SHARYN HOLMES
  • Welcome
  • Inclusive Coach
  • Media
  • PRAISE
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You've never been to an event like this before.

An event that centres Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour brilliance. 

A space to witness our brilliance and discover our needs: our health and well-being, support systems, our perspectives, our stories, our work, our gifts, our strengths, our medicine and our vision.

If you’re non-BIPOC, this is where you get to see and learn the depth, breadth and brilliance of BIPOC like never before. Because all-white panels are racist, exclusionary and oh so passé.

​Please know that all identities are welcome here. This is an anti-racist, intersectional, diverse space.
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introducing...

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A 10-day virtual event featuring the brilliance of BIPOC from 16th - 25th November.
The conversations we’ll have and the perspectives you’ll hear aren't only about anti-racism and
​social justice, so whiteness isn’t centred.
Buy your ticket to Beam Your Brilliance

At this year's event you will witness and experience:

  • Virtual roundtables. Multiple speakers. Each speaker is asked questions related directly to them and their business, mission, vision and story.
  • Candid 1:1 conversations with our speakers about their work, their story and their purpose.
  • Workshops that will deepen connection to your heart, your wellbeing and your creativity.
  • Circles that unite and provide balm for your soul. Goodness knows 2020 has show us how much we need it.

Formidable Voices has a foundation of anti-racism and social justice as a woman of colour-led movement, but it’s more than that:
It’s about diversity in representation. Not just in social identity, but in areas of work, art, purpose and expertise.

That’s why you’ll hear from artists, writers, creatives, coaches, community support workers, mental and emotional health and wellbeing practitioners, consultants, spiritual and psychic mediums and entrepreneurs.


Testimonial:
This event was transformative. The power, brilliance and calibre of each speaker truly was formidable. The diversity in speakers meant there was a richness in topics and discussions that I’d never been exposed to before. A year on, the speakers and their stories, ideas and insights still impact me. I can’t recommend Formidable Voices highly enough. Miish Grixti



This event centres 23 speakers from 5 countries around the world.

This isn’t a one-person show. It’s a virtual conference with an impact.


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Sharyn Holmes
As a leadership and inclusion coach, consultant, speaker, artist and writer, my work teaches online business owners what it takes to be anti-racist, anti-oppressive and how to become an inclusive coach. I also lead the coaching circles, Gutsy Leadership Circle, Descent Circle and Witchuition. As the CEO of Formidable Voices, I created an all-BIPOC events and social movement elevating the brilliance, expertise and innovation of BIPOC globally.

I’m also the Mistress of Potions behind Ascendio Apothecary and facilitator of the practical magic + inclusive business praxis experience known as Witchuition.

My core value of Togetherness is the foundation I build my life, business, creations and relationships on.


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Yolanda Finette
Yolanda Finette is a certified Holistic Life Coach, consultant & wellbeing facilitator with a 25-
year professional career in the child, youth and family services sector, in both the Melbourne Aboriginal community and the United States. Yolanda has extensive experience in professional mentoring and coaching, program & project development, Leadership development, Program management, cross- cultural communication, cultural safety and facilitation.

Yolanda was born in North Carolina, USA and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. Yolanda is a Yorta Yorta, African – American and Greek woman and it is through her multi-cultural lens and journey of healing and reconnection that she is able to facilitate a unique, dynamic and holistic approach to her practice drawing on both traditional and modern modalities.
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The Values that underpin Yolanda’s work are Reconnection, Identity and Sovereignty.

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Sonali Fiske
Sonali is a Sri Lankan-American leadership consultant to black indigenous, womxn of color, a TEDx Speaker, Revolutionary Voices radio show host, and founder of Pick Your Platform & Raise Your Voice. Her recent online masterclass on "Dismantling White Dominance in Women's Entrepreneurship" went viral, and centered the stories and lived experiences of BIWOC who are countering the current narrative in leadership, influence and social justice.​

On her radio talk show, Revolutionary Voices, Her jam is confronting uneasy topics like colonization, tokenism, white supremacy and cultural appropriation, and more — to help reimagine the narrative and dismantle the systems of oppression people of color live and work in every day. Sonali is also currently a council member of the International Council of Interfaith & Indigenous Women. 

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Staci Jordan Shelton
​Staci is a performance strategist and coach who helps creators, visionaries and change agents like you get free from the beliefs, binaries and behaviors that keep them from success. 
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I loathe the hustle, toxic work culture and relational dysfunction because I know the way that they cause brilliant, amazing leaders to be sidelined, eaten up and burned out by them.
If you’re ready for a life of freedom, success and ease, let’s begin.

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Ruby Hamad
Ruby is a journalist, author, and academic completing a Ph.D. in media studies at UNSW. Her Guardian article, ‘How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Color,’ became a global flashpoint for discussions of white feminism and racism and inspired her debut book, White Tears/Brown Scars, which has received critical acclaim in Australia and overseas where it. has just been published in the US, Canada and the UK. She was a long-time columnist for former Fairfax Media's feminist flagship Daily Life and her writing has also featured in The New York Times, Prospect Magazine, The New Arab, and more. She splits her time between Sydney and New York.
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Courtney Napier
Courtney is a freelance journalist and writer from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the founder of Black Oak Society—a community of Black writers and artists in the greater Raleigh area—and the editor of their flagship publication, BOS Zine. Her work can be found in INDY Week, Scalawag Magazine, Walter Magazine, and her blog, Courtney Has Words. Courtney chose to write because she wanted the untold stories of marginalized residents to be shared and preserved for generations to come. Her spouse and two children are a daily source of love and inspiration.

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Jolinda Johnson
Jolinda Johnson is a Women’s Health Coach (M.S.Ed., CHHC), Mentor, and Priestess who’s passionate about helping women break up with the good girl and return to the wild: whole, healthy, and free.

As a result of working together, her clients begin living in harmony with their hormones and menstrual cycles, build trust in their bodies and their inner wisdom, and rebuild the spiritual connection they've been missing to surrender into what feels good (not just what makes sense).  They then have the courage to move forward and experience vibrant health from a place of wholeness, worthiness, and wellness on their own terms.

She's originally from Detroit, Michigan but has lived in Barcelona, Spain for the last twelve years. Once upon a time she was married, but is now a single mom to a five-year-old son named Leonard (Lay-o-nard) who was sent to teach her how to live in the present and finally go with the flow.


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Michelle Nicole
​Michelle Nicole is a public scholar and justice educator that helps folx build the knowledge and skills to effectively combat injustice so all of us can experience safer and fairer communities.
She has helped hundreds of learners develop a deeper understanding of restorative and transformative justice, position themselves to create meaningful change, and take effective action for racial justice within their communities of influence.
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Recognizing the need to extend her work beyond the confines of academia's ivory tower, Michelle Nicole founded Passion & Power-a public scholarship initiative and consulting firm where she facilitates accessible learning experiences and provides change driven folx with the tools to become active & accountable advocates for justice in their daily lives.
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Through her signature course-The Power Real Justice Initiative- Michelle empowers folx to rethink justice, confront their role in oppression, and own their power to create sustained transformation.
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Kundan Chhabra
Kundan is an Indigenous anti-racism activist and multi-creative Storyteller using Storytelling, Creative Strategy and Akashic Records Consultations to create a transformation on both the individual and Systemic levels by changing the Narrative.

They have produced the shows "Pioneering Perspectives", "Akashic Storytelling", "Akashic Creativity Incubator"and "Story Time".

They were a workshop leader for TEDx UC Irvine in 2013. They're published in multiple publications.

They are  Punjabi Indigenous Ethnic Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh. They currently reside in Orange County, Southern California.
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Navi Gill

Navdeep (Navi) Gill is an Ayurveda practitioner, yoga teacher and holistic wellness educator specializing in lifestyle consulting, Marma Chikitsa therapy and foundational Panchakarma bodywork. She has been learning and practicing Ayurveda and yoga since 2012, her work focuses on reviving and connecting womxn to ancestral wisdom and ritual as a form of self care. 
 
Her practice Navi Gill Wellness is located in Surrey BC and she travels globally to educate and work with clients to help them understand the principles of Ayurveda, how it applies to their daily life and how to create a lifestyle that encompasses the authentic teachings of ancient Ayurveda in order to achieve mind, body, spirit health & harmony. A primary focus of her practice is to decolonize wellness by reclaiming and creating community based care & accessibility to ancestral wisdom specifically for womxn and people of colour.

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Mētztli Alexandria

Mētztli Alexandria (they/them) is a disruptor of the spiritual & colonial mainstream, and the Black and Indigenous, 2Spirit, Disabled, Queer Anarchist witch behind all things Revolutionary Mystic. Revolutionary Mystic is a podcast that amplifies the transformative magic & voices of BIPOC, as well as an inclusive social media community for radical leftist witches, & a full-service Hoodoo Botánica that serves a global following, from the stolen land of the Pomo people (who are *still there!*), also known as Santa Rosa, California, on Turtle Island. In addition to handcrafting all the candles, spell ingredients & magickal accouterment in their online shop, they're also: a psychic medium, astrologer, Hoodoo rootworker, paranormalist, teacher, mentor & aspiring Satanic minister. Their mission is to make spiritual services, psychic development & classes accessible to all BIPOC via mutual aid sourced scholarships, to one day start a wolf sanctuary, and to live and serve in right relation with the liberation of all BIPOC & marginalized communities & beings.
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Jade McKenzie
​Jade McKenzie, Founder of Event Head, Reawakened Women and Beautiful Business Builders, is a 5 x internationally award winning business coach and event professional with over 15 years’ experience in event management and business development in the corporate, not for profit and entrepreneurial sectors.
 
Jade specializes in working with thriving entrepreneurs and businesses ranging from start-ups to multi-millionaires to not for profits who want to create successful and sustainable events and businesses.
 
Having created, managed and executed a wide range of small and large scale events, she has worked within Australia’s most well-known venues, worked alongside celebrities and engaged high level corporate partnerships, whilst assisting to raise over a million dollars in charitable donations.
 
Jade's work has been enjoyed by thousands of people globally, with her events featuring in national and international media including TV, radio, print and digital platforms.
 
And as a coach she has worked with hundreds of clients, supporting them through their business building, personal transitions and personal development.
 
Her passions include mentoring women in business, developing leadership in the workplace and empowering entrepreneurs to create impactful and sustainable businesses.
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Sora Schilling
​Sora Schilling is a sacred space holder, strategy alchemist, transformative money coach, powerful medicine woman, business healer, international retreat leader, inspirational speaker, fire igniter, heart whisperer, and world traveller. 

Sora works with sovereign folks to incorporate the art of feeling sacred through earth-based practices. Sora loves to help people embrace their medicine while sitting in ceremony. She leads highly successful individuals and groups through powerful experiences in her mastermind, on retreats, and from the stage. Sora blends real world experience with mystical transformation, ritualistic practices, inner reflection, conscious communication, and innovative circle work to help soulful leaders create great impact within their communities. Her mission is to empowers coaches and entrepreneurs to be financially secure, have a debt-free life, accumulate wealth, and live joyfully.
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Lena West
Lena is the Founder of CEO Rising®, an online business accelerator that decentralizes traditional coaching programs to provide ambitious womxn entrepreneurs with the three growth tools they need most: coaching, community, and cash.
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Lena’s razor-sharp business acumen is the well-hewn result of more than a decade of hands-on experience as an award-winning serial entrepreneur, writer, keynote speaker, business strategist, filmmaker, and grant maker. This truth-telling business advisor, who is often referred to as an “entrepreneur’s secret weapon”, shows womxn entrepreneurs how to discover their inner CEO and build a business that loves them back.

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Anuradha Kowtha
Anuradha blends years of teaching, research, and consulting experience to share how identity and embodiment are shaped by indoctrination under capitalism. She guides individuals and organizations to integrate radical and sustainable anti-capitalist practices in their life, work, and relationships.
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Asha Frost
Asha is an Indigenous Medicine Woman, Author and founder of Sacred Membership, a global online medicine circle community.  She has served thousands of people for the past two decades in her work in private practice as a healer, homeopath, teacher, and leader and has studied with many shamans, medicine people, elders, and guides.  ​

Impacted by intergenerational trauma, colonization, and oppression, Asha has worked hard to reclaim and remember her roots and medicine teachings.  She has specialized in helping people heal through illness, mental/emotional disorders and ancestral reconnection.    Through this work, she has loved seeing people find their own healing wisdom, presence, and power.  Her book, You are The Medicine will be published by Hay House in 2022.

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Rebekah Borucki
Rebekah “Bex” Borucki, founder of BEXLIFE® and the BLISSED IN® wellness movement, is a mother of five, meditation guide, birth doula, mentor for creative healers, and author of books for big and little readers. She has taught meditation as a profound act of self-care that can be executed effortlessly and effectively to hundreds of thousands of individuals online and in live workshops for more than a decade. Rebekah’s mission is to make mental-health support and stress-management tools accessible to all.

As a mentor to creative healers, Rebekah guides her clients to create books and brand presences from the ground up and the heart outward. Her clients have gone on to receive publishing contracts with major houses like Simon & Schuster and Hay House. Rebekah is published by Hay House, the Quarto Publishing Group, and her own imprint, Wheat Penny Press, which she founded in 2019.
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Most recently, Rebekah launched the WPP Little Readers Big Change Initiative, Inc., a publicly-funded 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit, which provides free books, mental wellness tools, and writing workshops for students in grades PreK-8, public libraries, and community organizations.
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Tiffany Wong
Tiffany is a Chinese American interdisciplinary artist - currently exploring decolonial healing and BIPOC liberation through painting and writing. Tiffany believes that art is a powerful medium for embodied connection with both the self and the collective. She also facilitates workshops for BIPOC to deepen our decolonial healing through empowering inter-sovereignty and creative expression from a trauma-informed and anti-oppression lens. It gives Tiffany so much joy to gather in a way that encourages collective healing and self-accountability from a place of abundance. 


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McKensie Mack
McKensie Mack is a trilingual facilitator, educator, activist, researcher, and the Founder and Managing Director of the McKensie Mack Group and the Creator of #BoundaryWork. McKensie holds more than 10 years of experience helping organizations, community groups, governing agencies, and healthcare organizations expand dialogues of equity across race, gender, class, disability, and LGBTQ+ identity with clients based in the U.S, the UK, India, France, Germany, Spain, Peru, and more.

​Their firm, The McKensie Mack Group, has partnered with communities nationally and globally to develop equity-centered communications strategies and cultures that identify and dismantle social inequity while giving people the tools to better their lives and communities. Using qualitative and quantitative data, the McKensie Mack Group helps communities develop REDI plans and implementation goals through a lens of equity, accountability, transformation, and power. McKensie holds a BA in Linguistics from the University of Chicago and is currently pursuing a Masters in Social Anthropology.
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Nisha Moodley

Nisha Moodley is an Integrative Leadership Coach and the founder of Global Sisterhood Day. As a biracial woman with a background in health & executive coaching, intergenerational & energy healing, and community building, she has a unique relationship to the ecology of leadership, and the ability to catalyze deep growth for her clients. 
Nisha's been a coach for over a decade, leading mastermind groups, online courses, and nearly 50 retreats, supporting womxn to liberate their leadership and weave their gifts in service of a more beautiful world.


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Karen Larbi
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Karen Larbi is an activist, trainer, facilitator, writer, event producer and emerging public speaker based in the United Kingdom. She is a Trainer at Campaign Bootcamp, a charity dedicated to ensuring that people most impacted by injustice lead campaigns that affect their lives. An aspiring ecowomanist, she is the Founder of POC In Nature, an online platform dedicated to helping people of colour explore the healing power of nature, environmental justice and land-honouring ancestral traditions, and was recently appointed to the England Advisory Committee at the RSPB, the UK's largest nature conservation charity.
 
Karen is also a recovery and mental health advocate and the Co-founder of Black Woman Heal United Kingdom, the UK chapter of an international movement to help Black women heal and reclaim their spirits, minds and bodies from the effects sexual abuse and violence. She provides consultancy and experiential training on power and privilege, supporting access to nature for under-represented groups, mental health and intersectionality, and is passionate about exploring the intersections of social justice, spirituality, recovery and ecology.

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Mikaela Egan
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Mikaela Egan is a proud Muthi Muthi/Gunditjmara woman on her father's side and a white Australian on her mother's side with heritage that goes back to Scotland, Ireland, Belgium and England. She is a daughter, sister, aunty, partner and community member. Family and community are at the heart and soul of everything she does.
Mikaela is the Founder of The Wellbeing Connexion, a Photographer, Artist, Life Coach and Public Health Practitioner working in Aboriginal health. Her philosophy in life is to create change and evoke healing in our own lives and communities in order to move forward and live our best possible lives with the resources that we have.
She is fortunate to be able to express herself through her culture, different art forms, teaching, coaching and is truly blessed to openly share that with not only the Aboriginal community but to all Australians.




Each and every one of these speakers has brilliance to share with you. We talk and tackle different topics and themes, not just social justice. 

So when the finalised schedule is released, you’ll be able to pick and choose your own adventure.

Yes — there’s A LOT of incredible conversations happening over these 10 days, but you’ll get incredible value from this conference even if you only choose to join a few sessions.
There’s no need to feel overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of what we’ll cover in 10 days. If there’s only one conversation, roundtable discussion or workshop that you attend, you’ll still experience the full power of being in the presence of a formidable voice - a whole new level of perspective, understanding and inspiration.

Plus, signing up for Formidable Voices 2020: Beam Your Brilliance gives you unlimited access to all recordings from the event until the end of January 2021! 

Roundtable discussions will be held at a variety of times to cater for time zone differences, but if you’ll still have the opportunity to watch when it suits you.

Testimonial:
I left the event feeling a sense of renewed hope in the possibility of a future that is equitable, just, transformational and brilliant. I left feeling a bolstered sense of personal responsibility in taking the imperfect ongoing action required to co-conspire in creating this future with those who spoke, attended and wished it to be.
Having a background in industries that often 'whitewash' events and panels, Formidable Voices was the first event I’d seen promoting a full schedule of Black, Indigenous, First Nations and people of colour speakers. I’d also completed classes of Sharyn's previously, and knew that what she was creating here would be transformational for all involved. As soon as the event was advertised, I knew I had to find a way to get myself a seat in that room!
Formidable Voices was THE BEST event I have ever attended. My wish is that all my friends, family, clients, community members and every single person who reads this will get tickets and attend. I know it will be epic.
Naomi Arnold

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED FOR 2020
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At the MTV Movie Awards in 2019, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson said, “Bring everybody with you.” That’s what I have devoted myself to doing. Bring people together, elevating others, creating opportunities and amplifying formidable voices.
This event isn’t a ‘show’. It’s an experience you won't forget.

Our voices won’t be censored, quietened or edited here. This is our event.

For the Black, Blak, Brown, Indigenous and People of Colour reading this, this event is where you will feel safe.

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a note from sharyn holmes


I built this table, but it’s not just mine. It’s not just for me. It's not about me. It's about and for Us.

It’s collective.

A lot of people talk about inclusion, diversity and change...but they don’t share equitable space with others. They don’t facilitate change, create opportunities or provide a platform where others can make money too.

Formidable Voices is more than just talk. It’s action, shared space, deep and meaningful conversations, experiences, story telling, heart connection and so much more.


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There are a lot of quiet achievers in coaching, writing, social and restorative justice and activism, art and creativity, community work and they deserve recognition.

Some people get seen because they’re louder. Not because they’ve been the most inclusive, or the best cheerleader, or have the most value to share.

What you'll hear at Beam Your Brilliance are messages that need to be amplified. This is brilliance that must be seen and heard. These are people who live their purpose with passion and who explore and navigate the world and their work with so much heart. These are people whose work has had an impact on me and I want to share them with you.

You’ll observe powerful points of view, perspectives and be offered a way of looking at things that you may not have considered before.

We have powerful stories to share.

Are you sick of hearing from the same people and seeing the same old, same old whitewashed panels and summits? Formidable Voices dares to be different. You will not see wanels (white-only panels) here.
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Attendees at our 2019 in-person event said:
The best event they’ve ever been to

I’ve never been to an event that’s all women of colour before

After attending any one of the conversations held over these 10 days, you’ll feel excited, empowered, nourished and motivated by the stories that we share.

This is your opportunity to hear stories that you haven't heard before.

From perspectives that you haven’t seen before.

So you can feel connected and emboldened in ways you haven’t felt before.


the formidable voices story

Formidable Voices creates powerful events, experiences, speaking and teaching opportunities, coaching and programs for BIPOC and non-BIPOC accomplices.

Formidable Voices events deliver, highlight, enhance, increase and uplift incredible, underrepresented voices and leaders of colour across coaching, creative, tech and online business, activism and social justice including speakers, writers, coaches, podcasters, published authors and healing modality practitioners and pioneers. 

Formidable Voices is for all gender identities and expressions. Formidable Voices welcomes accomplices, that is, non-BIPOC to be a part of our movement to centre BIPOC at the forefront. Accomplices are people who are dismantling white supremacy and doing the transformative inner work to be forces of good in the world.

Who is this event for?
We welcome everyone who would like to attend the first Formidable Voices virtual conference event. You care about genuine inclusion and amplifying voices that are often overlooked: that’s why you’re here. Our global events and online community welcomes these people and many more:
Leaders 
Entrepreneurs 
Activists
Advocates
Consultants
Life Coaches
Business Coaches 
Authors
Writers
Speakers
Teachers
Trainers
​Small business owners
Professionals of all kinds
Creatives
Artists
Makers
Publishers
Graphic Illustrators
Healing and Spiritual practitioners
Priestesses
​Sacred Circle Leaders
Astrologers
Brujas
Psychics
Counsellors
Therapists
Beauty Experts
Yoga Instructors​

our why

BIPOC have powerful stories and immense presence, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at who is featured in speaker lineups and summit events, in media, in leadership positions and on the screen. 

When was the last time you attended a speaking event or conference, and the keynote speakers and the entire lineup was Black, Indigenous and People of Colour from around the world? I've created this platform and space because we are bountiful in talent, and it's time inclusive leadership, voices, spirit and stories come forward. The speaker lineups in entrepreneurial spaces lack diversity and inclusion. We don't have to sit back and accept the bare minimum or scraps.

What expertise, experience, nuances and wisdom are you missing out on? There's a WEALTH of incredible humans with fantastic work that you just aren't getting exposed to because of the same old, same old ways and leadership. 

How many times have you been to an event and heard the same message delivered slightly differently by the same people who get continuously invited?

Formidable Voices bridges the gap to bring front and centre BIPOC visionaries, entrepreneurs, small business owners, storytellers and magic makers.
  • Welcome
  • Inclusive Coach
  • Media
  • PRAISE