Leadership Keynote Conversations for the Travel and Tourism Industry
Mark Mohammadpour helps leaders build healthy, confident, and connected teams through high-energy, high-impact keynote conversations tailored for travel and tourism professionals.
Trusted By
The Trillion Dollar Question:
How to relieve stressed travel and tourism employees while experiencing record growth?
The travel and tourism market is booming, with projections showing by 2029 it will generate $1.11tn in revenue (1). Yet the employees who are driving that growth are becoming increasingly exhausted.
Recent research suggests the “effectiveness of ethical leadership in reducing employee burnout in the hospitality sector.” (2).
South Island, New Zealand
Meet Mark Mohammadpour
Mark leads Keynote Conversations™, interactive, no-podium experiences that transform audiences into participants. As the founder of Chasing the Sun®, Mark helps leaders build healthier cultures that reduce burnout, retain top talent, and drive stronger results.
A former global Public Relations executive who lost 150 pounds, Mark blends Fortune 500 leadership with lived experience.
Audiences describe his sessions as relatable, actionable, and real.
With 200,000+ lives impacted and 99% of attendees rating his talks as valuable, Mark ensures people leave not just inspired, but ready to act.
Keynote Conversation and Follow-up Workshop Topics
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The Playbook for Healthy, High-Trust Leadership
Purpose: Understand the impact of energy, clarity, and connection on effective leadership.
Audience: Managers, executives, and team leaders.
About: Today’s future-ready leaders protect energy as fiercely as they drive business results. In this high-energy Keynote Conversation, Mark Mohammadpour redefines leadership as an act of capacity, not control. Through research, stories, and interactive moments, he shows why well-being, empathy, and clarity are the new cornerstones of high performance. Attendees will leave rethinking what it means to lead in a hybrid, high-speed, AI-augmented world — and inspired to turn well-being into a business advantage.
Why Now:
Now is the time for a leadership revolution. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace, “only 23% of employees are actively engaged, and burnout has risen to 46% globally.” The leadership playbook of the past decade no longer works. Leaders must redesign how they sustain energy and engagement, or risk losing nearly half their workforce’s potential.
Outcomes:
Rethink success around energy, clarity, and connection instead of hours worked.
See culture as the system that drives performance, not a side project.
Reimagine leadership as a renewable resource, not a finite one.
Adapt The CHASE Model™ to common leadership moments like hiring, onboarding, and recognition.
Leave inspired to future-proof their influence in a changing workplace.
Follow-Up Workshop: The REWORK Sprint™️
In this interactive session, The REWORK Sprint, participants map in real-time their energy, clarify priorities, and design short, repeatable habits that keep well-being and performance in sync.
Participants will build a personal Well-Being Ledger™, practice Clarity Huddles, design a Mentor Mesh™, and create a One-Page Culture Brief. Participants leave with a 30-day sprint plan and shared accountability toolkit.
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How the Best Organizations Make Well-Being the Way They Work
Purpose: Help leaders build teams where people feel healthy, supported, and motivated to do their best work.
Audience: Managers, executives, and team leaders.
About: Most companies treat well-being as a benefit. The best companies treat it as a leadership operating system.
In this Keynote Conversation, Mark Mohammadpour reveals how the healthiest organizations have re-engineered their workflows, not their wellness programs, to drive engagement and performance.
Using The CHASE Model, Mark demonstrates how leaders can integrate well-being into their daily operations, communication patterns, and decision-making processes to cultivate cultures that sustain themselves.
Why Now: Deloitte’s Well-Being at Work Report found that 52% of employees say their employer does not support their well-being in meaningful ways, and 69% of executives admit they have no measurement strategy for it.
Well-being has become a competitive differentiator. Companies that fail to operationalize it are falling behind in retention, innovation, and trust.
Outcomes:
Reimagine well-being as a core business driver, not a short-term initiative.
Learn how individual leadership choices shape cultural health at scale.
See energy, safety, and connection as strategic metrics, not soft skills.
Adapt The CHASE Model™ to common leadership moments like hiring, onboarding, and recognition.
Leave with a simple framework they can start in minutes to track and sustain progress.
Follow-Up Workshop: The Team Culture OS™
This hands-on session, The Team Culture Operating System™, is a winning investment in your team’s success.
It helps teams translate inspiration into infrastructure. Leaders will assess current workflows, meetings, and communication patterns to identify opportunities for energy optimization and improvement.
Together, they’ll build Well-Being Scorecards and co-create a shared language for energy, focus, and belonging.
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Why the Most Grounded Leaders Will Soar in 2030
Purpose: Show leaders how caring for their own well-being makes them stronger, steadier, and more effective for their teams.
Audience: Managers, executives, and team leaders.
About: When the waves rise, buoyant leaders rise higher. Mark Mohammadpour’s Keynote Conversation delivers a fresh perspective on leadership resilience, reframing pressure as information rather than intimidation.
Blending neuroscience, personal transformation, and humor, Mark teaches how calm is the new credibility and how well-being is the new strength.
Why Now:
The American Psychological Association’s Work and Well-Being Survey reports that 77% of workers experience work-related stress, and 57% of leaders say it impacts their ability to lead effectively. The pressure isn’t going away. Organizations need leaders who can remain calm, communicate effectively, and transform stress into a strategic advantage.
Outcomes:
Build resilience through intentional self-leadership.
Welcome calm as a leadership advantage.
Reframe resilience as a team strategy, not an individual one.
Balance leadership responsibilities without burning out.
Leave with tools to protect their energy while leading effectively.
Follow-Up Workshop: Leading with Clarity and Calm
This conversation provides leaders with practical tools to stay grounded and make informed decisions. Using live scenarios and group coaching, participants will practice applying frameworks to coach instead of command.
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Trust Is the New Productivity
Purpose: Inspire belief. Build trust. Lead with heart.
Audience: All employees.
About:
Empathy isn’t soft, it’s a strategic imperative. In this powerful Keynote Conversation, Mark Mohammadpour demonstrates how empathy is the most effective way to build trust, strengthen teams, and minimize miscommunication. Audiences will experience live examples of cognitive empathy in action and learn how understanding others accelerates performance.
Why Now:
Catalyst research shows that employees with empathetic leaders are three times more engaged, five times more likely to stay longer, and 61% more innovative. Empathy has evolved from a soft skill to a survival skill. In an AI-powered world, human understanding is the new differentiator.
Participants explore the science of cognitive empathy and leave with practical skills to apply across teams, departments, and all leadership levels.
Outcomes:
Understand the science of empathy and why it matters at work.
Use perspective-taking to strengthen workplace relationships.
Reimagine trust and empathy as performance accelerators.
Connect across hierarchy, function, and distance.
Use empathy to handle conflict in healthier, more productive ways.
Follow-Up Workshop: Empathy in Action Lab
A dynamic lab where participants learn, test, and practice the science of empathy.
Through paired conversations and workplace scenarios, attendees apply perspective switching techniques, learn actionable steps towards clarity, and practice different recognition approaches.
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Because Motivation Thrives in Warm Cultures
Purpose: Personal well-being and social connection drives passion at work.
Audience: All employees.
About: Passion for your Company and its Mission requires energy and commitment to show up for your customers and stakeholders. How do we prioritize our well-being to show up for ourselves, our teams, and our supporters?
When people are confident and feel healthy, they’re more likely to develop psychological ownership, which means they feel their work and the company's mission have purpose. This investment significantly boosts engagement, and engaged employees are far more likely to believe in the mission.
This high-energy, data-driven, and fully interactive conversation will empower employees to be healthy and confident, so they can show up as their best selves at work and, most importantly, live healthy lives with loved ones.
Why Now:
MIT Sloan’s Workplace Culture 100 Report (2024) reveals that employees who feel a strong sense of belonging are 56% more productive and 50% less likely to leave. Disconnection is the new burnout. Teams need to rekindle a sense of belonging to drive performance and loyalty in a hybrid, distracted world.
Outcomes:
Rediscover purpose as a daily practice, not a buzzword.
Recognize belonging as the core of performance.
Reimagine motivation as collective, not individual.
Follow-Up Workshop: The Sunlight Series™
This highly interactive follow-up brings warmth, connection, and purpose to life.
Participants design personalized Daily Sunlight Habits, craft Mission Moments, form Peer Pods, and run Stop/Start/Continue Rituals.
The session concludes with a Sunlight Map, an actionable guide to sustaining energy and a sense of belonging.
Why Companies Hire Mark
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“If your agency is experiencing a challenge with turnover, managing a hybrid culture or employee engagement, or are just ready to commit to an organizational well-being strategy, talk to Mark.”
— Rebecca Martin, EVP, Culture & Talent, Beehive Strategic Communication
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“Mark’s superpower is empathy and that is the through line for all his passionate work. This empathy, driven by his own backstory, sustains his energy to keep enhancing his business to meet the ever-changing needs of his clients.”
— Sara Jackson, Park National Bank
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“Mark is an incredibly dynamic speaker who is also relatable, knowledgeable, and entertaining. His upbeat, jovial attitude combined with his professional philosophy on leadership, makes him a force for affecting positive change in the workplace.”
— Taylor Strunk, CWPC
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"Mark is an incredible resource for professionals working to balance their lives, careers, and health. We all need to be reminded that it’s not just ok, but critical, to put ourselves first so that we can show up most effectively for everyone else around us. Thanks, Mark, for being such a source of motivation and inspiration for us all!”
— Ann Smith, Founder, A.wordsmith
About Working With Mark
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We use Mentimeter and Talkadot software to ensure interactivity, inclusiveness, and feedback are delivered.
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No off-the-shelf materials here! We develop your session tailored to the specific challenges you’re facing.
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We’ve hosted sessions virtually and in-person, attendance of five to 1,000+, from one-hour to multi-day.
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We’ll spend time before your event to ensure we’re aligned on goals, expectations, and success factors.
We’ll also schedule time after the event to discuss feedback and immediate next steps.
Beyond the Main Stage
Corporate Offsites and Training Programs
Building Leadership Skills, Confidence, and Career Momentum.
Mark Mohammadpour leads relatable, practical, and actionable conversations with executives, emerging leaders, rising stars, and remote/hybrid teams.
Sample Keynote Excerpts
Topics are also easily adaptable for leadership and staff retreats and trainings.
The future of leading healthy, engaged employees: Your Culture of Well-being.
The Buoyant Leader: the irreplaceable connection to healthy employee cultures.
Leading With Empathy: Lessons from “Ted Lasso”
Work With Mark Mohammadpour.
We look forward to learning more about you and your company and how we can play a role. Please fill out the form below, and we will respond to your request within 48 hours.
1. https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/travel-tourism/worldwide
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9597687/