Marlee Liss Speaking Topics

• Courageous Authenticity: Where Purpose Meets Impact & Embodied Empowerment

  What does it take to show up as your authentic self

  • even when it feels uncomfortable, risky, or scary? In this keynote, restorative justice advocate, author and international speaker Marlee Liss shares her powerful journey of choosing courage and authenticity in moments that mattered most. Through compelling storytelling and practical tools, Marlee shows how being true to yourself is not just an act of bravery

  • it’s the foundation for living with purpose, preventing burnout, and creating lasting impact. Participants will leave inspired to embody authenticity as a compass for purposeful leadership

  • sparking ripple effects of trust, empowerment, and transformation across teams, communities, and systems.

  By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

  1. Align with purpose by identifying their core values and using them as a guide for decisions, boundaries, and sustainable well-being.
  2. Cultivate courageous self-advocacy by noticing, trusting, and confidently communicating their needs to honour personal integrity and impact
  3. Lead with authenticity and courage in both high- and low-stakes scenarios, fostering trust, meaningful connection, and psychological safety.
  4. Prevent burnout by making purpose-driven choices that prioritize authenticity over perfectionism and sustainability over self-sacrifice.
  5. Embody purposeful, courageous leadership that sparks empowerment and positive ripple effects across relationships, workplaces, and communities.

• Re-imagine Justice for Sexual Harm: Why I Fought for a Circle, Not a Courtroom

  In 2019, Marlee Liss's sexual assault case became one of the first in North America to conclude with restorative justice through the courts. She fought for the man who raped her to go to therapy instead of criminal trial and eventually, they met in an eight-hour restorative circle. After sharing with the media, she began receiving thousands of messages from survivors who shared their stories and the many reasons they wished they had known about Restorative Justice. Marlee takes a vulnerable and educational approach to talking about this alternative to the punitive system. In an environment rooted in hope and empowerment, listeners learn about breaking cycles of harm while challenging the notion of a ‘one size fits all’ approach to justice.

  By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

  1. Define Restorative Justice and illustrate it’s principles of trauma-informed care, needs-based communication and survivor-centred practice
  2. Analyze the ways in which a punitive framework may impede survivor’s capacity to reclaim agency, boundaries, justice and consent
  3. Describe diverse and intersectional justice options for survivors which recognize that people who experience harm are not a monolith
  4. Build a vision of justice that is synonymous with healing thereby lessening the likelihood of secondary victimization

• Re-Humanize: Lead with Empathy & Transform Conflict for Stronger Communities & Healthier Minds

  Leaders, communities and organizations today face rising stress, polarization, and the challenge of guiding teams made up of people with diverse experiences and perspectives. In this keynote, restorative justice advocate Marlee Liss shares how choosing empathy over punishment and dehumanization not only transformed her own healing journey but also reshaped how she leads, connects, and resolves conflict. Through powerful storytelling and actionable frameworks, Marlee reveals how re-humanizing ourselves and others strengthens mental health, prevents burnout, and builds cultures of trust and belonging. Leaders will walk away equipped to handle hard conversations with compassion, create psychologically safe workplaces, and inspire collaboration across differences.

  By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

  1. Support mental health and resilience by moving away from punitive, perfectionistic frameworks and toward self-compassion and holistic well-being.
  2. Lead with empathy and accountability to foster inclusive cultures where people feel safe to grow, change, and contribute. 3, Navigate conflict with confidence by applying practical tools that transform disagreement into deeper understanding and stronger team dynamics.
  3. Appreciate diverse perspectives by contextualizing harm and behavior, leading with curiosity rather than judgment.
  4. Model values-driven leadership that bridges divides, reduces polarization, and promotes trust, collaboration, and belonging across teams.

• The Sex Ed We Need: Consent, Boundaries, Inclusion & Trauma-Informed Pleasure

  Instead of letting silence and stigma persist around taboo topics, Marlee Liss creates a safe and lighthearted environment to break through shame and claim empowerment. Together, participants will challenge societal sexual scripts in order to diversify and enhance access to pleasure. Folks will deepen their understanding of consent as an embodied, everyday practice that opposes rape culture and prevents violence. Attendees will learn somatic skills that support effective communication of desires and boundaries while building rejection resilience.

  By the end of this program, participants will be able to,

  1. Define pleasure-positivity while challenging risk-focused and shame-based approaches to sex education
  2. Criticize ableist and cis-heteronormative narratives around consent and sex education
  3. Create experiences of connection and intimacy that embody trauma-informed care, holistic safety and consensual communication

• Does Cancel Culture Work? Humane Strategies for Responding to Harm

  Cancel culture involves public campaigns to shame and shun those deemed ‘problematic’ and now, it’s more pervasive than ever. Both on and off social media, individuals are impacted by call-outs, pressure to cut off loved ones and fear of cancellation. Research shows that cancel culture has a severe impact on our mental health, driving shame, anxiety, groupthink, self-censorship and isolation. In this program, attendees are provided a non-judgmental space to unpack the impacts of cancel culture, consider its’ effectiveness and learn non-punitive strategies for harm response. As we unpack pop culture case studies and learn about the roots of carceral frameworks, participants will explore whether punishment really does prevent violence. By the end of the session, participants will formulate a vision of inclusive community that works to disrupt shame and ignite healing.

  By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

  1. Define and analyze ‘cancel culture’ while upholding anti-oppressive values
  2. Formulate trauma-informed strategies for accountability in ways that centre survivors and de-escalate violence
  3. Apply conflict transformation strategies within nuanced situations
  4. Challenge individualized understandings of behaviour by contextualizing harm through a socio-cultural lens

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