Sam Turner - Hire Keynote and Guest Speaker

Sam Turner

Creating inclusive workplaces, transforming cultures

Sam Turner is an influential global inclusion leader with 20+ years’ experience across the financial services, technology, higher education, and natural resources sectors. Sam Turner is known as an innovator, a strategic thinker, and someone who executes for positive results in the Inclusion & Diversity arena.

She is the previous Head of Inclusion & Diversity for the Westpac Group, and over the last two years has worked alongside CEOs of major global tech and media companies as the Program Director for the Champions of Change Global Tech Group and Microsoft Partners Group. Sam Turner has recently joined Microsoft as Chief of Staff to the Chief Partner Officer.

Sam Turner also works as a consultant with Elizabeth Broderick & Co and the Australian Human Rights Commission in their highly reputable reviews of workplace culture – specifically gender and race equality, diversity, and cultural transformation.

She has held a number of senior commercial roles at Westpac, NAB, BHP, and Deloitte. She has a unique blend of business acumen, transformational leadership, and imagination.

Sam Turner was the winner of the 2016 Women of Influence Awards and was named one of Australia’s Outstanding 50 LGBTIQ leaders in the Deloitte/Google 2018 list. Sam is also a Churchill Fellow.

Sam Turner is the Chair of The Aurora Group, one of Australia’s largest not for profit foundations providing small grants to LGBTIQ charities.

She holds an Honours degree in Commerce, and a Postgraduate Diploma of Psychology.

Sam Turner Book as a speaker/entertainer for your next event

Key Points for Sam Turner

Sam Turner was awarded the Churchill Fellow 2018 – Improving Cultural/Racial Diversity in Leadership – a study across the US and UK for Diversity & Inclusion best practice.
Named Deloitte/Google Top 50 Outstanding LGBTIQ+ Leaders 2018.
Her clients include Optus, Warner Bros, Condé Nast, BBC, WPP, Vice Media, Microsoft, Australian Human Rights Commission, Salesforce, Elizabeth Broderick & Co, Swiss Re, Rio Tinto, Yoox, Net-A-Porter.
Sam Turner was 2016 Westpac Internal Women of Influence Overall Winner – for her work in Diversity & Inclusion and transforming culture.
Chairperson, The Aurora Group – a not for profit foundation providing small grants to LGBTQ+ organisations.

Topics for Sam Turner

Why inclusion matters
Sam Turner shares the power of inclusive teams, how to create them, and how to maintain them.
Leadership as part of the LGBTQ+ community
What it means to be a leader in the LGBTQ+ community at the moment.
Authentic leadership
How to find your authenticity, bring it to your leadership style, and create environments where your teams can be their authentic selves.
My journey as an inclusive leader
Sam Turner tells her story of a kid raised on the central coast of NSW by a single Dad, to a key community leader and executive leader.
Sexual harassment, bullying and the power of inclusion
The current state of play for diversity & inclusion in Australia, how creating more inclusive cultures eradicated harassment, sexual harassment and bullying.

Testimonials for Sam Turner

The feedback from our customers and partners around the quality of the event and most importantly the insights Sam Turner shared has been humbling.
Chair
Hewlett Packard Women’s Network

Sam Turner was our featured speaker for our Wear it Purple Day event in 2018. In providing an on point, tailored and inspiring speech that met the brief we gave her Sam exceeded our expectations. Her combination of personal story, demonstrated business impact, and vision for the future generated an ongoing conversation and impetus for working for inclusion. I recommend Sam highly to those looking for an insightful, engaging and visionary speaker who can inspire commitment to change.
Acting Group Manager
Welfare and Housing Policy Group - Department of Social Services

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Sam Turner talk about the importance of having targets around Inclusion & Diversity, including not only the white anglo saxon females but the inclusion of women of colour and LGBTI, women with a disability, and other groups. In particular, I thought it was really interesting hearing Sam Turner explain bias, and how to identify it and then flip it on its head! Thank you for your invaluable insights, humour and honesty which made the event such a success.
Uber/YWCA Event

Great presentation--Sam Turner was also conscious that not all of us had the resources that larger organisations had & that was appreciated!
Great insight into inclusion program.
Some good "take-aways" even for smaller organisations
Wow so engaging, Sam provided practical tools and ideas we can all implement.
Excellent speaker. Engaging and interesting.
National HR Summit, Australia

Sam Turner, a short note to say thank you so much for your time and wonderful engagement on the panel at Down Under Dreaming yesterday. I had so many people come up afterwards and say how inspiring and open you were and how much they enjoyed the session. Thank you for taking time out of your day to make it a success.
Salesforce