Are you looking for the most engaging, motivational, and transformative speakers for your 2025 Sales Kickoff (SKO) event? Here’s a rundown of top speakers who are making waves across industries, from sports and business to personal development and resilience. These experts captivate audiences with fresh perspectives, practical strategies, and powerful stories, helping teams to achieve their highest potential and inspiring them to excel in the year ahead.
Let’s dive into the profiles of the top SKO speakers for 2025!
Paul Epstein
Paul Epstein has spent nearly 15 years as a professional sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams, a global sports agency, and the NFL league office, where he has broken every premium revenue metric in Super Bowl history, opened a billion-dollar stadium, and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy, where he became known as the “Why Coach.”
Kaplan Mobray
Recognized by Meetings and Conventions Magazine as one of the nation’s top business speakers, Kaplan Mobray is one of the world’s most dynamic and inspirational business speakers and award-winning author of “The 10Ks of Personal Branding. An innovative mastermind, Kaplan has inspired and transformed countless lives through his insightful and groundbreaking approach to personal branding and leadership development. Kaplan has delivered keynote presentations and leadership development workshops on 5 continents helping individuals globally to build their brand and advance their career. Additionally, Kaplan has been a frequent main platform speaker at the prestigious Million Dollar Roundtable (MDRT) national and global conferences.
Shola Richards
Shola Richards is a dynamic keynote speaker, the best-selling author of “Making Work Work”, and “Go Together”, an in-demand workplace civility expert, and a prolific writer with a passionate worldwide following. His articles and wildly-popular Monday morning “Go Together Movement” email series have impacted people in over 160 countries, and his work has been featured on the Today Show, CBS This Morning, Forbes, Black Enterprise, Complete Wellbeing India, and Business Insider Australia.
Mark Schulman
Mark Schulman is a monster drummer who’s toured the world with some of the greatest rock and pop performers – before crowds as big as 225,000. He’s played with P!NK, Billy Idol, Cher, Stevie Nicks, Foreigner, Simple Minds, and others over his 32-year touring career. Mark is also amazing on another stage – as a speaker, where he delivers a rock show disguised as a keynote. “I’ve learned about the importance of attitude as part of the touring family with these great performers,” Mark says as he unpacks the secrets of rockstar performance. His presentations translate lessons learned during a remarkable career into valuable tips for organizations, teams, leaders, and those who want to be their absolute best. Mark Schulman is a brilliant storyteller and performer who inspires audiences to engage and unleash their inner rockstar. Mark’s first book, Conquering Life’s Stage Fright, shows people how to harness doubt, fear, and anxiety to perform at their best when it matters most. His next book, The Attitude Equation, is slated for late 2023 release. Mark is also a judge and coach on an all-new original music competition television show called BANDED on AXS TV.
Victoria LaBalme
Victoria LaBalme is a master at helping people at all levels dramatically elevate their ability to communicate, connect, come alive . . . and win over the people they serve. Her results-driven approach offers a strategic blend of art and business that taps into her decades of performing arts experience: HBO, Caroline’s on Broadway, comedy clubs, television, one-woman shows and documentary films. Her creative projects have received critical acclaim from The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, BBC, CBS, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Good Morning America.
Seth Mattison
With his finger on the pulse of the changing nature of work and leadership, Seth Mattison blends storytelling from his own personal experience working with category-leading brands with cutting-edge research to develop fresh perspectives on the issues most relevant for organizations to thrive today. Seth is an internationally recognized thought leader, author, advisor, and top- rated keynote speaker on talent management, high- performance cultures, leadership, and the Future of Work.
Erica Dhawan
Erica is a globally recognized leadership expert, bestselling author and advisor on 21st-century teamwork, collaboration and innovation. Dubbed the “Oprah of Management Thinkers” by Thinkers50, she was awarded a coveted spot on their list of the world’s top 50 management and business thought leaders in 2021, and Global Gurus named her one of the top 20 management experts around the world. In an increasingly digital world of business where work practices change at a blistering rate, Erica shares innovative strategies to unlock the collective power of teams, build a culture of trust across any distance and create authentic engagement to ensure competitiveness.
Ben Nemtin
Ben has driven countless people to achieve their dreams, as both a helping hand and as an inspiration. These experiences have taught him that articulating and prioritizing your personal goals is not a selfish act—but one that creates a positive ripple effect that inspires others to live their best life.
Robyn Benincasa
Robyn Benincasa is a top motivational speaker on leadership, adventure racing world champion, CNN Hero, founder of Project Athena, and bestselling author. She won two World Adventure Races and holds three Guinness World Records for long-distance kayaking. Her book on teamwork and leadership, How Winning Works, is a New York Times bestseller. Her entertaining keynotes show audiences the foundations of inspired leadership and how to win as a team.
Jason O. Harris
Creating high performing workplace cultures that are balanced, sustainable and thriving is the goal of every organization, and it is the mission of Lieutenant Colonel Jason O. Harris to help them get there. For over 20 years as a United States Air Force officer and special operations pilot, he has led teams where trust was the basis of every successful operation. Over the course of his career, he has served more than 2,000 combat hours and 470 combat sorties around the globe. These high-risk combat experiences have all served as the launching point for his proprietary NO FAIL TRUST methodology. His proven framework serves organizations as a tool to empower executives and team members to foster an environment of mutual trust, responsibility, and productivity.
Dr. Luana Marques
Dr. Luana Marques’ personal story of overcoming adversity, trauma, and poverty while growing up in Brazil provides authenticity and depth to her message. She’s known for her captivating presence and dynamic storytelling that weaves together the threads of her personal journey and professional expertise to inspire transformation in her audiences. Today, as an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, Past President of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and best-seller author, Dr. Luana is a paragon of resilience, determination, and boldness.
Jeremy Poincenot
Jeremy Poincenot became legally blind at the age of 19 while in his sophomore year of college, and by the age of 20, he had won the World Blind Golf Championship. He has since become a professional Inspirational Speaker, traveling globally to share his story and inspire audiences by providing a unique perspective. Jeremy shares key lessons learned since losing his sight, emphasizing the power of interdependence in both personal and professional spheres. He has inspired a wide range of audiences including corporations, associations, and attendees at conferences and conventions. Among the groups he has spoken to are the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, Young President’s Organization, John Hancock, Aflac, Barracuda Networks, ViaSat, and ThermoFisher, to mention just a few.
Chef Jeff Henderson
Chef Jeff Henderson is an award-winning chef, New York Times bestselling author, entrepeneur, television personality, and highly sought-after speaker on personal and professional development. Jeff’s inspiring story has been featured on Oprah’s Life Class, Good Morning America, Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, The Steve Harvey Show and in major publications such as The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, People Magazine, the Washington Post, and many others. When Jeff is not traveling the world teaching his life-changing lessons, he resides in Las Vegas with his wife Stacy and their five children.
Carla Hall
Carla Hall first won over audiences when she competed on Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Top Chef: All Stars” and shared her philosophy to always cook with love. She believes food connects us all, and she strives to communicate this through her work, her cooking, and in her daily interactions with others. Her latest cookbook, Carla Hall’s Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration, was published in 2018, landing on annual “Best Cookbook” lists across the country and receiving an NAACP Image Awards nomination.
Cynthia Marshall
Cynthia Marshall has been a dynamic force for inclusion and diversity within the Mavericks organization and over a 36-year career at AT&T. When Cynt was hired as new the CEO of the Mavs in March 2018, she set her sights on a culture transformation. Her vision was for the Mavericks organization to become the NBA standard for inclusion and diversity, and brought transparency, trust and her values-based leadership style that evolved the company culture in her first 100 days.
Vince Poscente
Ensure your people do what the competition is not willing to do with Vince Poscente’s approach to “Full Speed Ahead and Setbacks to Breakthroughs.” With his signature wit, wisdom, and business credentials (New York Times bestselling author, Olympian, and Hall of Fame speaker in Canada and the USA) Vince ignites the potential in all of us. Rated by MPI as the top ten motivational speakers in North America and Meetings & Conventions “Meeting Planners’ favorite speaker,” Vince Poscente is an unforgettable opening or closing keynote speaker with practical tools for everyone in the audience to execute with excellence.
Daymond John
An entrepreneur in every sense of the word, Daymond John has come a long way from taking out a $100,000 mortgage on his mother’s house and moving his business operation into its basement. John is CEO and Founder of FUBU, a much-celebrated global lifestyle brand, and a pioneer in the fashion industry with billions in product sales world-wide. Former President Barack Obama appointed Daymond John a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship (PAGE) to harness his energy, ideas, and experience to help develop the next generation of entrepreneurs both at home and abroad.
Jesse Itzler
Jesse Itzler has put together one of the most impressive LIFE resumes. With no aviation experience, he and his partner started Marquis Jet, the largest private jet card company in the world and sold it to Warren Buffet’s NetJets after doing over $5 billion in sales. Then with no beverage experience, he and his partners started ZICO Coconut Water and sold it to Coca Cola. And just last year his adventure company 29-0-29 was bought by the fitness giant iFIt.
He was a rapper signed to Delicious Vinyl Records, a kiddie pool attendant, managed Run DMC, lived in a monastery with monks, the author of the New York Times best-selling book, Living With The Seal. And he is an endurance athlete who has run multiple 100 mile races.
On top of that, he’s married to Sara Blakely the founder of the shapewear empire SPANX, which was just recently acquired for $1.2 billion dollars. Currently, Jesse lives in Atlanta where he is part owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.
