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The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau

A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.

Jessica Nordell

Bias has a real cost for your organization. Fighting it is your greatest superpower.

Author of The End of Bias | Award-winning science and culture journalist

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Lavin Exclusive Speaker

The most successful organizations have a superpower, says Jessica Nordell: they know how to fight bias. Bias has a real cost for every organization—in revenue, in growth, in talent and beyond—which is why confronting it effectively propels companies and individuals to greater heights. Jessica’s book The End of Bias: A Beginning is the definitive work on finding success by eliminating bias—New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant described her writing as “the single most fascinating and useful exploration of bias that I’ve read. Ever.” In dynamic talks, Jessica draws examples from her research, like the law firm that reduced gender bias and saw a 70% growth in revenue, improved trust, and happier, more engaged employees. Jessica’s warmth and compassion make these talks inclusive for everyone: a recent audience member remarked, “You didn’t blame or shame anyone, and you gave me concrete things I can do.” Her practical strategies empower you and your team to create stronger, more fair environments at work and everywhere else.

“Jessica accompanies her incredible depth of research with the kind of attention to nuance, self-examination, and genuine compassion that marks the difference between information and wisdom.”— Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing

Jessica Nordell is on a mission to end bias, because she sees that it prevents us from living in a world where we all get to prosper. When bias undervalues women or historically marginalized groups, we all lose something from that homogeneity: a new opinion, an essential lived experience, a fresh set of eyes that can solve critical, collective problems. But since so many biases are unexamined, we may not realize they’re there. This is why well-meaning diversity and inclusion programs have inconsistent results, and why the barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace often go unnoticed. But we can do something about it. We can uncover bias—even the biases that we don’t know about it—and we can create a workplace culture and a society that is so much more equal and exciting.

Using an unforgettable blend of neuroscience and real life stories, Jessica lays out what she discovered from a decade of work on her book The End of Bias. She dives deep into the causes of bias and how we can push back against it, sharing stories about the preschool that uprooted gender stereotypes with gender-neutral language, and Johns Hopkins doctors who eliminated discrimination by putting into place a new diagnostic checklist. She shows you how to learn from these lessons and how to create a plan for changing the way you work, create, and lead. Bad habits can be hard to break, so she’ll teach you how to find out you have them and how to stamp them out. Inclusive cultures are hard to build, so she’ll teach you where you start and where you go next.

Beverly Tatum, the bestselling author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, called The End of Bias a “cause for hope”, and readers have described it as “life-changing.” Jessica’s book is also being used by the Scottish government to inform and guide their AI strategy.

Deeply engaged with connecting across differences to expand and heal the human experience, Jessica’s own early-career experience with workplace bias inspired her passion for tackling discrimination and for seeing others in their full complexity and humanity. Jessica is optimistic, honest, and refreshing; she is willing to hold her own biases up to scrutiny, giving you a model for how to do that work in your own lives and in your own workplaces and communities. This is why Jennifer Szalai of the New York Times Book Review called her “a reflective and capacious thinker.” More than anything, Jessica’s warmth, relatability, and openness touches people who are completely different from each other. She makes sure that everyone listening feels safe, respected, and heard—while preparing them for the real work of doing better.

Jessica has led an incredible career as a science and culture journalist, and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times, The New Republic, and many other publications. Jessica’s work on The End of Bias was shortlisted for the Lukas Prize for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Royal Society Science Book Prize, is a finalist for the 2022 NYPL Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, and was named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum, Greater Good, AARP, and Inc. Jessica holds degrees from Harvard and University of Wisconsin, and her work as a writer and producer earned her the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television.

Testimonials

Jessica Nordell is a great speaker with a style that is engaging and makes it easy to follow and understand the topics. Her ability to use stories to convey causes, effects, and outcomes is excellent. If you have an opportunity to engage her as a speaker at an event, your time and effort will be well worth it.

Microsoft

Testimonials

It was a great pleasure and - honestly - an exciting, galvanizing experience to have you with us at the Media Lab last week. Your talk was both brilliant and passionate, your interactions with everyone you met were authentic and probing, and your impact on our community was immediately electric. You helped us outline an optimistic path for real change. I can’t thank you enough for all that you did for our community.

MIT Media Lab

Testimonials

Your thought-provoking conversation exceeded all our hopes and was a crowning touch for the whole event.

From Day One Forum on Corporate Values

Testimonials

I so enjoyed our conversation with Jessica Nordell. She was deeply knowledgeable, thoughtful and generous as she helped us unpack the challenges of confronting bias in the academy with grace and insight.

Northeastern University

Testimonials

There’s no surprise, if you’ve read Ms. Nordell’s work, that her talk is exceptionally well researched, historically significant, and emotionally poignant. What’s most impressive was Ms. Nordell’s sincere engagement with our student community, both in the bespoke keynote she delivered and in the robust student-led Q&A. Our students found in Ms. Nordell not only an accomplished writer and thinker, but also an approachable, funny, and relatable human being who just so happened to challenge our collective beliefs. At this Quaker school, Ms. Nordell will forever be considered a Friend; we can’t wait to bring her back.

George School

Testimonials

Jessica Nordell brings a scholarly magic and moving humanity to discussions of race, gender, and inclusivity. Her talk brings dazzling clarity to issues and dynamics that have been obscured and historically unaddressed. Even with her incredible wealth of knowledge, research and unforgettable anecdotes, the talk was truly a conversation and was powerfully open and genuine in its concern for all people involved. Jessica Nordell is one of those rare speakers whose keynote and their Q&A are equally impressive, mindful yet urgent. A marker that this work lives in her body, consciousness, and spirit to collaborate in this project we call American Education.

Antelope Valley College

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Nicholas Thompson

CEO of The Atlantic | Former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED

Speech Topics

Corporate Culture

Building Trust and Bridging DifferencesHow Overcoming Bias Leads to Stronger Social Connections

Unconscious bias is at the heart of our most pressing social problems. We know that bias affects everything: medicine, education, criminal justice, and leadership in the corporate world. But we may not realize that bias and discrimination can erode our social relationships and stop us from trusting each other. We’re in a moment of enormous division—between communities and institutions, among citizens of the same country, among neighbors and coworkers—so bridging the trust divide has never been more urgent.

So what do we do about it? In this inspiring talk, esteemed science journalist Jessica Nordell shares how overcoming bias not only creates a more just and equal society, but a world of deeper relationships and more profound personal, organizational, and social trust and healing. She’ll show you how to tackle bias and build kinship across your team’s differences. If we want to collaborate at work, if we want to connect with the people around us to do great things, if we want to lead with empathy and community, we’ve got to trust each other. If bias gets in the way of trust, we need to stamp it out.

In this talk (available both as a keynote and as a workshop), Jessica provides practical strategies for you to create a fairer workplace. Without blaming or shaming anyone, she shows you surprisingly simple steps you can take today—as an individual or a group—to promote success and inclusion by eliminating bias.

Social Justice

Transform Your Healthcare OrganizationHow Eliminating Bias Leads to Better Patient Outcomes

Healthcare decisions are some of the most difficult and complex decisions possible—providers often have little time, not enough information, and too few resources at their disposal. And complex decisions made under high cognitive stress are exactly where bias thrives. Indeed, the research is conclusive: bias in healthcare has a devastating effect on patient outcomes, yet 90% of people think they’re more objective than average. Jessica Nordell’s powerful, empathic healthcare keynotes illuminate pathways out of this predicament so your organization can achieve better patient health.

She explains how bias creeps into diagnoses and care, even among the most well-intentioned, and shows how structured decision making leads to better patient outcomes. Further, she lays out concrete approaches for how to neutralize bias to foster critical trust not only between patients and providers, but among leadership and staff, leading to lower turnover and higher engagement among all employees.

Nature, the most prestigious science journal in the world, praised how Jessica “skillfully and sensitively explores ways to eradicate bias in society and oneself,” and the New York Times Book Review called her “a thoughtful and capacious thinker” about how to solve this crisis. She has the deep knowledge, real world experience, and personal passion to help transform your healthcare organization—leading to better patient outcomes, higher team member retention and engagement, and a more dynamic, productive, and exciting workplace culture.

Grit at School

Achieving Success for Every StudentAnd Why Fighting Bias Is the Key

Educators care passionately about student success, and student success depends on trusting relationships. The challenge? Unconscious biases can get in the way of these relationships, leading to poorer student outcomes. So how do educators and education leaders foster environments where all students can flourish? In this compelling talk, award-winning science writer and author Jessica Nordell reveals specific steps, strategies, and tools educators can use to build mutual respect, increase trust, and create educational environments that lead to astounding student success.

Jessica Nordell has scoured the research and unearthed strategies that have transformed classrooms, schools, and universities. In this inspiring talk, Jessica shares with you the specific approaches and techniques these educators have used– and the obstacles they overcame– and provides actionable insights you can apply to your own institution. Drawing on her book The End of Bias: A Beginning, deemed a “Best Book of the Year” by Inc., World Economic Forum, AARP, and Greater Good, she explores the visionary practices that lead to measurably improvements in student outcomes.

Filled with motivating, empowering stories of measurable change, this talk is a must-listen for any educator or education leader who cares about ensuring every student can thrive.