Winitha Bonney OAM

Winitha Bonney OAM's Biography

Winitha Bonney OAM is a globally recognised and award-winning leader and speaker. She's got a background as a professional dancer as well as over 20 years experience as a C-Suite executive working in North America and Australia, leading organisation-wide transformation projects and managing billions of dollars.

Winitha was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2021 and is known for being a dynamic speaker and thought leader. She is obsessed with motivation for change in business and leadership and is recognised as one of the world’s leading experts in inclusion. As a professional keynote speaker since 2008, Winitha is committed to delivering real truths in an empowering, challenging, and entertaining way.

Winitha’s a status-quo breaker, problem-solver, change-maker and your number one cheerleader. Winitha will help you succeed!

Born in London, raised in Australia and of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage, she’s got a background as a professional dancer and C-Suite executive working in North America and Australia.

In short, she's been locked in a LA dance studio with Britney Spears, saved a company from bankruptcy in under 6 months, and survived working in counter-terrorism as a Brown person.

Winitha inspires and equips your people to harness friction to change, to lead the future, and to develop agency and accountability for maximum success

Winitha brings high energy, expert facilitation, and innovative lateral thinking to your event experience.

As an event MC, Winitha seamlessly connects each session, drawing out fresh strategic insights, forging new linkages between valuable concepts, and turning key messages into simple, practical actions for your delegates—doubling your return on investment.

As your panel moderator, Winitha collaborates closely with panel members to craft and prepare a session that is highly engaging, energetic, informative, and inspiring. She knows how to work with panellists to extract and shape their expertise into pure gems of wisdom for your delegates while ensuring each panel member shines.

As your panel member or moderator, Winitha adds significant value to any discussion, combining her expertise in change, inclusion, innovation, and leadership with her lived experience as a Woman and Person of Colour, and her extensive background as a C-Suite leader.

To enquire about Winitha for your next event contact Helene Greenham directly – helene@platinumspeakers.com.au

Speaking Topics Include

Show up! Visionary leadership that changes the game and rewrites the rules

The old way of leading is dead – the world is moving faster than ever and it needs visionary leaders who don’t just keep up, they shape the future. In this inspiring keynote, Winitha delivers hard truths with no- nonsense insights with humour and practical actions to give your people drive, clarity and ambition to step up into leadership with ownership, grit and success. She’s led companies, teams and billions of dollars to success. Winitha - a woman of colour, Order of Australia recipient and former C-suite executive with 20+ years of transformation experience – knows it’s time for a new leadership game. In her high-energy and insightful keynote, she empowers and equips audiences to break the status quo, rewrite the rules and change the game through visionary leadership.

Frictionless change: Choose hard things
If you want your people to lean into what’s hard and to lead change instead of just embracing it, this keynote is for you. Your audience will leave this session empowered, motivated, ready to choose what’s hard and to start leveraging friction and change for success.
A woman of colour who has shattered multiple glass ceilings, Winitha is a former CEO and innovation consultant working with giants like Telstra. An Order of Australia Medal recipient, she’s a status-quo breaker and change-maker used to swimming against the tide to make real change happen. Winitha is THE keynote speaker to inspire and motivate your audience to embrace complex challenges and drive change, innovation and success.

Back yourself: How to take your spot in the world
Direct, no-fluff motivation that inspires and equips your people and leaders to be their own cheerleaders, carve their own path and take their spot in the world with grit, agency and confidence. Winitha brings inclusive, high-energy motivation that speaks to every single person in your audience. Invigorate your people with a fresh take on purpose that lifts performance and enriches the human experience. Winitha is an inclusion expert, woman of colour and former C-suite executive with 20+ years experience in whole-of-organisation transformation and innovation. She knows how to deliver bold motivation with futurist thinking to shake up old, outdated narratives. This is motivation that truly energises and excites all.

It ain’t woke: Commercially smart inclusion
In this session, Winitha gives your people practical, actionable ways to replace overwhelm with inclusion, transform uncertainty to action and obligation to authenticity which will feed your bottom line, nurture happier staff and turn customers into raving fans. With an Order of Australia medal for her work in inclusion, Winitha Bonney is a woman of colour to watch. She’s a former CEO who shows audiences how to turn a touchy subject into a winning strategy for commercially smart inclusion. Conscious capitalism? Yes please!

New activism: Thriving in a world not built for women
Systemic oppression and inequity won't vanish overnight, and Winitha, an inclusion expert and woman of colour, knows this firsthand. So, if the system isn't changing anytime soon, we need to embrace "New Activism". In this electrifying keynote, Winitha introduces a powerful concept and shares her strategies for thriving within the current system, empowering you to overcome barriers and flourish despite the challenges. Get ready to be inspired and to engage in NEW Activism! Meet Winitha Bonney, a powerhouse woman of colour with an Order of Australia Medal for her work in inclusion. She smashed through multiple glass ceilings as a former C-suite exec with 20+ years in transformation and innovation, founded a non-profit and is a professional dancer and inclusion expert. Need fresh insights on women's equality? You need Winitha and this keynote!