Dima Ghawi

Inspired by her TEDx talk, Dima Ghawi’s story of personal transformation encourages audiences to confront and conquer internal limitations. As she recounts her own struggles and triumphs, her vulnerability and insight resonate with audiences, sparking a guiding light for attendees’ own journeys of self-discovery and leadership growth.

Dima dares individuals to examine at their own internal limitations, such as the pursuit of perfection and the fear of failure or judgment. She then equips audience members with the tools and courage it takes to shatter those limitations and emerge as empowered individuals.

Audiences will learn:

• The importance of self-awareness and how effective personal leadership starts from within.
• How conscious professionals lead to better teamwork, enhanced communication, and an improvement in overall organizational culture.
• How internal limitations inhibit individuals from performing at their best and advancing professionally.

Key attendee takeaways:

• Elevate employee engagement and team morale by encouraging risk-taking and increasing individual self-awareness.
• Shattering internal limitations creates more confident and conscious leaders.
• By increasing courage in organizations, creativity and innovation also increases, improving the bottom-line results.

Employees in healthy cultures thrive. These cultures are created and passed down, inherited by the next generation of employees. The strongest leaders know to focus on a long-term strategy with an emphasis on corporate culture health for future generations to sustain. Dima Ghawi worked with Fortune 20 corporations and diverse teams around the world for two decades. Through her assignments in 19 countries with IBM in Leadership Training and Development, she gained critical insights into leading across global teams. She recognized that bold leadership, employee engagement, and DEI were not only inextricably linked, but they were also crucial across cultures. Her unique experience has given her deep insight into how to be an effective leader in the global age:

• START WITH TRUST TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS: Trust is the basis for nearly all healthy relationships, and getting trust starts with giving it.
• HIGHLIGHT SIMILARITIES: It’s easy to focus on cultural differences, but leaders must understand their team and pay attention to universal similarities.
• BE ADAPTABLE: Leaders must be able to adapt quickly to their team’s multiculturality and determine what they value. Audiences will learn:
• To recognize how corporate culture is learned and passed down to the next group of employees.
• How to prioritize healthy employer/employee connection, and that healthy, connected cultures produce connected, engaged employees.
• That inspired, courageous leadership involves assuming the responsibility of modeling and teaching healthy work culture to create their organization’s next generation.

Key attendee takeaways:

• Disconnected employees diminish productivity and innovation, and this disconnection can be a significant factor in their leaving an organization – or worse yet, staying.
• Incorporating long-term strategies for the next generation of employees to adopt healthy culture is critical for sustained growth.
• Creating a shared confidence in the future and a culture of belonging, connection, and inclusion are key to employee engagement. 

Creating a culture of inclusion is no longer a “nice to have.” Inclusion is essential for recruiting, engaging, and retaining top talent, and it is a competitive advantage of any company. In this keynote, Dima Ghawi shares decades’ worth of findings gathered across hundreds of interviews and workplace surveys on how to create a welcoming and inclusive workforce. Dima’s real-life experiences with organizations around the world, as well as her unique and fascinating upbringing in the Middle East, bring to life for audiences the critical importance of diversity and inclusion.

Through powerful storytelling and personal narratives, Dima deconstructs conscious and unconscious biases, guiding attendees to address common workplace resistance to DEI. She teaches leaders that increasing inclusion creates a safe and healthy culture. More than picture-perfect diversity, this presentation shows audience members how to foster a sense of inclusion within their workplace. Audiences will learn:

• How to create a safe and inclusive workplace culture.
• The meaning of unconscious bias and its effect in the workplace.
• What diverse employees are looking for and how to integrate these needs into management styles. Key attendee takeaways:
• The insight of a bottom-up approach, the influence of courageous office culture, and the power of affinity groups.
• What diverse employees are looking for, including actionable tips to create a courageous and integrative workplace culture.
• How to create a more productive, engaging, and inclusive workplace for all.

In a world where “fitting in” is often seen as desirable, it can be easy for someone to feel like an outcast—like they don’t belong. The workplace in particular may create a stifling environment, where employees believe they must suppress aspects of their identity to avoid rocking the boat. But when a person learns to embrace their differences, they can harness that innate uniqueness to create new, brilliant advantages in their work and social life. In this keynote, Dima Ghawi guides attendees to acknowledge and appreciate what makes them different, demonstrating the advantages acquired when people embrace their individuality. Through humorous narratives and personal stories drawn from her experiences as a Middle Eastern woman in America, she reveals to participants the incalculable value gained in both professional and social environments when individuals challenge conformity. By the end of this presentation, Dima’s actionable tips and engaging examples leave audiences prepared to appreciate, liberate, and celebrate their inner misfit. Audiences will learn:

• How to encourage a mindset that appreciates one’s personal uniqueness.
• How conformity stifles individuals and negatively impacts their mental well-being.
• How to liberate one’s inner misfit and embrace that advantage in social and professional environments. Key attendee takeaways:
• Best practices for facilitating and embracing one’s individuality.
• Actionable tips for creating a culture of belonging in the workplace.
• The practical and emotional benefits of letting one’s differences shine in all environments.

Gen Z is no longer the generation of tomorrow but rather the generation of today. Many are just graduating from college, and their values and work style significantly differ from their Millennial, Gen X, and Baby Boomer predecessors. Supporting them now will help ensure companies stay relevant for Gen Z and generations beyond. In this keynote, Dima Ghawi shares key insights to effectively lead Gen Z in the workplace. She explores specific strategies that equip audiences with the tools to support Gen Z employees, including implementing diverse channels of communication and developing organizational policies that prioritize social justice and mental well-being. Through actionable tips and engaging examples, Dima guides attendees to a fuller understanding of what Gen Z values in a work culture and how organizations can attract, retain, and engage the generation of today.

Audiences will learn:

• What Gen Z employees are looking for and how to integrate these needs into management styles and organizational policy.
• How to motivate and engage Gen Z in the workplace.
• What employers can do to support Gen Z and channel their creativity.

Key attendee takeaways:

• Actionable tips that address topics from mental health to personal scheduling to ensure Gen Z thrives in the workplace.
• Specific techniques to guide Gen Z in their college-to-workplace adjustment.
• Best practices for creating a more productive and inclusive workplace for employees of all ages.