A woman with dreadlocks holding a microphone, smiling, and sitting with a notepad during a conference.
A woman with dark skin and dreadlocks speaking at a podium with a microphone, wearing a black jacket, pearl necklace, and a gold bracelet, against a dark background.
A diverse group of people sitting on chairs on a stage during a formal event, with a woman speaking at a podium. There is an American flag, potted plants, and a dark curtain in the background, illuminated by blue stage lighting.
A woman standing behind a wooden podium with a Rotary logo, smiling and reading from a paper, in front of a colorful Rotary banner.
Two women sitting on a stage, one smiling and holding a microphone, the other looking on, with a screen behind them displaying hashtags #BWLC2019 and #HEYMISSPROGRESS, and a logo for Black Women's Leadership.
Large indoor auditorium with wooden wall panels, two large blue screens displaying the TruStage logo and information about Angela Russell, Chief Diversity Officer for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Audience members seated, and a woman standing on s
A woman stands on stage speaking into a microphone, wearing vest over a white long-sleeve shirt, with short hair, earrings, and holding a glove. Behind her, a large screen displays a hand holding a piece of paper with a red, white, and blue star patt

Speaking

Angela Russell has been on stages her whole life — first as a musician and eventually as a speaker. She knows what it means to be in a room with an audience, to feel when something is alive and when it isn't, and to make the subtle shifts that bring everyone into the conversation. That instinct has carried her across more than two decades of public speaking. She has delivered keynotes at national and international gatherings including a 2018 invited address to the World Council of Credit Unions in Singapore, a commencement address at Beloit College, and keynote conversations alongside leaders including Dr. Helene Gayle and Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child. She has emceed landmark community events including the 40th Annual Madison & Dane County King Holiday Observance. Her stages have ranged from the Disability:In Wisconsin conference to the United Nations Credit Union Sustainability Conference, from the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council to the CapTimes Ideas Fest. Angela is also a sought-after moderator and interviewer — equally at home in a fireside chat, a community stage, or a recorded conversation. As host of Black Oxygen, she has interviewed Ijeoma Oluo, Wisconsin Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, and Governor Jim Doyle, among many others. In organizational and community settings, she has moderated and interviewed Resmaa Menakem, Heather McGhee, Priya Parker, Valarie Kaur, Matthew Desmond, Darnell Moore, Christian Cooper, Ericka Huggins, and others whose work sits at the center of the most urgent conversations of our time. Angela's talks draw on twenty-five years of work at the intersection of culture, community, and systems change. As a former Chief Diversity Officer and Foundation President at TruStage, Community Engagement Lead at the UW-Madison Population Health Institute, leader for the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, Policy Advisor to Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, epidemiologist, and founder of The Undercurrent, she speaks from lived experience across sectors, systems, and rooms where the stakes were real. Her perspective is grounded in science, experience, and a reverence for what is sacred and still becoming

Sample talk topics and themes to inspire your next event

  • Most systems weren't built for all of us. And yet, we adapted, endured, and made it work. But survival was never the destination.

    This keynote moves from survival to sovereignty. Drawing on lived experience and more than a two of organizational leadership, Angela Russell explores what it means to stop building workarounds and start building differently — systems and cultures that don't just accommodate, but actually center the people they've too long kept at the margins.

    Grounded in three practices — caring for ourselves, caring for each other, and caring within the organizations we lead and inhabit — this talk is both a permission slip and an invitation to stop adjusting and start building. It's for anyone who has ever suspected that the real work isn't fitting in. It's redesigning the systems, structures, and spaces that we're trying to fit into.

  • We talk a lot about belonging — in our workplaces, our communities, our movements for change. But belonging has a prerequisite we rarely name: you have to belong to yourself first.

    In this keynote, Angela Russell weaves together three stories — about the difference between compliance and inclusion, about her son's late autism diagnosis, and about her own life, told without the edits. Together they make a single argument: that the beloved community Dr. King envisioned isn't an abstraction. It's built person by person, story by story, in the courage to be seen and to see others fully.

    This is a talk about what it actually costs to show up whole — and what becomes possible when we do.

  • We are more divided than we have been in a generation. We fear each other, distrust each other, struggle to see each other clearly. But the deeper problem, Angela Russell argues, is that we have forgotten how to see ourselves.

    Drawing on the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the wisdom of writers, philosophers, and activists who have long imagined a more whole world, this keynote makes a simple and radical claim: the beloved community begins inside. When we can offer grace and belonging to ourselves — when we can see our own beauty — we become capable of extending that grace into every sphere of influence we hold.

    This is a talk for people already committed to service. It asks what becomes possible when that commitment turns inward first.

  • Communities across this country are hungry for something real. Not press releases. Not charity. Not programs or initiatives designed in corporate boardrooms for people who weren't consulted.

    Communities, community organizations, civic groups, school districts and more are hungry for neighbors.

    Angela Russell has spent her career — in state government, in academia, in philanthropy, and in corporate America — learning what it actually looks like when powerful organizations show up authentically, honestly, and as a good neighbor. In this keynote she shares what she's learned, reminds leaders of what they already know, and makes the case that how organizations neighbor right now matters more than ever.

    The impact you want to make is possible. It starts with showing up like you mean it.

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