Stephen Dorsey, Speaker
Represented by Rob Firing at Transatlantic Speakers
Stephen Dorsey is a senior-level business, brand, and marketing strategist with 30-plus years of international experience engaging with Fortune 1000 organizations in Canada, the US, Australia, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean.
Stephen is the author of Black and White, An Intimate Multicultural Perspective on “White Advantage”, and the Paths to Change (Nimbus 2022), a podcast host of Black and White with Stephen Dorsey on Evergreen Podcast Network, and a recognized EDI thought leader, consultant, speaker, facilitator, and moderator based in Toronto, Canada.
Stephen’s articles, essays, and op-eds have been published broadly including in the Globe and Mail and Le Devoir, and he has been a frequent interviewee on Canadian radio and television. He is a civically engaged community leader with extensive experience engaging with municipal, provincial, and federal government policymakers and agencies to help drive positive change.
In addition to his board role with the Black Business and Professional Association (BBPA), Stephen is a volunteer director on the Friends of Sorauren Park board, and a founding member of Democracy House, a grassroots think tank and civic-minded movement dedicated to preserving and strengthening democratic systems and practices in Canada and around the world.
Stephen believes we can all Be Better, Do Better, and Live Better, Together. In his deeply personal and insightful debut book, Black and White, An Intimate Multicultural Perspective on “White Advantage” and the Paths to Change (Nimbus Publishing, 2022), he offers unfiltered access to his lived experience of anti-Black racism around the world, including Canada, the United States, and Europe. A powerful blend of memoir and social analysis, Black & White is an intimate excavation of systemic racism.
With an inclusive and accessible approach, Stephen aims to inform, build bridges of understanding, and create opportunities for action that can lead to positive change.
SPEAKING TOPICS
Stephen Dorsey speaks on many issues related to adversity, diversity, resilience, and perseverance — sharing his personal and professional lived experience in successfully overcoming challenges of systemic racism and inequality. stephen@stephendorsey.com, 647-938-5449
1. Resilience and Perseverance: Overcoming adversity to live a thriving life
Building on the topics explored in his book Black and White, Stephen shares learnings from his lived experience of growing up while immersed in the paradoxes of Black and White, French and English, Poor and Upper-middle class. A feel-good story that has many lessons about how to achieve success in the face of adversity. As a compelling storyteller, Stephen takes his audience on a journey, from his formative years growing up Black in a white world, through to his thriving adult life. In his engaging talk, he shares many relatable messages and lessons about how to persevere, overcome challenges and ultimately succeed.
2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Hope and action toward a more equal and just society
A call to action around systemic inequality. In his moving and eye-opening talk, Stephen takes us on an exploration of the inherent societal injustices still very present in our North American society today. He presents arguments that raise our collective understanding and awareness of the realities of “white advantage” and to systemic racism and inequality in our public and private institutions, and of the related challenges of the growing economic disparity and wealth gap in our society. In his affable approach, Stephen suggests tangible, practical actions for affecting change at the individual, corporate and institutional levels, holding people gently to account and encouraging us to Be Better, Do Better and Live Better, together. A keynote for the ally in all of us.
3. Build and transform communities through practical activism:
Stephen brings to life innovative and transformative ideas curated from diverse sources on how to affect real change at the community level, including how to build more successful, diverse, and inclusive communities. Using compelling narrative, Stephen inspires his audiences to see and act to build stronger communities to best address society’s greatest challenges. He shares how we can all play a role in creating positive change by taking big and small steps to action at a local level.