Shadé Zahrai
Director, Influenceo Global Inc.
PhD Cand. MBA, LLB (Hons 1), BA-Psych, Dip Pos. Psych, IECL Certified Coach
Award-Winning Leadership Strategist & Global Peak Performance Consultant to Fortune 500s
Clients Inspired by Shadé
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Shadé Zahrai is a leadership ‘alchemist’ known for her superhuman ability to translate the latest in neuroscience and psychology research into practical and actionable strategies that drive mindset shifts and behavioural change in a systemic way.
She’s a dynamic speaker who skillfully blends a wealth of experience in corporate and consulting Fortune 500s around the world, with her approach as a scholar-practitioner and her PhD research in leadership and career performance.
She’s spent countless hours with hundreds of teams from startups to Fortune 500s, observing clear behavioural trends behind the happiest and most successful people. Now through her company, along with her PhD research in career performance, she is leveraging the latest insights in high performance and leadership into commercially sound strategies for people and companies to do their best work by putting emotional intelligence and ‘humanness’ at the core.
A former commercial lawyer that transitioned to a successful career in banking and strategy consulting, she has since become a bestselling author, Harvard-trained leadership coach, TEDx speaker and was recently recognised as Adweek’s Careers Creator of the Year has amassed a global community of over 1.3 M followers on social media. She’s been featured in Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk, Adweek, the New York Times & Yahoo Finance, and is a former member of the Forbes Coaches Council, contributing articles focussed on career development, leadership and high performance.
She runs Influenceo Global Inc., a leadership development, consulting & research firm, that works with Fortune 500s across the globe including McDonald's, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble & JP Morgan, empowering their teams to thrive during these turbulent times.
Shadé is very in touch with the human side of the business and how to drive sustained performance, and she also has a passion for delivering programs for women in leadership to maximise confidence and supercharge success. She was the season one host of Commonwealth bank’s Leading Women podcast.
Shadé’s deep academic understanding of the art and science of peak performance blended with her commercial acumen, data-driven content and captivating storytelling, combines to make her an in-demand global speaker. Shadé’s keynotes are characterised by authenticity, practicality and creating lasting impact.
Shadé is also a 3x Australian champion Latin dancer, so salsa lessons are an added perk.
As Director and Chief Positive Influencer of Influenceo Global Inc., Shadé brings positive psychology and neuroscience research to life through simple, easy-to-apply strategies to elevate leadership, bolster engagement and boost employee wellbeing. She’s worked with leading organisations to develop robust strategies for growth, delivered powerful professional development keynotes and programs that drive positive team culture and change-readiness.
In line with her mission to elevate the status of women in business, Shadé founded Neurofemina in 2019, an innovative training platform to equip women with Confidence, Capability and Clarity to ignite their potential and excel in an era of unprecedented uncertainty.
Latin Dance
Shadé’s love of dance stemmed from a two-fold drive… to challenge herself to push beyond what she thought possible, and to be the instigator of change in her students, guiding them to build their confidence and seeing them have breakthroughs in their creativity and expression.
Becoming a highly sought after dance duo, Shadé and dance partner Juan Ruiz, Director of Tropical Soul in Sydney, performed and taught at festivals and events all around the country and were international guests artists at the World Bachata Festival in Malaysia 2015. They won three Australian Latin Dance Championships between 2015-16. Shadé also represented Australia at the World Salsa Open in Puerto Rico in 2014, came 1st the Portland Salsa Congress the same year and has contributed as an instructor to international dance retreats.
In 2017 she was invited to performing Australia’s first TED conference, dancing alongside Aric Yegudken from Dancing With the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance.