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writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
America doesn't know what role it wants to play on the world stage. It takes an outsider, like Canada's former deputy prime minister, to reveal its true colors—and its potential.
America doesn’t know what role it wants to play internationally, says Chrystia Freeland: predatory bully, idealistic leader of the free world, or isolationist behemoth retreating to its own hemisphere. As Canada’s former deputy prime minister, this bestselling author and in-demand keynote speaker forged coalitions and deals, navigated relationships with world leaders, and had an unparalleled view into the chaos that has gripped America in the last few years. Now, drawing on her hotly anticipated book Unreliable Boyfriend, she offers unique, honest, sometimes funny and always insightful talks on how the United States can be seen in revelatory ways through the eyes of an outsider, how our policies can deliver for the working people they’re meant to serve, and how this country can live up to the potential that she sees in it.
Chrystia Freeland has served as Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of Finance of Canada.
A Rhodes Scholar with a background in Russian history, she first gained international acclaim as a foreign correspondent and editor for the Financial Times and Reuters. Her first book, Sale of the Century (2000), told the story of the struggle between reformers and oligarchs in 1990’s Russia—Michael Ignatieff (Blood and Belonging) praised her as “a world-class expert.” Her bestselling 2012 book, Plutocrats, won the National Business Book Award and established her as a leading voice on global economic inequality. In awarding her the Lionel Gelber Prize, the jurors wrote that “Freeland explores consequent issues of equity and accountability with fluency and intimacy.”
After over a decade in federal politics, including a pivotal role in renegotiating the USMCA, she resigned from Parliament in early 2026. She has since served as a Resident Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics and an unpaid economic adviser to the Ukrainian government. In July 2026, she will assume her new role as the Warden of Rhodes House and CEO of the Rhodes Trust in Oxford, where she will oversee one of the world’s most prestigious scholarship programs.
As Canada’s deputy prime minister and minister of finance, Chrystia Freeland has had unparalleled access to international relations at the highest levels—in Washington, New York, Brussels, Berlin, and Beijing—while also traversing the union halls and neighborhood porches where elected politicians test their policies and win support for them. She’s seen firsthand how America has struggled to identify the role it wants to play on the international stage, and what that uncertainty has done to its citizens and neighbors.
In this honest, inspiring keynote, she draws on her storied career, as well as her book Unreliable Boyfriend, to describe the inner life of a political leader with unusual skill and insight. She shows us how relationships and deals are forged—how coalitions are built and how they fall apart. We see the challenge of navigating between progressives and populist plutocrats, and what happens when policies don’t deliver for the working people who inspired them. It’s a unique look into the challenges and future of America, as well as her own story of life as an outsider and an insider, as a journalist and a politician, an activist and a woman—and as a Canadian with a deeper understanding of America’s potential than many of its own leaders seem to possess.
