Sami Jo Small

Sami Jo Small

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Toronto, Ontario

Gold Medal-Winning Goalie with the Canadian Women's Olympic Hockey Team

Sami Jo Small is a multi-sport athlete, a three-time Olympian, and a five-time world champion goalie for the Canadian national women’s ice hockey team. Sami Jo Small uses storytelling to exemplify many aspects of developing more successful teams & leave the audience with concrete ways to support the people & the teams around them through her message.

SAMI JO SMALL BIOGRAPHY

Sami Jo has been speaking professionally since she started with the National Team in 1997. When many of her teammates shied away from the microphone, Sami Jo was quick to share stories about the team. She has honed her message about teamwork after more than 20 years in the industry using stories from one of Canada’s most successful teams, the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team. A team then won 4 straight Olympic Gold medals over 20 years. She delves into the personalities on the team and her thoughts on what makes strong teammates and ultimately successful as a team. With her learnings, she has shown audiences all over the world that,

“In life, you don’t always get to choose the role you play, but you always get to choose how you play it.”

Sami Jo has earned the highest designation as a speaking professional, the CSP (Certified Speaking professional) of which there are only just over 500 worldwide and only a handful of former athletes. She began her career as a 13-year-old winning her local Manitoba French-speaking contest, the “Concours D’Art Oratoire” giving a speech on Manon Rhéaume, the first women to play in the NHL. Sami Jo won despite having broken a tooth in half that morning playing sports in the gym. She parlayed that into a role as school president, then class valedictorian, always loving to be at the front of the room.

Her career really began in the industry after earning her degree from Stanford University in the Mechanical Engineer school while focusing on product design. Despite an engineering degree in Silicon Valley in the 90’s, Sami choose to move to Toronto to become a full-time hockey player. She supplemented her hockey income (very little) by doing speaking events and the rest is history.

She’s been speaking professionally for more than 20 years, serving on the board of the Canadian Association of professional speakers and mentoring other Olympic athletes as they transition into the business of speaking.

Videos

Podcasts

Coming Soon!

Sami Jo Small Topic Presentations

playing the role

  • Keynote Presentation
  • Focuses on helping you help the individuals in the crowd be motivated and inspired to help those around them. She’ll help your group become a better “team”, whether that’s in the workplace, at home or in relationships, and inspire the group to want to work harder for a common goal.

it's not about the medal

dynamic duo

teamwork and change

Testimonials

Sami Jo Small kicked off our seminar with an energetic and inspirational keynote on how to beat the odds and achieve success despite adversity. Her remarks could not have been more tailored to our seminar’s theme, and our clients were thoroughly engaged and motivated during her speech. Sami Jo was very professional on and off the stage with our clients, partners and colleagues.

C. RICHARD DONNELLY

Global Principal Consultant
Dams and Waterpower Hatch

We kicked off our multi-day company offsite with Sami Jo Small’s terrific keynote speech, and days later the team was still talking about how inspired and moved they were by her story. Sami Jo’s message put everyone in the right frame of mind to tackle goals as a team, and her warmth and down-to-earth attitude set the tone for a positive, productive meeting.

SUSAN CATTO

Head of Content & Publishing
Canada Travelzoo

Sami Jo was awesome and exceeded our expectations. She is very real, compassionate, delightful and inspirational. You could feel the buzz in the room following her keynote address.

LOIS IRVINE

Community Development Coordinator
North Simcoe Community Futures Development Corporation

The power of belonging to a team really shone through as Sami Jo shared her life challenges. I’ve seen a lot of speakers and few compared with what she delivered. The speech was well constructed and Sami Jo connected with the audience during her delivery. I was most impressed by her vulnerability and sharing of the not-so-glamorous struggle in making a decision to put the needs of the team ahead of her own. Sami Jo moved me to tears through her authenticity. The message was powerful. I recommend Sami Jo Small as a professional keynote speaker.

CONNIE BIRD

Life is Sales

We were honoured to have Sami Jo and Billy join us as our special guest speakers during our annual national dealer tour. Their stories on how to keep fighting through adversity and reaching your goals were very touching and made everyone remember the power of resilience. Their professionalism and going the extra step to sign autographs and speak with our teams, right until the last guest had left, was something that I’ll never forget. I would recommend all corporations looking to re-invigorate the spirit or cultures of their organizations have Sami Jo and Billy speak – their words will truly make a difference.

BENJAMIN H LEE

Senior Manager, Marketing and Sales
Nissan Canada Finance

Articles & Media

Coming Soon!

Books

Coming Soon!

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How to book Sami Jo Small for an event?

Sami Jo Small keynote speaker is an expert presenter and has a wide range of experience speaking to a wide variety of audiences and organizations. Sami Jo Small delivers keynotes, workshops & training sessions. They may also host or emcee events. Hire Sami Jo Small from Toronto, Ontario for your event to inspire the audience to take action and make change in their work and their lives. Your workplace will benefit from our keynote speaker and their keynote talks and speeches will shift the mindsets or behaviours for the audience members in Canada. 

Interested in booking Sami Jo Small for an event?

Are you looking to hire Sami Jo Small for your event? Sami Jo Small Toronto, Ontario is a dynamic and engaging speaker that offers audiences researched content paired with expertise and a dynamic speaking ability. Sami Jo Small is also a Canadian corporate consultant and coach and facilitates workshops and training sessions for a corporate audience. Sami Jo Small is an expert keynote presenter and speaks on wide variety of topics. Hiring a great speaker for your event is important and working with a thought leader like Sami Jo Small from Speakers Canada's roster will engage audiences into the content of the presentation to bring awareness and a fresh perspective for their approach to their work and their lives. Book Sami Jo Small to educate, motivate and activate the audience through an interactive and entertaining presentation at corporate meetings and gatherings.

Known as a popular key note speaker in Canada, Sami Jo Small creates life changing experiences for the participants with practical insights and strategic advice they can implement right after the session. Working with a one our leading expert speaker like Sami Jo Small from Toronto, Ontario offers organizations a fresh perspective to assist the people of the organization. No matter if it is a government, association, or business crowd, Sami Jo Small is a perfect speaker for your event. Through unique practical insights for trending topics and years experience speaking to different organizations, Sami Jo Small focuses on changing individuals to make better decisions at work and their lives. No matter if you are holding an in person or virtual event, having an influential speaker such as Sami Jo Small will engage, motivate, and activate the audience to make a change in their lives and inspire action for results to meet organizational goals. Your workforce will benefit from Sami Jo Small's presentations and speeches, with measurable results set to shift the people of the organization and core direction of the company. Book Sami Jo Small speaker for your annual general meeting, conference, summit, or convention in Canada.

How much does it cost to hire Sami Jo Small for a keynote presentation or virtual event?

Sami Jo Small is an expert professional key note speaker with a lot of experience speaking and delivering engaging talks to organizations and audiences in Canada. Each of Speaker Bureau Canada's talent have different ways to assess their fees, and Sami Jo Small speaker fee ranges depending on the size of the audience, event format (in person or virtual), event location, and if the organization booking them is a non profit, association, government department/government agency or business/corporation. The speakers we work with are flexible with their fees, and it is important for us to learn more about your event before we approach them, as it is our role to work for you, and to help you find a speaker within budget. 

Please contact Speakers Bureau of Canada and provide us with your event details so that we can contact Sami Jo Small to check availability or confirm the pricing and associated costs to hire a great speaker like Sami Jo Small for your event. As Sami Jo Small's agent and as a Canadian top speaker bureau and talent agency for speakers, we are able to propose each event opportunity from each host organization's behalf to try to help you get in touch with Sami Jo Small and confirm them for your in person or online meeting/event. We can also provide and advise on the booking process and potentially negotiate their fee. Speakers Canada is a client focused speaker agency, and we work for you in finding good speakers for your team meetings and booking processes.

Sami Jo Small Disclaimer

Speakers Bureau Canada assists companies and event planning teams seeking to hire talent like Sami Jo Small for speaking engagements, virtual meetings, conference appearances, training sessions and workshops facilitations. Our Canadian speakers bureau does not claim to exclusively represent Sami Jo Small, however they are represented by Speakers Canada, and we work with them closely for their Canadian speaking opportunities and bookings. As Canada's top speaker bureau, we represent Canadian motivational keynote speakers and professional guest speakers that will be available on your upcoming events date and location that are withing the budget. Our talented bureau speaker booking agency can help find business speakers or celebrity speakers that aligns with each organization, audience, event theme and the topic themes you hope for the speaker to address in their presentation. 

When SBC receives a request to book Sami Jo Small we provide you with their speaker fees, travel costs and check their schedules. We work closely with the host organization's event planning team and the speaker to handle the logistics and to relay or negotiate associated costs. Our talented team members then will work with our talent directly or their agent/manager/assistant to confirm the Canadian speaker fee and travel expenses, so that event planning teams can receive an official quote for the speaker appearing at the event. Speaker fees and travel costs vary per speaker and our role is to contact Sami Jo Small about your event, after we have connected with the event organizers to learn all the event details and/or conference program. Each booking request is unique since session durations and audience sizes can vary which may affect the speaker's fees. If you are looking to hire Sami Jo Small, we recommend filling out the booking request form so a booking agent from Speakers Bureau Canada can get in touch with our talent to help you coordinate with your team to engage the speaker for a successful event.