Dr. Shelley Best
Keynote Speaker | Creative Futurist | Public Theologian | Founder of Creative Disruption®

Helping leaders, organizations, and communities imagine another way forward through creativity, belonging, and adaptive change.

A sought after keynote speaker, creative futurist, and founder of Creative Disruption®, Rev. Dr. Shelley D. Best helps leaders, organizations, and communities imagine another way forward through creativity, belonging, and adaptive change. She is pioneering creativity not as an artistic luxury but as an essential discipline of transformation, equipping people to navigate complexity, unlock imagination, and build more courageous, humane, and innovative futures.

Drawing on more than four decades of leadership in public theology, cultural strategy, philanthropy, and community transformation, Dr. Best brings a rare blend of intellectual rigor, moral imagination, contemplative wisdom, and practical strategy to the stage. Her work is informed by leadership experience across faith, nonprofit, arts, and civic sectors and by decades of teaching and formation at Yale Divinity School and Hartford International University.

Event hosts bring Dr. Best in when they need more than inspiration. They bring her in when they need a catalytic keynote that helps people make sense of disruption, see possibility where others see uncertainty, and move audiences from fear and fragmentation toward creativity, belonging, and meaningful action.

Her talks challenge conventional thinking, expand imagination, deepen courage, and offer practical frameworks for leading through change. Audiences leave with new language, renewed hope, and the confidence to imagine and build what comes next.

Keynotes that expand imagination, deepen courage, and help people build what comes next.

Bring Dr. Best to your event

Signature Keynotes

Dr. Best’s talks are rooted in Creative Disruption® and shaped for audiences navigating change, leadership, belonging, and renewal.

Keynote 1

Adaptive Flourishing™

How to Thrive When the Old Way No Longer Works

For: Conferences, leadership events, healthcare, higher education, caregiving organizations, faith communities, women leaders.

Promise:

Transform disruption, loss, and transition into catalysts for meaning, creativity, and renewed purpose.

Keynote 4

Belonging as a Leadership Strategy

Building Human Communities in an Age of Division

For: DEI, healthcare, universities, philanthropy, congregations, community organizations.

Promise:

Show leaders how trust, belonging, and human connection become essential infrastructure for thriving institutions.

Keynote 2

Creative Disruption®

The Skill That Determines Whether We Survive Change

For: Corporate leadership, foundations, nonprofits, civic organizations, executive teams.

Promise:
Learn how imagination, creativity, and adaptive thinking become strategic assets during uncertainty and change.

Keynote 5

Rest as Resistance

Mindfulness, Renewal, and Sustainable Leadership

For: Women leaders, healthcare systems, educators, caregivers, clergy, nonprofits.

Promise:

Equip leaders to move beyond burnout through contemplative practice, renewal, and embodied resilience.

Keynote 3

Imagine Another Way™

Unlocking Possibility in Times of Uncertainty

For: General audiences, commencement addresses, association conferences, women leaders, faith gatherings.

Promise:

Help audiences move from fear and resignation toward possibility, hope, and courageous action.

Let’s discuss the goals for your gathering

Every keynote can be customized for leadership conferences, healthcare systems, universities, faith communities, foundations, and organizations navigating change.

What Audiences Leave with

Dr. Best’s talks are designed to do more than inspire for an hour. Audiences leave with language and frameworks for leading through disruption, a deeper connection to purpose and imagination, and practical ways to foster more honest, courageous conversations about belonging and change. They walk away feeling seen, renewed, and better equipped to carry the work into their teams, classrooms, institutions, and communities.

Where Dr. Best shows up

Dr. Best speaks in a range of contexts, including keynotes and plenaries, panels and moderated conversations, university lectures and residencies, leadership retreats, and foundation or institutional convenings. Each engagement is tailored to your goals, audience, and setting.

Invite Dr. Best to your next gathering

If you’re planning a conference, retreat, convening, or special event, we’d love to explore whether it’s a fit. Share a few details about your gathering, and someone from the TubmanWalker team will follow up.

Book Dr. Best to Speak

Enduring Impact

A shared experience that can become a reference point and catalyst for ongoing work long after the event is over.

Request a Conversation

What Hosts Are Saying

  • "Dr. Best helped our audience name what they were carrying and imagine what was possible. Her keynote stayed with us long after the event ended."

    —Human Resources Director

  • “She brought depth, clarity, and spiritual grounding to a conversation our campus urgently needed.”

    — College President

  • “Our leaders left feeling seen, challenged, and equipped with language they can actually use in the work ahead.”

    — Non-Profit CEO