Your Story, Your Worth: Owning Your Narrative in Business
In a world where your personal brand, your team, and your story are just as important as your product or service, knowing how to articulate your value and build the right people around you is everything. This EmpowerHER session brings together two powerhouse women at the intersection of storytelling and human behavior to help you do both with intention and confidence.
Whether you are sitting on a book idea, trying to find your brand voice, or figuring out how to build and lead a team that actually performs, this session meets you where you are. Through a blend of practical insight and real conversation, you will:
Discover how to identify, shape, and monetize your story and thought leadership in a way that opens doors and grows your business.
Understand the human behavior and psychology behind high-performing teams and what it actually takes to build and sustain them.
Walk away with actionable tools to strengthen your personal brand, your leadership, and your people strategy.
This session is designed for entrepreneurs, founders, creatives, and anyone ready to stop underestimating the power of their story and their people.
Curious about what happens when a bestselling ghostwriter and a behavioral scientist collaborate? Here is your first look:
"Whether you're a founder building self-awareness about your strengths and gaps, an investor seeking objective criteria to evaluate startups, or leader who builds, evaluates, and develops entrepreneurial teams, this book provides the realistic preview of what success actually requires. In an increasingly AI-driven world, competitive advantage depends on the uniquely human capabilities that can't be automated—and this framework shows you exactly which behaviors matter most."
Run Of Show:
🕘 9:30 AM — Doors open! Come hungry, come ready. Grab breakfast and connect with the women in the room before we get started.
🎤 10:00 AM — We get into it. Amelia and Nikki take the floor for a roundtable conversation you will want to hear live.
🙋🏽♀️ 10:45 AM — Your turn. Open floor for questions, conversation, and more connecting.
💻 11:30 AM — Stick around! Workbox is yours for the rest of the day. Grab a seat, open your laptop, and keep the momentum going.
About Our Speakers
Amelia Forczak is a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter and Founder of Pithy Wordsmithery, a Chicago-based firm specializing in helping leaders and entrepreneurs write, publish, and market their books. Amelia and her team work across industries to help people build and monetize their thought leadership and grow their businesses through the power of their story.
The ghostwriter of 16 nonfiction books including nine bestsellers, Amelia's work has been featured in Forbes and Harvard Business Review. She is a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business alumna and was honored by the National Association of Women Business Owners Chicago with the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2022. If you have a story worth telling, Amelia knows exactly how to tell it.
Nikki Blacksmith, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder and CEO of Symeta Behavior Science and an adjunct faculty member at Illinois Institute of Technology . She has over 20 years of experience as a scientist-practitioner of organizational psychology. She formerly worked at Gallup where she built psychometric assessments, consulted with Fortune 500 companies, and led the research and development practice.
Currently, she works with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to predict future success, build high-performing teams, and institute cultures of behavioral change with data-driven methods. She has published over 80 different conference papers, book chapters, and journal articles including American Psychologist.
She co-edited the book Data-Driven Decision Making in Entrepreneurship: Tools for Maximizing Human Capital. Nikki received her M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, her Ph.D. from George Washington University. Currently, she serves on the board of directors for Sembramos, a nonprofit dedicated to building diverse and inclusive organizations. She is also on the executive board of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology.