Speakers

4x-Emmy winner. 3x-author. Global speaker. Charity auctioneer. Proud mom.

Molly Grantham is the founder of the Bet On Yourself movement. She hosts sold-out Summits and Retreats and created The Wave, a thriving online community for professionals committed to personal growth. Delivering more than 100 keynotes each year, Molly blends humor, candor, and practical insight to help audiences embrace reinvention and lead with greater confidence.

Her work has made her one of the nation’s most experienced live communicators, speaking, interviewing, and leading conversations in front of millions over nearly three decades.

In 2024, Molly walked away from a 27-year journalism career at the height of her profession—leaving her role as the #1-rated anchor in a top-20 U.S. television market, where she anchored 20 live broadcasts each week—to build a national platform inspiring others to bet on themselves.

Living the message she teaches, Molly also became a professionally trained charity auctioneer, helping nonprofits across the country raise record-breaking funds. (She raised more than $10 million in just the past 18 months!)

She is adept at speaking live to audiences of 100,000, interviewing Hollywood celebrities, CEOs, and NFL stars, and has appeared on CNN, the Today show, CBS News, CBS Mornings, People, and HuffPost.

Her three books have been praised as “raw and relatable,” exploring the realities of building a meaningful career while raising a family.

Molly and her husband, Wes, have three children under the age of 15.

In her next life, Molly says she’d like to be a mermaid.

Muffy Grant is a mission-driven leader with nearly two decades of experience advancing economic mobility, gender equity, and community well-being. As Executive Director of Dress for Success Triangle, she works to ensure women have not only the skills to succeed, but the confidence, connections, and opportunities to build lasting economic mobility.

Previously, Muffy led national development efforts at Child Care Aware® of America and served as Executive Director of the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation, where she advanced cross-sector initiatives positioning child care and family supports as essential economic infrastructure. Earlier in her career, she worked in public diplomacy and international development through U.S. Department of State partnerships.

Muffy holds degrees from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame and Georgetown University, as well as a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University. Across her career, one conviction has remained constant: when women have the opportunity to thrive, families, communities, and economies thrive with them.

Manisha Khanna is a recognized thought leader and an established voice in artificial intelligence, leading global product marketing for SAS’s AI portfolio spanning Generative AI, Agentic AI and Analytics. She drives market strategy and evangelizes cutting-edge AI technologies while championing responsible AI implementation across industries and regulatory landscapes.

Manisha’s unique academic foundation – a double Master’s from two of India’s top-ranked institutions (an MBA from IIM, often called “the Indian Ivy League,” and an MS in Computer Science from IIT Madras, India’s equivalent of MIT), both with a specialization in AI – positions her as a rare voice bridging deep technical expertise with strategic business insight. This combination enables her to speak authoritatively to both engineering teams and boardrooms.

At SAS, her contributions were recognized with the CEO Award of Excellence.

As a published voice in outlets like The New Stack, TechTarget, and SAS Voices, Manisha has contributed thought leadership on agentic AI, trustworthy AI, and AI governance. She is also a published author in IEEE, ACAMS, Singapore Computer Society journals where she has contributed seminal research on predictive analytics and generative AI topics. Her writing spans practical and strategic ground – from ethics and autonomy in agentic AI systems, to algorithmic trust and ROI, to building foundations for enterprise AI success.

Earlier in her career, she demonstrated transformational leadership in analytics at Standard Chartered Bank, where she spearheaded digital transformation across 30+ markets and established a Global Centre of Excellence for risk management – an initiative that earned the bank the ‘Best Data Analytics Initiative’ at the MEA Innovation Awards 2022.

Today, Manisha collaborates with analysts, customers, and industry stakeholders to solve complex business challenges while ensuring ethical AI deployment. A passionate advocate for talent development, she champions pragmatic applications of AI that supplement human capabilities – making her an influential voice in shaping the future of responsible, sustainable AI adoption.

Kim Kitchings is Founder of REIGNITED, where she serves as a Fractional CMO and strategic advisor helping leaders navigate growth, change, and transformation. With more than 25 years of global executive experience, Kim has partnered with over 500 brands and retailers worldwide, leading brand strategy, executive communications, and cross-functional teams across diverse industries.

Throughout her corporate career, Kim led global marketing strategy, corporate communications, and market research across the U.S., Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Today, she works 1:1 with executives, delivers keynotes, and facilitates organizational workshops to help high-performing teams align market strategy with culture, rebuild confidence, and restart with clarity.

Featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and Leading Voices of Female Executives, Kim’s expertise in navigating change is both professional and deeply personal. Having experienced significant career transitions herself, her perspective is grounded in reality—understanding what disruption requires of a brand on paper, and what it demands of the people behind it.

A native North Carolinian, Kim, holds an MBA from Meredith College and a BA from North Carolina State University. She lives in Cary with her husband, their three children, and an amazing Poodle.

In 2011, serial entrepreneur, Sabrina Seymore embarked on a journey that would shape her diverse portfolio. Starting with Sabrina Seymore Events, she honed her skills in event planning, paving the way for her ventures in 2017 with The Prevailing Woman. This marked a leap into media, showcasing her commitment to empowering women through events, grants, and philanthropy. By 2023, she extended her entrepreneurial prowess to fitness with Prevailing Pilates, the first black-owned Pilates studio in NC. Seymore embodies a multifaceted career defined by innovation and empowerment.

Seymore attained a Bachelor of Science degree in Recreation Administration from North Carolina central University (NCCU) and a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Liberty University. She’s a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

Seymore currently resides in North Carolina with her husband and two sons.

Raised in Asheville, Elizabeth developed an early appreciation for the importance of mental health through her family’s work in health care, including her mother’s career as a psychiatrist. She studied psychology and bioethics at the University of Virginia and completed both a Master of Social Work and a Master of Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist Associate.

During her time at WakeMed, she has served in a variety of roles, including case manager, mental health clinician in the Emergency Department and medical units, Team Lead, and now Supervisor. Her experience spans crisis intervention, inpatient psychiatric treatment, behavioral health services, interdisciplinary collaboration, and leadership in health care. In 2023, Elizabeth received WakeMed’s Pyramid Award for outstanding performance that goes above and beyond work duties and contributes to WakeMed’s Aspirational Goal of Extraordinary Team. She is passionate about being a public service leader, advancing access to mental health care, supporting individuals and families during times of crisis, and strengthening the well-being of the communities WakeMed serves.