Olivia Carr - Guest Keynote & Event Speaker

Olivia Carr Book as a speaker/entertainer for your next event

Key Points for Olivia Carr

Olivia Carr explores how midlife can influence experienced women's engagement, ambition, and relationship with work.
Olivia helps organisations recognise the factors that can lead capable women to disengage or leave, and consider how to retain their experience.
She draws on original qualitative research and direct conversations with women to reveal the realities shaping their working lives.
She combines more than 20 years of commercial experience with research-led insights to challenge conventional thinking about women's progression and success.

Topics for Olivia Carr

Beyond Awareness™
Midlife, Menopause and the Workplace
Awareness was the First Step. Retention is the Bigger Conversation.
Many organisations now have menopause policies, education programs or wellbeing initiatives.
The next question is what happens after awareness.
Do managers know how to respond?
Do women feel safe raising what they are experiencing?
Does support exist in practice, not simply on paper?
Are changes in confidence, energy, behaviour or ambition being interpreted as performance issues?
And are organisations considering the implications for retention, succession, leadership pipelines and experienced female talent?
Beyond Awareness™ moves the conversation from menopause education into organisational practice. It examines midlife and menopause through the lenses of leadership, manager capability, retention, engagement, psychological safety, performance and career progression.
Drawing on lived experience, broader evidence, organisational insight and the voices emerging through The Midlife Truth™, Olivia helps audiences understand what women may be navigating at
work, including what they often do not disclose.
Audiences explore:
- What midlife and menopause can actually look like at work
- What women may not be saying to managers or colleagues
- Why experienced women may begin questioning ambition, progression or the way they work
- How leaders can respond without stereotyping or making assumptions
- The gap between workplace policy and lived employee experience
- How managers can approach these conversations with greater confidence
- Where organisational structures and ways of working may unintentionally contribute to women stepping back or leaving
- Why responsibility for change cannot sit solely with the women experiencing it What organisations can do beyond awareness campaigns and one-off events
- How to retain experienced women through their 40s, 50s and beyond
  Beyond Awareness™ can be adapted for executive and senior leadership teams, managers, people and culture, and learning and development functions, women’s leadership programs, employee networks and broader organisation-wide audiences
The Midlife Truth™
What Organisations May be Misunderstanding About Experienced Women
What if Women are not Becoming Less Ambitious in Midlife?
What if they are becoming clearer?
The Midlife Truth™ examines the broader transition happening for women through their 40s, 50s and beyond, and what it means for organisations trying to retain and progress experienced female talent.
Olivia explores what happens to women’s relationship with work, ambition, leadership, identity, success and power through midlife.
One of the most common assumptions is that when a woman begins questioning her role, stops chasing the next promotion, wants to work differently or changes direction, she has somehow become less ambitious.
The women Olivia is listening to tell a much more nuanced story.
For many, ambition has not disappeared.
What has changed is what they are prepared to sacrifice for it.
Where they want to direct it.
What they now define as success.
And the conditions under which they are prepared to continue giving so much of themselves to work.
For organisations, this has real implications for retention, succession and leadership pipelines.
This keynote asks leaders to reconsider what they may be interpreting as disengagement, declining ambition or reduced commitment, and to look more closely at the conditions experienced
women are being asked to work within.
The Midlife Truth™ Research
Listening to What Women are Actually Experiencing
The Midlife Truth™ is Olivia Carr’s ongoing body of original qualitative research, listening and writing exploring women lived experience through midlife.
The first phase has included private one-to-one witness conversations with women aged 40 to 74 across Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand, with the research continuing to grow. Pasted text
These conversations go far beyond menopause symptoms.
Women speak about work, ambition, leadership, confidence, money, caregiving, identity, relationships, ageing, power, the body, success and what they want from the next stage of their lives.
For organisations, The Midlife Truth™ provides a window into the gap that can exist between what a workplace believes its women are experiencing and what women may actually be navigating privately.
Those insights continually inform Olivia’s speaking, workshops and advisory work.
This means her work is not built around a static keynote or a collection of published statistics.
She is continuing to listen and bring those voices directly into conversations with leaders.
Why This Matters to Organisations
Women in midlife hold enormous organisational knowledge, leadership experience, commercial capability and influence.
They are also navigating one of the most significant transitions of their working lives.
Too often, the workplace conversation stops at symptoms, policies or awareness.
Olivia’s work shifts the question.
Midlife women aren’t a wellbeing initiative. They’re a retention conversation.
Her work helps organisations examine:
Leadership: Do leaders understand how midlife may be affecting experienced women without reducing every woman to menopause?
Retention: Are highly capable women leaving, stepping back or changing direction for reasons the organisation has misunderstood?
Manager Capability: Do managers know how to have appropriate conversations when an employee raises a midlife or menopause-related issue?
Progression: Are women genuinely becoming less ambitious, or are existing models of advancement no longer worth the trade-off?
Culture: Does what happen inside the workplace reflect what the organisation says in its policies?
Talent Strategy: What does losing experienced women in midlife mean for succession, leadership pipelines and gender representation?
The opportunity is not simply to support women through this stage.
It is to create workplaces where experienced women still want to stay, progress and lead.
Retaining the Women You Can’t Afford to Lose
The Changing Shape of Ambition: Women, Work, and Midlife
What Happens After the Menopause Policy?
Experienced Women at Work: Leadership, Retention, and the Midlife Transition

Testimonials for Olivia Carr

You were amazing!!!! Really inspirational
Chief Marketing Officer
Australia Post

I have met a lot of amazing women, but you have disturbed me in a good way. You have put fire in my belly.
Founder
AFDigital

Thank you for sharing your story today, you have inspired me to be fearless in my pursuit of my purpose in business.
Talent Advisor ANZ
The Arnott’s Group

Olivia, Great presentation today at the Women’s event!! Loved it!! It was amazing and I heard many people talk about it afterwards – you own it lady!!
Head of sustainable business and CSR
Winning Group

Thank you for your talk today at the Retail Women’s Forum, absolutely inspiring! I absolutely resonated with your story
Founder
Di Bartoli Coffee

I just wanted to thank you for speaking and sharing your story. I was incredibly moved, and you have ignited something in me that I couldn’t quite place my finger on. Purpose, is what I need to focus on, and how I can use my passion to help others. I just wanted to say thank you, it was truly inspirational.
Head Of Macro Product Development
Woolworths Limited