HIRE MALIA IF YOU WANT A SPEAKER WHO WILL RAISE THE ROOF and CHALLENGE PEOPLE TO THINK DEEPLY.
Sample topics. Custom presentations available.
BELONGING: What Bonobos Can Teach Us About Getting Along
Humans don't know how to building a culture of belonging with other humans. Instead, a scarcity mentality, fueled by fear-based marketing have wrecked havoc and brought our country on its knees. With our power gladly given to politicians and corporations, how can we count on people to do the right thing? In this presentation we will explore how Bonobos (yes, the primate) from different groups get to know each other. We will learn to undo the binds of blame and focus instead on self-love, radical acceptance and personal responsibility.
Audience: General, Workplace or Conference Takeaways:
How to take responsibility without blame?
What are actionable items for you to do to promote belonging?
When the innovation economy hit the streets of Boston and Cambridge, MA making the area the second largest startup scene in the country with big wins in tech, consumer goods, green tech, clean teach, healthcare and bio tech. But there was a striking lack of funding for entrepreneurs of color, women, and businesses in the creative economy. The boom was leaving entire communities behind and no way to participate in the enormous growth.
Struck by this huge lack in funding, Malia Lazu partnered with the start up community to form Xcelerate Boston, an incubator for minority-owned businesses. In this exciting talk, Malia will spell out what it takes to support women and business owners of color as they become successful, visionary entrepreneurs and the critical components needed to support the entire entrepreneur who comes from a non-majority group.
Audience: General, Municipality, Conference, Corporate Insights include:
building a whole-person, holistic accelerator experience
helping entrepreneurs work through trauma, a scarcity mentality and survivor guilt
how to include people of color in the innovation economy.
Most generational cohorts thinks the generations below them are clueless and going to ruin society. History has proven this isn't true, but it is a bias that remains deeply embedded in American workplaces. Building on the West Africa concept of "Sankofa," this presentation explores the important relationships build between generations in work, life, culture and society -- from the Greatest Generation to Gen Z.
Audience: Corporate or Conference Learnings include:
What purpose intergenerational alignment served historically
HABIT: Why Culture Continues to Reinforce Entrenched Norms
Why are cultural norms so pervasive? Because most people don't even know the norms exist! Our culture currently tells us that to be happy, to be beautiful, to matter, to have influence, you have to get as close to the cultural norm as possible -- and that cultural norm is white, male, and Christian.
We've been told stories that we live in a meritocracy. That all are created equal and the natural arc of history is towards equal opportunity and justice. This powerful talk asks how the current American cultural mythology serves us, and what different mythology we need to adopt to get the culture we want.
Audience: General, Workplace Conference Learnings include:
UNEQUAL: Understanding the Entrenched Nature of Structural Bias
If miraculously we were all freed from our biases, America would still be fraught with inequity. Institutional and structural bias are baked into American culture, and it's not the fault of anyone alive today. The systems of inequality date back to our country's founding, advantaging certain groups over other groups. And no matter how hard we individually work to undo our unconscious biases, change won't happen until institutions are forever changed.
Audience: General, Workplace, Conference Takeaways:
An understanding of structural, institutional and implicit bias
Introduction to the tools need to deconstruct bias