Unlock the power of resilience and teamwork with Praralympic Medalist and Inspirational Speaker, Danelle Umstead. Through her incredible journey as a blind athlete, Danelle delivers powerful messages of resilience, teamwork, and true vision.
As the founder of the Sisters in Sports Foundation, Danelle is dedicated to empowering women and girls with disabilities. Her leadership and advocacy efforts demonstrate the impact of commitment and vision in achieving meaningful change.
One of the top speakers, Danelle Umstead inspires organizations to overcome adversity, enhance teamwork, and inspire true vision in an ever-evolving workplace.
Danelle’s keynotes offer practical and actionable strategies for leaders to build strong and trusting teams, enhance employee engagement and retention, and cultivate a culture of empowerment.
The unique partnership with her husband Rob as her guide in Paralympic skiing highlights the importance of trust, communication, and teamwork. Danelle’s insights into building and maintaining effective teams are invaluable for any organization.
“I had the privilege of having Danelle Umstead speak at my executive leadership conference. Her story of perseverance and adaptation is inspirational. She has opened my eyes on how to embrace change and make the best of any situation. I would highly recommend her to anyone needing a great motivational speaker.”
“I can unequivocally tell you that none of our past guests have come close to having the type of profound impact on my teammates as Danelle Umstead. She was so genuine and so inspiring; she absolutely touched the souls of everyone she met.”
“I cannot say enough wonderful things about Danelle. She was friendly and engaging from the beginning of our partnership and so fantastic to work with at our national summit. Not only was she a pleasure to spend time with, her speech was incredibly inspiring and emotional.”
Across my career, I competed in 20 Paralympic races – winning 3 Paralympic podiums. I stood on 53 World Cup podiums, but far more often, I walked away without a medal. Hundreds of races ended in disappointment, injury, or outcomes that never made headlines. Add progressive vision loss and later multiple sclerosis, and the real story becomes less about winning and more about continuing to show up when the outcome is unknown.
That perspective performing under extreme uncertainty is exactly what my message Lead Anyway is built on.
I was twenty-nine and almost totally blind when my first guide, my father, learned how to partner with visually impaired skiers. He skied in front of me and gave me instructions, and I skied for the first time in my life. Four years later I met Rob, a former collegiate ski racer, who became my husband and guide; together, we have made history.
As Team Vision4Gold, Rob and I have won 3 Paralympic Bronze medals, 4 World Championship medals, and over 50 Alpine Skiing World Cup medals. We were the first husband and wife visually impaired ski race team to compete and medal for Team USA at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Paralympic Games.
We earned bronze medals in both the downhill and Super Combined events, and ended that season with the overall and Super-G World Cup titles. We discovered the secrets that can empower a team to do the impossible.
Email: info@danelleumstead.com
