• Why it’s crucial to reflect on their identity, especially when it feels uncomfortable
• How addressing identity and personal narrative can transform the college experience
• How to thoughtfully explore conversations around identity with friends, family, and peers
• How to explore, write, and share their personal narratives in a way that feels authentic and empowering

Why Jeanne Sparrow is a Great Fit for Menlo College

• Expert in Communication: With a career built on powerful communication—on air and in the classroom—Jeanne is uniquely positioned to speak to the heart of Menlo’s Public Speaking Center mission.
• Dynamic Academic & Industry Bridge: As a faculty instructor at Northwestern University and a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, Jeanne bridges the gap between education and industry with ease.
• Relatable, Warm & Inspiring: Jeanne’s ability to connect with audiences—especially students—makes her an ideal voice for empowering young adults navigating identity, leadership, and personal growth.
• Proven Impact: She’s coached leaders across healthcare, tech, education, and government sectors, and delivered acclaimed talks for AT&T, Guaranteed Rate, AnitaB.org, and more.
• Chicago-Based with National Reach: While based in the Midwest, Jeanne’s presence is nationwide, and her work continues to reach thousands through her book, podcast, and media appearances.

Recommended Keynotes:

1) Foundations for Success

When you talk about yourself to your audience, whether it’s through an Instagram story, a work presentation, or your podcast, you have to ask yourself: What’s the whole point? Connection. No doubt about it.

Connection is essential. It gives us friendship, strong work relationships/network, love, closed sales, community. But it can also be fragile. We can only control what we do … not what others perceive. And a lot of us walk around thinking we’re doing one thing when in reality, people see us in a whole other way.

So that’s where Jeanne comes in.

In this powerful keynote, she introduces her innovative communication formula—Foundations for Success—which focuses on everything we do: working, speaking, leading, selling, living. Jeanne blends broadcasting methods, neuroscience, psychology, and the power of storytelling to teach individuals and teams to embrace how to bring value to someone’s life with clarity, purpose, and intention

Tangible Takeaways

• The 5-letter word that can change the world
• Why Record, Review, Refine will change the way you communicate to people
• What’s the hook to your story?
• Strategies for making your presentations memorable
• 3 questions to ask yourself every time you’re ready to make a sale

2) Be Brave, Be Free, Be You

The strength in knowing who you are and what your value is gives you power. But many people get caught up in comparing themselves to others on their team or believe they fall short in some way, and stop being true to themselves, which all stands in their way to level up and achieve their ultimate goals.

In this bold and transformative keynote, Jeanne provides the path to discovering and delivering value to become indispensable in everything you do—giving you the tools to communicate to other people what you believe about yourself before you ever say a word. She shows you why clarity about your value and intention about how you lead, connects you and your work to the impact it has on other people.

Tangible Takeaways

• An affirmation of your value that backs you up every time you enter a room
• Identify your beliefs about your true self to gain clarity
• Strategies for supportive self-talk to reinforce your power
• Why validation can only come from within no matter how hard you try

Why Tucker is a Great Fit for Menlo College

• Innovation Meets Creativity: Tucker combines his roots at Stanford and Google with his identity as a nationally renowned poet to create a truly unique keynote experience. His framework, Turn the Page™, teaches students to break free from routine thinking and unlock creative potential—talents essential for business majors, entrepreneurs, and leaders alike.  

• Ideal for Leadership Development: Menlo College’s Public Speaking Center emphasizes the power of effective communication. Tucker’s poetic approach illuminates how clarity, storytelling, and creative pacing can elevate how students present ideas—whether pitching startups, speaking on stage, or addressing teammates.

• Bay Area Relevance & Originality: As someone who built his career in Silicon Valley and now travels as a keynote speaker, Tucker offers local resonance with students eyeing entrepreneurship, tech, or future-oriented careers—while broadening their lens to include imaginative thinking.

• Highly Acclaimed Messaging: His presentations are noted for being transformative and captivating, with reviews like:
  
  • “The most impactful, most deeply touching and meaningful hour I’ve ever spent at a conference.” — Mark Brezinski, CEO, Bizzy LLC‍
    
  • “Eye‑opening, thought‑provoking… I was literally working to book Tucker for our next event before he could leave.” — Tim Kopp, CEO, Terminus Software  

• Engagement Tailored for Students: With his lens on curiosity and creative exploration, he’s well-suited to inspire Menlo’s first-gen, international, and athlete-heavy student body to pursue unconventional paths with confidence.

Recommended Keynote:

Turn the Page: From Comfort to Calling

Topics: Inspiration, Courage, Creativity, Personal development

In every chapter of our lives, we’re given a choice: stay on the page we know — the page of familiarity, but of unrealized potential — or turn it. For too many of us, our aspirations sit in the margins — dismissed as impractical, impossible, or premature. But what if our most actualized selves didn’t need to live in the realm of fantasy? What if our best selves are waiting on the other side of a blank page we haven’t figured out how to put our pens to?

Drawing from lessons forged at the crossroads of Silicon Valley and the stage, poet and former Googler Tucker Bryant offers a fresh lens on unlocking possibility — not just for ourselves, but for the teams and organizations we lead. In this dynamic keynote, Tucker introduces the Turn the Page™ framework: a set of poetic principles that help us rewrite what’s possible by shifting our mindset, embracing courage, and thinking creatively in the face of uncertainty.

Turn the Page™ is more than a metaphor — it’s a mindset. Through humor, story, and powerful poetic insights, attendees will learn how to break free from complacency and fear, reimagine their path with creativity and clarity, and take bold steps toward the dreams that feel “too big.” This is more than peak performance — it’s about living a life worth writing about. It’s about walking toward untapped potential, unspoken ideas, and unrealized excellence in the work you do and the life you live.

Why Jessica Chen Is a Great Fit for Menlo College

• Jessica is an Emmy Award–winning journalist turned global keynote speaker, with a powerful message on visibility, communication, and self-advocacy — all essential for first-gen, international, and career-driven students.
• She is the founder of Soulcast Media and author of Smart, Not Loud, which teaches how to get noticed for the right reasons — a theme that deeply resonates with emerging leaders navigating professional identity.
• Recently appointed as a leadership instructor at Columbia University, Jessica teaches Communicating to Influence to hundreds of students, blending academic rigor with real-world communication strategies.
• Her presence as a woman of color in media and business offers representation and motivation for Menlo’s diverse student body.

Recommended Keynotes:

Jessica has a number of keynotes that we can recommended, depending on your event goals. Highlighting two of them here:

1) The Visibility Factor: Stand Out, Speak Up, and Drive Your Career Forward

This powerful keynote will empower attendees to move beyond just working hard to strategically advocating for their ideas. Jessica Chen will unveil her proven ACCT Framework to teach professionals how to build a compelling career brand and communicate with confidence—without sounding self-promotional. Participants will walk away with actionable skills, increase their visibility, and unlock more opportunities. This session is a must for organizations wanting to inspire employees to adopt an empowered mindset.

You will learn:

• How to use the ACCT Framework to advocate for your ideas and achievements without sounding self-promotional.
• Techniques to increase your visibility at work so decision-makers recognize your impact and potential.
• Steps to build a compelling career brand that aligns with your goals and communicates value clearly.
• Tools to shift from a passive contributor to an empowered leader, no matter your title or experience level.

Themes: Empower, visibility, career growth, motivational

2) Public Speaking Skills

Whether presenting to a small team or a large audience, strong public speaking skills can amplify your impact. This session equips participants with tools to structure clear messages, manage nerves, and speak with confidence—so every presentation feels more natural, persuasive, and memorable.

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Why Harold Hughes is a Great Fit for Menlo College

• Multihyphenate Entrepreneur & Educator: Harold is the truest definition of a modern-day multihyphenate — a serial entrepreneur, investor, educator, and community builder. He brings nearly two decades of experience across business development, operations, and partnerships, giving students firsthand insight into what it takes to build, sustain, and scale a business.
• Rooted in Real-World Experience: As the founder of NFNTE Capital and previously the CEO of a venture-backed startup that raised over $5M and partnered with brands like Pepsi and LIFEWTR, Harold has lived the startup journey from idea to execution. He distills these learnings into actionable frameworks that students can immediately apply to their own aspirations.
• Creator of Impactful Curricula: Harold developed the DECODE™ program and co-founded Catalyst Labs, both designed to introduce foundational entrepreneurship to students and early-stage founders. His structured, accessible approach makes complex business concepts understandable and relevant to first-time entrepreneurs and business majors alike.
• Champion for Inclusion & Community: As the co-founder of the first token-gated community for Black founders, Harold is deeply committed to equity and representation in the innovation ecosystem. His background and values resonate with Menlo’s international and first-gen student populations, modeling leadership that’s as inclusive as it is inspiring.
• Engaging, Relatable, and Real: Harold’s delivery style is approachable, dynamic, and rich with personal stories—from building businesses to raising a family to writing A Kids Book About Blockchain. Students walk away not only better informed but genuinely motivated.

Recommended Presentation:

The Deconstructing Companies for Entrepreneurial Development (DECODE™) Program is designed for high school and college students interested in entrepreneurship. Over the years, we have worked with dozens of companies and reviewed hundreds for potential investment opportunities. During that time, we found critical points where the business lacked the proper structure, market validation, and customer research to be sustainable. Our program is built to give an introductory lens of entrepreneurship by evaluating and “deconstructing” businesses – failed and successful – to identify the indicators for success.

At the end of this program, students will be able to:

• Understand the basics of Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), and other business models
• Articulate the value proposition for their favorite brands
• Identify the key indicators of the success or failure of businesses
• Implement learnings to test their startup ideas

Our goal is to introduce the core concepts of entrepreneurship in a way that is broadly accessible to students of every background while leaving room for curiosity and creativity for those most interested in the startup journey. One of the most important takeaways from our program is that there are many roles in the startup ecosystem and the value of each role. Each workshop detailed below is designed for high school and college students and first-time entrepreneurs who need the basic building blocks.

Decode Launch (one 60-minute session)

“Entrepreneurship Masterclass in a box” workshop

This presentation-style session covers the introduction to entrepreneurship from idea, to testing a hypothesis, to funding and going public/acquisition. In preparation for this workshop, students will be asked to name their three favorite publicly traded companies which will provide the foundation of our analysis.

The workshop will include:

• 45- minute presentation; 15-minute Q&A
• 1-page worksheet to reinforce the presentation
• Interactive live case study deconstruction

Why Kim Carson is a Great Fit for Menlo College

• Deep Experience in AI & Equity: Kim began her AI journey at IBM Watson in 2014, launching one of the first tools for personalized learning in underserved schools. She later led global licensing for IBM’s AI labs and now advises future-forward startups and product teams.
• Topical Relevance: As Menlo College continues expanding interest in AI and its ethical implications, Kim’s unique lens on human-centered technology and machine-augmented creativity offers timely insights that spark cross-disciplinary curiosity.
• Mission-Aligned Perspective: Kim works from a core of equity, systems thinking, and social impact—making her especially resonant with Menlo’s international, entrepreneurial, and values-driven student body.
• Dynamic + Reflective Delivery: Her presence is both intellectually rich and deeply human. Kim’s warm, reflective tone helps students think expansively while anchoring big ideas in accessible, personal relevance.

Recommended Topics

Kim Carson’s sessions offer a fresh, soulful, and radically creative lens on AI, exploring how this powerful technology intersects with ethics, identity, creativity, and collective possibility. Her talks are anything but typical — no jargon, no fear-mongering — just insightful, engaging storytelling designed to spark curiosity and inspire bold thinking.

Drawing from her work at IBM Watson, her leadership at Parallax Futures, and over a decade in the AI ecosystem, Kim can tailor her talk to meet a variety of goals. Whether your focus is responsible innovation, prompt engineering, diverse perspectives in tech, ancestral intelligence, or the future of work, Kim’s sessions help students reframe AI not just as a tool, but as a mirror, a muse, and a co-creator of meaningful futures.

From poetic prompting and speculative design to ethical leadership and storytelling with machines, Kim helps audiences see AI as a space for wonder — and themselves as active creators in the world we’re building.

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