story. strategy. show.
SIGNATURE
SPEAKING & DEVELOPMENT COLLECTION
2027
Reimagining how hospitality & event leaders think, lead, work, and create.
Bold ideas. Remarkable leadership. Better human experiences.
Built in the Field.
Refined Through Observation.
Brought to Life Through Story.
Imaginative professional development designed to inform, inspire, and move people forward.
Kerry Lee Doehr’s 2027 Speaking & Development experiences blend real-world leadership and hospitality expertise with creative storytelling and immersive edutainment—creating programs that are engaging, memorable, and immediately useful.
Designed for conferences, associations, hospitality and event professionals, corporate teams, and organizations of all sizes, experiences can take the form of keynotes, interactive sessions, private team development, virtual programs, or fully customized engagements. For clients seeking a lighter-touch option, many topics can also be adapted into a concise Express Edition—a focused, high-impact version that delivers the core ideas and practical takeaways without the full production footprint. Kerry also brings a dedicated focus to women’s leadership in hospitality and events, exploring confidence, communication, work-life integration, career visibility, and the persistent bottleneck between director-level leadership and the C-suite.
Every engagement is thoughtfully curated around the audience, the objective, and the moment. Some experiences call for powerful storytelling and conversation. Others transform the room into a story-driven learning world through atmosphere, symbolic details, purposeful play, unexpected moments, and collaborative challenges.
The format may change. The invitation does not.
Don’t just attend the learning. Step inside it.
2027 Signature Collection Below
Mastering Pushback:
A Curious Fall Into the Art of Resistance
Premier Signature Session
Pushback shows up in more places than we realize. It is the team member who resists a new process, the executive who keeps challenging the idea, the board member who will not move forward, the client who suddenly questions the plan, or the guest whose frustration is beginning to change the temperature in the room. In hospitality and events, it can surface anywhere people, expectations, pressure, and competing priorities meet.
That's when we head to Wonderland.
Using familiar characters as playful mirrors for the resistance we encounter every day, attendees begin decoding the different ways pushback can show up. The Queen, the Rabbit, the Hatter and others each represent a different kind of friction—and beneath every reaction, there is usually something being protected: control, certainty, time, identity, trust, safety, or simply the comfort of what is already known. Once we understand what may be underneath the behavior, we can stop reacting only to the surface and start responding more strategically.
Through storytelling, interactive challenges, reflection, and practical tools, attendees explore how to recognize different forms of pushback, adjust their approach, and turn resistance into greater clarity, collaboration, and forward movement. The experience can be scaled from a high-energy keynote to a richly immersive Wonderland environment, depending on the audience, setting, and budget. However far down the rabbit hole we go, the goal remains the same: decode the resistance, understand what it is protecting, and design the way forward.
"Two words: understated brilliance." -J. Goolsby, Founder Godfather Films
Don’t Waste the One-Star Review
The Complaint Is Public. So Is Your Leadership.
Signature Session
A negative review doesn’t have to be accurate to be valuable—and responding doesn’t mean agreeing. This session explores how leaders can look beyond the sting of public criticism to uncover what a review may reveal about the guest experience, operations, communication, or brand—while also deciding when and how a public response can strengthen trust.
Attendees will learn how to separate emotion from useful insight, recognize when silence may be a missed opportunity, and respond without becoming defensive or validating claims they don’t believe are true. They’ll leave with a practical framework for asking two essential questions: What can we learn from this? And what, if anything, should we say about it?
You’re not always responding to the reviewer. You’re responding for everyone who will read the review next.
Added attendee benefit: Participants may submit one negative review from their organization within six months of the program for a complimentary review strategy evaluation and response recommendation.*
*Recommendations are provided from a hospitality, guest-experience, communication, and brand perspective and are not legal advice.
Unlocking Enchantment:
Daily Disney Culture Insights & Practices for Creating Transformational Moments of Wow
Premier Signature Session
Go behind the scenes with a former Disney Cast Member and guest-experience leader with more than 20 years of experience in hospitality, leadership, and customer experience. This session explores the cultural practices, storytelling principles, service mindset, and attention to detail that have helped Disney create some of the world’s most memorable guest experiences.
Working with event planners, Kerry can also help shape the session into an immersive learning experience inspired by the feeling of new-Cast-Member onboarding—inviting attendees to step into the mindset, language, and intentionality behind a culture built around creating moments of “wow.”
Attendees will discover how to translate these principles into their own organizations, events, teams, and customer interactions—leaving with practical ideas for strengthening culture, creating emotional connection, and turning everyday touchpoints into experiences people remember.
“Kerry Lee Doehr embodies Disney, full stop.
From the moment I saw her walk on stage, I knew she represented the brand without having to say a word. Not only was her presence on point, but she was engaging, and provided deep knowledge of Walt, Disneyland, and Disney’s rich tradition and culture. She was able to unpack and uncover all the subtle details that I know and love about the Disney experience, without even recognizing them. Hearing her speak allowed me to appreciate and understand the amount of detail and nuance it takes to provide me, the guest, with an unforgettable experience every time I visit a park.”
E. Andal-James
Cvent Event Software
Protect the Business.
Preserve the Experience.
How Leaders Balance Risk, Rules, and Remarkable Hospitality
Signature Session
When we think about customer service, we usually picture the traditional customer—the guest, client, member, or patron who is paying for and receiving the experience. But every organization has a second customer, too: the internal customer—the employees expected to deliver it.
Policies designed to prevent fraud, reduce risk, ensure compliance, or create consistency are essential. But when those policies reach the front line without enough context, discretion, communication guidance, or leadership support, they can unintentionally compromise both customer experiences at once.
This session explores what happens when well-intended rules collide with real-world hospitality. Leaders will examine how to protect the organization while also protecting the employees tasked with enforcing policy—and the guests affected by it. Attendees will learn how to identify where discretion belongs, create clearer escalation paths, prepare teams for difficult conversations, and ensure frontline employees are not left carrying the full weight of decisions they did not create and may not have the authority to solve.
Because a policy that protects the organization on paper can work against it in practice when the people responsible for delivering it are not equipped to navigate the human realities around it.
If a policy protects the company but leaves the employee powerless and the guest frustrated, leadership hasn’t finished designing the policy.
Protecting the business and preserving the experience should never be competing objectives.
Great leadership designs for both.
especially for women:
Check In. Level Up. Lead Boldly.
Premier Signature Session
This transformational keynote is designed for women leaders in the hospitality industry—whether you’re an executive, director, or hourly leader on the rise. With humor, candor, and actionable tools, Kerry guides attendees through a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, beginning with her signature Imposter Interrupt exercise to silence self-doubt and establish belonging.
Participants will explore the “Holy Grail” of bold leadership, uncover why leadership often bottlenecks at the director level, and learn how to move past it with intentional strategies. Through practical insights on executive communication, work-life balance, personal mission/vision building, and leading through uncertainty, this session equips women with tools they can put into practice immediately.
This experience blends original content with global perspectives, including insights from Kerry’s network of women hospitality executives, to spark inspiration and connection.
Most of all, it’s an invitation to reclaim—or rediscover—the superhero cape you may have forgotten still fits. Attendees will leave with fresh confidence, practical strategies, and the clarity to lead boldly in their own authentic way.
The Write Fix:
Winning Strategies to De-Escalate, Influence and Connect
Signature Session
Written words carry weight—and in tense or ambiguous situations, they can either escalate conflict or create opportunity.
In this interactive session, we’ll tackle both internal communication (with colleagues, leaders, and teams) and external communication (with clients, vendors, and guests). You’ll gain practical strategies to de-escalate conflict, influence outcomes, and build stronger connections through emails, memos, and other written correspondence.
Together we’ll explore real-world examples and even workshop your toughest written challenges—submitted anonymously—so everyone can learn. (Yes, we’ll even address that co-worker whose emails somehow manage to bring out the worst in everyone and stall progress.)
With peer collaboration, actionable techniques, and a toolkit of winning words and approaches, you’ll leave ready to transform even the toughest exchanges into opportunities for clarity, trust, and success.
The Disney Imagineering Mindset for Event & Service Mastery:Crafting Experiences from Concept to Showtime
Signature Session
Inspired by the legendary Disney Imagineering mindset of designing unforgettable experiences, from the first spark of an idea to "opening day" (or showtime!/guest facing moments), this session explores how to apply inspiring and innovative methods to events, hospitality, guest experiences, teamwork, and leadership.
You’ll discover how to prototype ideas in a financially secure way, avoid common mistakes made when innovating, and tap into counter-intuitive techniques that spark fresh creativity.
Plus, enjoy a hands-on, interactive exercise guaranteed to leave you laughing while cementing key innovation concepts for take-home value. Along the way, you’ll also connect with fellow attendees in fun and delightful ways, making this an inspiring and memorable experience for all.
especially for women:
The Language of Leadership:
Phrases That Build Power & Presence
Premier Signature Session
Words shape perception—and for women leaders, the right language can be the difference between being heard and being heeded.
Because women are often less exposed to direct communication coaching in their careers, they can unintentionally default to phrasing that undermines their authority—even when their expertise is unmatched. This session gives women leaders the tools to shift that dynamic with clarity and confidence.
Drawing on her career as a founding CEO, her time with The Walt Disney Company, and her work with an elite event clientele that has included former White House staff, a Disney CEO, and more, Kerry Lee Doehr shares how she has crafted and edited communications for teams, employees, and guests—earning consistently favorable outcomes and proving how language directly impacts leadership presence.
Attendees will not only explore real-world examples from boardrooms, team meetings, and guest interactions—they’ll also uncover some of the most common undermining phrases professional women use, and learn powerful replacements that elevate authority, credibility, and influence.
Depending on the format, this talk can expand into an interactive mini-workshop, where participants role-play scenarios and practice using language that commands respect and drives results.
Think Different.
Work Different.
Evolve Different.
Premier Signature Session
In the crown jewel of this collection we’ll explore how to ignite a modern renaissance for your organization while honoring the traditions and heritages that helped it become what it is today.
You'll learn how to approach problems as potential symptoms of deeper issues, avoid the pitfalls of optimism (wait what?) during a crisis, and seize opportunities to innovate in real-time. Discover how to design a department with purpose, aligned with core values, and go beyond branding to define your true "why". We'll also dive into the power of constructive dissent from team members, embracing uncertainty as a strategy, and asking the tough questions that lead to progress and innovation. Walk away with practical tools to reimagine and lead through any challenge in the events and hospitality industry.
The Essential Element of
Customer Exit Strategy
in Completing Customer Experience Excellence
Signature Session
Customer experience does not end when the sale ends—or even when the relationship does.
Whether a long-term customer chooses to leave, or the organization decides the relationship should end, there should be intention behind how that exit is handled. This session explores one of the most overlooked parts of the customer journey: the moments during and after departure.
This is not about saving every sale or persuading every dissatisfied customer to stay. It is about preserving trust, dignity, and goodwill so that even when the business relationship ends, the brand relationship does not have to end with it. Every customer interaction becomes part of the story that person carries forward—and that story can influence future reputation, referrals, and brand perception long after the final transaction.
Attendees will learn how to design a thoughtful customer exit strategy, navigate difficult departures with professionalism, and create post-exit touchpoints that help protect the relationship, the reputation, and the possibility that a former customer may still become an advocate.
The relationship may end. Their influence on your brand does not.
![Bye spell written in beach sand tropical Caribbean end of vacation [Photo Illustration].jp](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/156818_353b8a261997431cb4daa202ea93b28a~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_421,h_632,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/156818_353b8a261997431cb4daa202ea93b28a~mv2.jpg)
The CX Game Changer:
Elevating The Golden Rule
To the Platinum Rule
Signature Session
The very heart of hospitality is The Golden Rule: treat others the way you would want to be treated. But exceptional customer experience asks us to go one step further.
The Platinum Rule challenges leaders and teams to move beyond their own preferences and instead consider how the other person wants to be treated. And that applies to both sides of the experience: the external customer we traditionally think of as the guest, client, or patron, and the internal customer—the people on our teams who are responsible for delivering the experience.
But serving people according to what matters most to them requires more than good intentions. It requires curiosity, observation, listening, thoughtful questions, and a deeper understanding of the individual—their needs, expectations, communication style, preferences, and even the signals they may not state directly.
This session explores the work behind truly personalized service and leadership. Attendees will learn how to better recognize what different people need, gather the insight necessary to adapt their approach, and translate that understanding into stronger guest experiences, healthier team cultures, and more meaningful human connection.
Great service treats people well. Remarkable service takes the time to learn what “well” means to them.
a note from Kerry
Every audience is different. Every event should feel that way.
My speaking experiences are designed to flex with your goals—topics can be combined, expanded, or customized to create the right experience for your audience.
And my partnership goes beyond the stage. With two decades in event production, experience design, and storytelling, I collaborate with clients and planners to help shape the attendee journey—from pre-event touchpoints to the live experience and the ideas that stay with people afterward.
The result is more than a session. It’s an intentional edutainment experience designed to align with your agenda, create memorable moments of wow, and meet you at the level of collaboration that works best for your event.
- Kerry
about the investment
Speaking engagements are tailored to the audience, format, and partnership. Standard professional fees apply, with value-based considerations available for repeat clients, referrals, strategic partners, and select organizations whose mission aligns with Kerry’s work.