Keynote Speaker · Workplace Culture Expert · Culture-Shifting Relationship Coach
Lisa Merlo-Booth
Straight talk. Compassion. Transformation.
Download the free guide:
The 5 Pillars of a Radically New Culture
Thriving workplaces don’t happen by chance. They’re built on a foundation of safety, trust, and accountability. Discover the five pillars every leader needs to create a culture where people thrive and so does your organization.
Most culture programs fix the surface. Lisa goes deeper — to the silence, the self-protection, and the unspoken fear that keeps even good teams from doing their best work.
25+ years as a speaker, culture-shifting relationship coach, and trained therapist. Lisa delivers no-nonsense keynotes and experiential training sessions that leave leaders with tools they can immediately put into action.
86%
of employees blame poor communication for workplace failure
77%
of people plan to leave due to a bad boss
The core premise
Retention problems.
Revenue problems.
Product problems.
They’re all relationship problems.
Not relationships with customers or clients, but the relationships within the team itself. Creating Radically New Cultures™ — cultures that truly thrive — starts there, before it can ever extend to those outside the team.
When mistakes become career risks and candor feels dangerous, every “culture initiative” becomes surface-level. Safety is the foundation that allows accountability, feedback, creativity, and performance to actually work.
Lisa is a speaker, culture-shifting relationship coach, and trained therapist with 25+ years of experience helping individuals, teams, and organizations create Radically New Cultures™ — grounded in five pillars:
- Uncompromising Safety — the non-negotiable foundation
- Inherent Worth — every person brings irreplaceable value
- Courageous Accountability — owning impact, not just intention
- Intentional Kindness — strength, not softness
- Active Reciprocity — relationships flow both ways
See Lisa in action:
Watch Lisa’s Speaker Reel
Clarity, humor, and no-nonsense truth — see why audiences walk away inspired and equipped to create real change.
Free Presentation for Associations
Creating Healthy Team Cultures
This complimentary presentation for associations and community organizations is offered as an introduction to Lisa’s work. Everyone wants accountability, feedback, creativity, and performance. Almost nobody builds the safety underneath them that makes it possible. Radically New Cultures start with Uncompromising Safety and expand from there. This session gives leaders a concrete blueprint for building the kind of safety that builds trust, teams, and employee longevity. Audiences leave with a clear understanding of why safety is the foundation every strong team culture stands on, and what it actually looks like in practice.
By the end of this session, participants will:
- Identify the subtle ways their current environment undermines safety — and why people stay quiet instead of speaking up
- Discover practical leadership behaviors that visibly signal safety and invite accountability
- Leave with a personalized three-step action plan to strengthen their team’s culture immediately
Signature Talk
Uncompromising Safety: The Foundation of Radically New Cultures
U.S. workers experience 242 million acts of incivility every single day — costing U.S. companies $2.6 billion, per day (SHRM). Everyone wants accountability, feedback, creativity, and performance. Almost nobody builds the safety underneath them that makes it possible. This keynote gives leaders a concrete blueprint for building the kind of safety that builds trust, teams, and employee longevity. It introduces the full Radically New Cultures™ framework — Uncompromising Safety, Inherent Worth, Courageous Accountability, Intentional Kindness, and Active Reciprocity — and shows why Uncompromising Safety is the foundation the other four are built on. This session explores how all five come together: why safety has to come first, how Courageous Accountability is the scaffolding that keeps safety in place, and how Inherent Worth, Intentional Kindness, and Active Reciprocity work together to create team cultures that thrive. Audiences leave with a clear understanding of why safety is the foundation every strong team culture stands on, and what it actually looks like in practice.
By the end of this session, participants will:
- Recognize the subtle signals that a team has fallen quiet instead of safe — and what’s driving it
- Learn the specific leadership behaviors that move leaders from talking about safety to building it
- Assess how the two pillars of Uncompromising Safety and Courageous Accountability are playing out on your team
- Create a three-step plan to start strengthening their culture immediately
Half-Day Organizational Training
The 5 Pillars to Creating Radically New Cultures in Business— The Deep Dive
The same framework as the keynote, taken further. This interactive, experiential half-day training is for organizations ready to go beyond learning about the five pillars to actually practicing them. Using real scenarios pulled from the group’s own dynamics, teams work hands-on through Uncompromising Safety, Inherent Worth, Courageous Accountability, Intentional Kindness, and Active Reciprocity — building not just understanding, but practiced skills to put these pillars into action.
By the end of this session, participants will:
Practice
Build
Leave
Why Hire Lisa
Lisa doesn’t deliver feel-good talks that fade within a few days. She’s a speaker, culture-shifting relationship coach, and trained therapist who tells it like it is — with humor, clarity, and deep respect for every person in the room — and leaves audiences with practical tools they can use right away.
Book Lisa to speak at your association or conference, or to facilitate an experiential, half-day training at your company.
Trusted by Organizations Focused on Growth & Culture
Procter & Gamble · Fitchburg State University · Dana Hall · Ryan’s Taxes · Corporate Teams · Associations · Nonprofits · Community Organizations
Let’s Talk About Your Event
Click the button below to fill out the form and inquire about booking Lisa for your conference, corporate training, workshop, or upcoming event. Lisa speaks in-person and virtually.