Mariana Atencio

Mariana Atencio is on a mission to help people supercharge their careers, their workplace cultures, and their happiness by embracing the power of authenticity. After earning a Peabody Award for her reporting work, the massive success of her 23-million-view TEDx talk pushed Mariana to spread to as many people and organizations as possible. Mariana Atencio is available to be booked for corporate and private events. She is also well-known for his keynote and motivational speaking. Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group today to inquire about Mariana Atencio’s fees.

Want to book Mariana Atencio for an event?

Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group at 215-995-0905 to book Mariana Atencio for a keynote speech, corporate event, leadership program, workshop, fireside chat, virtual appearance, or other private or professional event.

Our team will help confirm Mariana Atencio’s availability, speaking fee, travel requirements, and fit for your audience. To start the booking process, please share your event date, location, audience size, event format, and the type of presentation you are looking for.

The Mollie Plotkin Group is a full-service keynote speaker agency and entertainment bureau that helps organizations secure keynote speakers, entertainers, athletes, celebrities, and thought leaders for corporate meetings, conferences, fundraisers, and special events.

An Empowered Journalist

Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Mariana earned a journalism degree from Universidad Católica. However, the government of Hugo Chávez completely shut down independent media outlets in her home country. She participated in student protests for democracy but after being assaulted in an armed robbery, Mariana left for the United States when she received a full-merit scholarship to Columbia University’s Journalism School, where she earned her master’s degree in broadcast journalism.

Coming to America from Venezuela, Mariana learned first-hand how feeling self-conscious about being different kept her from engaging. After graduating from Columbia University, Mariana wanted to take that experience into her journalism career. To her, the most important stories are ones that build bridges and foster understanding.

Award-Winning Investigative News

Mariana got her big break anchoring and reporting at Univision, where she also worked for the Documentaries and Investigative Unit. There, she won a Peabody Award and an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Award for her work uncovering illegal weapons sold across the border in Mexico. She also won a Gracie Award for directing, writing, and reporting PRESSionados, a documentary about press freedom in Latin America. Following her awards, she hosted The Morning Show on Fusion, a Disney and Univision joint venture, and co-anchored the 2016 Democratic Presidential debate.

Eventually, Mariana made the crossover from Spanish to English-speaking television as a national correspondent for NBC News. At NBC, she was known for her boots-on-the-ground, engaging, and empathic fieldwork. Her investigative work on Latin America, the Latino community, cartel violence, and women’s and migrants’ rights earned her three Emmy nominations, a Hillman Prize, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Presidential Award. Throughout her broadcast career, Mariana has reported from places like Haiti, the Syrian border, and China, underscoring the common threads in our humanity and that we are all more alike than different. She has interviewed dozens of notable figures, including Pope Francis, President Joe Biden, King Felipe VI of Spain, Nancy Pelosi, chef and humanitarian José Andrés, author Yuval Noah Harari, and director Francis Ford Coppola.

Hire Mariana Atencio for Keynote Speaking

Mariana’s TEDx talk What Makes YOU Special? garnered over 23 million views and catapulted Mariana into a new storytelling outlet: speaking. As a keynote speaker, Mariana is on a mission to create immense impact. Specifically, she discusses The Power of Authenticity and how organizations that build authenticity gain momentum toward tremendous, positive organizational change.

Doubling down on this message, she wrote her bestselling memoir, Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real. Perfectly You is a call to action that unleashes personal and professional authenticity to find purpose and break barriers.

Lost in Panama

Currently head of her own media production company, Mariana pursues stories that capture her curiosity. In 2022 she launched the hit true crime podcast series Lost in Panama, an investigation into the disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. Straightaway, Lost in Panama made Apple Podcasts’ top #10 list. More significantly, it shed light on the issue of missing women and girls in the region and led Mariana to headline Foreign Policy magazine’s HerPower summit on tackling gender inequality in the Americas.

Further Accomplishments

Mariana’s journey is featured on the award-winning HBO series Habla, and People magazine called her storytelling platform “a media empire.” Ten years after she arrived in the United States, Mariana won Columbia University’s First Decade Award for her impressive career. Mariana is also a 2021 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a spokesperson for the American Latino Museum.

To hire Mariana Atencio for an event, contact the Mollie Plotkin Group with the proposed event date, location, audience size, event format and program goals. Mariana Atencio is available for corporate events, conferences, leadership meetings, private events, workshops, fireside chats and virtual programs.

After receiving your request, a Mollie Plotkin Group booking agent will review Mariana Atencio’s availability, discuss the event details and get back to you within 48 hours with next steps for securing Mariana Atencio for your program.

The cost to book Mariana Atencio depends on the event date, location, format, audience size and scope of the appearance. Mariana Atencio’s speaking fee ranges from $17,500 to $24,500. Speaking fees may vary for keynote speeches, workshops, fireside chats, private events, corporate meetings and virtual programs.

For the most accurate Mariana Atencio booking fee, contact the Mollie Plotkin Group with your event details. Our team will help confirm availability, pricing and the best format for your event.

The Power Of Authenticity

Supercharge Your Career, Your Workplace Culture, and Your Happiness

It takes seven seconds for people to form an opinion about you. That’s why most of us are taught to fit in a box instead of embracing those parts of ourselves that stand out. As a budding national TV journalist, Mariana was often encouraged to leave parts of herself at the door. But “covering” did not lead to real belonging, especially in the workplace. Embracing her uniqueness did. Mariana’s passion is empowering others to discover how to do the same.

When people feel safe to be themselves, that authenticity builds trust, fulfillment, and credibility at work and in life. They’re able to embrace a mindset of transformation to meet change more resiliently. And leaders find fostering authenticity in their team spurs engagement, collaboration, innovation, and community.

This presentation can be tailored to each specific audience.

Key Takeaways:

• Why do most of us find it so hard to be authentic, especially at work?
• Discover the traits that make you Perfectly You and harness them.
• Ways to increase your personal fulfillment and a sense of purpose.
• How being vulnerable inspires others, builds trust, and creates meaningful relationships.
• Mariana’s 3-UP METHOD to inspire a workplace culture of innovation and openness.
• Easy steps to cultivate transformation, impact outcomes, and enhance resilience in the face of change.

Moderating/Interviewing/Hosting

With experience as a national network news anchor and reporter, Mariana brings warmth and intelligence to each hosting, moderating, and interviewing assignment. Mariana’s curiosity and poise help her get the most out of those on stage with her.

The breadth of Mariana’s experience speaks to her versatility. She’s moderated conversations on: embracing a mindset for change at Microsoft, on the rights of women in Iran, on gender inequality at Foreign Policy magazine’s HERPower summit, on media representation at the Paley Center for Media, on financial literacy at Nasdaq, on building a personal and professional brand at Columbia University, a panel on geopolitics and economics at Citi Private Bank’s autumn dialogues with three heads of state from Latin America, a session at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on global healthcare inequity, plus the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, PepsiCo, JP Morgan, Accenture, Spotify, Google, YouTube, Clorox, AT&T, Spectrum, and more.