Top Leadership and Teamwork Motivational Speaker, Adventure Racing World Champion, CNN Hero, and Bestselling Author
Robyn Benincasa is the founder of World Class Teams, a world champion adventure racer, a CNN Hero, former corporate sales expert and a full time firefighter who advises organizations on building World Class Teams of their own. One of the highest rated female speakers who regularly shares the stage with world leaders and business icons, her customers include many Fortune companies like Starbucks, Deloitte, Aflac, Fast Company, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ARAMARK, Siemens, 3M, Coldwell Banker, Ameriprise, Microsoft, AT&T. With a background in marketing, she was previously in corporate sales with Baxter and Allergan and is currently a full-time firefighter. World Champion Eco-Challenge Adventure Racer, CNN Hero, Founder of the Project Athena Foundation (Survivors to Athletes!), 3x Guinness World Record Distance Paddler and proud owner of 2 metal ‘bionic hips’, Robyn definitely knows a thing or two about creating Human Synergy – “that magic that allows groups of ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things together.” Her New York Times best-selling book How Winning Works, published by Harlequin has been reviewed as “an excellent resource for all business owners on approaching challenges with a team mentality.”
Leadership
For the last 20 years, she and her teammates have been competing at the front of the pack in the most unique and compelling classrooms on earth – the jungles of Borneo, the Himalayan peaks of Tibet, the rivers of Fiji, the rainforests of Ecuador and the desert of Namibia – studying the good, the bad, and the not-so-pretty in extreme teamwork and mastering the skills required to inspire a group of semi-exhausted people through a seemingly endless series of checkpoints, in pursuit of a seemingly impossible goal, working against crazy deadlines, in constantly changing conditions and all in pursuit of a huge hairy audacious goal. Sounds a lot like your life as a business leader, right?
Teamwork
It is through these harrowing, life affirming and often hilarious experiences in the world’s most grueling challenges that she has emerged with her refreshing and truly unique perspective on what it takes to build the kind of World Class Teams that succeed against all odds, that triumph in the face of adversity and that win as one in times of great challenge and change. Whether you’re trying to beat the competition to market, scale a looming mountain of a project or simply get your team all marching in the same direction, Robyn’s 8 Essential Elements of Human Synergy will coach you to the finish line of success.
Founder of Project Athena
Project Athena “It’s not about the setback, it’s about the comeback!” Robyn Benincasa became a CNN Hero in 2014 for founding the Project Athena Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit that helps women survivors of medical and other traumatic setbacks achieve their adventurous dreams. The Project Athena Foundation has enabled hundreds of survivors and their supporters to meet heroic initiatives like trekking the Grand Canyon rim to rim, or kayaking and cycling from Key Largo to Key West, or conquering their first 5k. Project Athena provides travel expenses, coaching, equipment, and most importantly, the encouragement and inspiration needed to make the transition from Survivor to Athlete.
Media
NBC, ABC, CNN, ESPN, USA Network, The Today Show, Live With Regis, Dateline NBC, The Discovery Channel, Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Runners World and Outside Magazine have all featured Robyn and her teams’ amazing accomplishments. And Robyn accepts full blame for inspiring people to do insane things like climb Mount Kilimanjaro, run their first triathlon, start their own adventure racing teams, hike across the Grand Canyon with a group of Survivors, or start their own businesses.
This is, after all, who she is and what she does: Robyn Benincasa inspires people to grab life with one hand, grab their teammates with the other, and to create that special magic that makes all of us better together than we ever would have been alone!
VIRTUAL KEYNOTE: Adapt, Overcome, and Win as One!
If there’s one thing we can all be certain of right now, it’s that change is the only thing that’s going to stay the same. It’s our response to that change that dictates our success. So how do we as leaders inspire the kind of mindset and build the kind of teams that drive our organizations to adapt, overcome and win as ONE in the face of times of extreme challenge and change? This unique and fast-paced multimedia keynote is inspired by a Fast Company Magazine feature story entitled “Extreme Teamwork” about Robyn’s World Champion Adventure Racing team. Robyn shares the 5 Secrets to Extreme Teamwork that allowed her team to be the most prolific and consistent World Champions in the sport, lessons that are easily applied to the adventures in our business lives. Their team culture of innovation, visionary creativity, relentless lead building, and embracing calculated risk as a strategy for success made them one of the most exciting and successful teams in the history of adventure sports, and in Robyn’s Adapt, Overcome, and Win as One keynote, she shares the mindset and strategies that created their consistent breakthrough performance.
Playing to Win: How Champions LEAD Change
In today’s fast-paced environment, you can’t afford to follow industry trends and customer expectations— you must lead them. So how can you build a culture focused on relentlessly changing the game while creating what’s next? How can you inspire people to not only survive change but to INSPIRE it? This was attitude and mindset of Robyn’s World Champion Adventure Racing Team—among the most prolific and consistent winners in the sport for the last 20 years. Her team consistently found a better and more efficient way through the course, used materials in a more creative and game-changing way, and built a truly world-class team that not only shared strengths but shared challenges from start to finish. In this exciting keynote, you will learn how the best and brightest champions consistently LEAD change versus simply reacting and responding to it.
Why Winners Win — The game-changing mindset that creates next-level success
What do the world’s most consistently high-performing individuals and teams have in common? How do the best and the brightest achieve great results through challenge and change? Robyn’s high-energy presentation unveils the mindset and strategies essential to inspiring yourself and your team when the goals are gigantic, the stakes are high, and change is the only thing that stays the same. Robyn’s interactive presentation will help you: ➢ Embrace times of great challenge and change as a springboard to future success ➢ Empower continuous improvement to elicit change and reinvent the game ➢ Capitalize on your “human resources” and build a world-class team to achieve even bigger goals
Inspired Leadership — Driving greatness by creating a culture of champions
How do you inspire others to think and act with a World Champion’s mindset? What are the secrets to inspiring your team members to WANT to be great? In this power-packed keynote, Robyn will teach you how to build and retain high-performing teams that are not only motivated to succeed as individuals but are truly inspired to cross your organization’s most challenging finish lines and take their teammates with them. Robyn’s interactive presentation will help your leaders: ➢ Transform team members into Team *builders* who achieve consistent peak performance ➢ Demonstrate Title-less Leadership: a counterintuitive approach to capitalizing on the strengths of all teammates in order to exceed goals ➢ Create Inspiration Plans: The means by which you build deep engagement to your organization’s goals by genuinely inspiring versus simply motivating
Stay SAFER - How Great Leaders Inspire “Commitment” Versus “Compliance”
In her “why bad accidents happen to good people” safety keynote, Robyn Benincasa takes your team on a compelling and unforgettable multimedia adventure, including video footage and analysis of preventable disasters and thrilling safety success stories from the worlds of adventure sports and firefighting. This World Champion Adventure Racer, San Diego Firefighter, and New York Times Best Selling Author offers unique, simple, yet extremely effective tools for inspiring the people that we work with and work for to be SAFER every day! Why Do Bad Accidents Happen to Good People? According to research, it’s as simple as ABCD: A – Attitude: Not Me, Not This Time, Not My Place, Not My Job B - Background and Preparation C - Circumstances (Preventable or Non-Preventable? Hint: 80% are preventable!) D - Decisions How Do We Inspire People to be SAFER? S – Synergy: Seeing one another as TEAMMATES vs simply colleagues. We are better…together! A – Adapt – Situational awareness, focus on what it takes to “win” when it comes to safety/survival versus “not lose” F – Follow your R’s! Rules, Roles, Regulations and Routine Procedures restore order to extraordinary circumstances E - Educate and Engage: Move your teammates from Compliance (because they’ll be caught) to Commitment (because they CARE) R – Respect the risk/benefit ratio of your actions, and respect yourself, your teamates and your family to DWR (Do What’s Right) Attendees will go home feeling truly inspired and empowered to keep themselves and their teammates safe because they ‘want’ to, not because they ‘have’ to. And they will leave with the desire to be a hero to their new teammates–not just the kind of hero that rushes into danger to save them, but the kind of hero that KEEPS them from endangering themselves and others. With a SAFER mindset, we ensure that the most important goal of all is achieved at the end of the day…Everyone Goes Home.
Building World Class Teams — How to achieve breakthrough performance through collaboration, creativity and a culture of ONE
How do you inspire individual team members to become great teamMATES? What if your teams were not only driven to achieve goals with each other but FOR each other? In Robyn’s most requested keynote, based on her NY Times Bestselling book, she will take you on an awe-inspiring journey that will transform the mindset of your team, fuel deep and lasting connections, and build a culture of “We Thinkers.” Robyn’s interactive presentation will help your team members: ➢ Discover HOW to build the right team and inspire them to any challenging finish line ➢ Reverse the win-lose mentality from conquering to collaborating with other winners ➢ Eliminate a silo mindset and foster a “We Thinking” culture
All Robyn Benincasa Books
How Winning Works: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth
Purchase Book"The Dwyer Group has celebrated 33 annual reunions and this year’s was a record turnout with a World Class keynote speaker. Robyn Benincasa really moved our franchisees forward with her real-life stories and the message that 'nobody wins alone.' Thanks to Robyn’s desire to inspire we are a better company!"
- | The Dwyer Group, Inc.
“You definitely helped us strengthen the core of our leaders and made such a positive impact. We’re grateful for your contribution to our conference.”
- Tastefully Simple | Theresa Moberg, Vice President of Training & Development
“Hi Robyn, thank you so much for presenting at our meeting yesterday in Philly. You were a big hit with everyone and are truly an inspiration. Your energy and enthusiasm hit the mark.”
- Laboratory Products Association | Clark Mulligan
“Robyn – thank you for supporting our S4 Keynote on Tuesday. I had a chance to read some of the feedback and speak to the attendees and they were very positive on your presentation. You did a great job aligning the message to our Enterprise Sales strategy as well—one team, coming together and helping each other to win. We even had people using some of your quotes to describe business challenges!”
- Worldwide Specialist Sales | John Jester, Vice President
