About Jenna
Jenna Reed has spent 25 years leading teams, launching products, and building brands across some of America's most recognizable companies. She knows what it takes to perform at the highest levels of corporate leadership – and she knows exactly what gets in the way.
For smart, capable, high-performing women, the biggest obstacle usually isn't skill. It's the invisible habits of learned smallness that were built in long before the corner office. Jenna spent years recognizing those patterns in herself – and building the framework to dismantle them. Now she brings that work to your stage.
Why This Talk Exists
At six years old, something happens to little girls. Research shows they start shifting from labeling themselves as brilliant to labeling themselves as just really hard workers.
For Jenna, that shift started right on time.
She was a vibrant first grader — full of ideas, eager to participate. One day at the start of story time, her hand shot up with a solution to a classroom problem. It was the first time her audacity and enthusiasm were labeled bossiness. As messages like that stacked up, she stopped being the first to raise her hand and learned it was smarter to shrink than to be criticized.
She internalized that pressure to shrink for more than two decades before she recognized learned smallness was holding her back. In meetings where she edited her ideas before they left her mouth. In roles where she waited to be chosen instead of choosing herself. In opportunities she quietly talked herself out of before anyone else got the chance.
Jenna embarked on a path of unlearning it. She realized it wasn't weakness or a personality trait. It was conditioning. And as soon as she started naming it — out loud, on stages, in rooms full of women nodding along because they recognized every word — she realized anything that can be learned can be unlearned.
That's why this talk exists.
Proof Under Pressure
Jenna Reed brings more than a message to the stage. She brings 25 years of leadership experience across consumer brands, product development, and corporate reinvention — including a moment that tested everything she'd ever learned about leading under pressure.
It was February 2020. One week into a new promotion. A global shutdown bearing down. And a boss who needed her to launch a product the market didn't know it needed yet — in eight to ten weeks, when the normal timeline was nine to eighteen months.
She said yes before she could see the path.
Eight weeks later, PAYA hand sanitizer was in production. The launch exceeded profit goals by 1,017%. And not one person on her team was furloughed during the shutdown.
That's what the STAND framework looks like when the stakes are real.
“I worked with Jenna on the launch of a novel aerosol foam hand sanitizer. It was Jenna who recognized the impact the pandemic would have on our business and developed the concept for a fast-launch hand sanitizer product to fill the gap. She collaborated with R&D, manufacturing, regulatory, and procurement on developing an aggressive plan to launch in a tenth of our normal speed-to-market. Her ability to make this project happen was key to our team delivering revenue targets for the year.”
Douglas Tomczak, Ph.D.
Senior Director R&D, Voyant Beauty
A Few Things I Know To Be True
You weren't born small. You were taught to shrink — and everything you've been calling a confidence problem is actually a conditioning problem. That distinction changes everything.
Audacity isn't a personality trait. It's a decision. One you can make in the half-second before fear finishes its sentence.
The world doesn't need your most polished self. It needs your most present one.
What Happens in the Room
Jenna's audiences don't just leave feeling inspired. They leave with something they can use on Monday morning.
After The Audacity Advantage, your audience will recognize the specific patterns — the Freeze, the Shrink, the Permission Pause — that have been quietly running the show in their careers. They'll have a five-part framework for making bolder decisions in real time, under real pressure. And they'll have language for the thing they've been feeling but couldn't name — which means they can finally start doing something about it.
“Jenna presented to a large group of our managers, and she is genuinely one of the best presenters we have ever had at this meeting. She’s warm, sharp, and articulate, but even more importantly, she is an engaging speaker who captures the audience’s attention.”
Theresa Bunn
Director of Operations, RMG