SPEAKING · KEYNOTES AND WORKSHOPS

Your audience leaves with a receipt, not a pep talk.

Keynotes and workshops for accomplished Black women on the gap between what their work produces and what they’re paid for it, from Cynthia Barnes, Founder and Principal Analyst of Black Women’s Wealth Lab®.

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Black History Month and Women’s History Month dates are being scheduled now.

Cynthia Barnes seated at the head of a boardroom table.

TEDxSHAWUNIVERSITY

Four words to take a compliment.

She gave a Women’s History Month audience four words. They became the sign-off on everything she builds: Thank You; It’s True™.

The gap is rarely effort. It’s evidence.

$105.4 MILLIONdocumented conservative floor of value produced

$1.74 MILLIONcombined compensation of the women who produced it

Those are the two numbers across the fifteen Value Audits™ in The Extraction Report, Volume One. The women behind them were not short on talent or effort. They were short on evidence: results blurred into team outcomes, wins never translated into dollars, and a number named on the spot with nothing underneath it.

Every talk connects that gap to the next number a woman in your audience will name: in a proposal, a renewal, a retainer or an offer letter.

Three keynotes. Each one ends with a decision.

Unbought, Unbossed, Unbilled

Stop Giving Your Expertise Away Without Apologizing for It (Even If You’ve Said Yes to Free for Twenty Years)

Accomplished Black women give their expertise away every week: the panel, the “quick call,” the framework a client keeps using after the contract ends. They call it an honor. The bill shows up anyway. Cynthia Barnes opens with Shirley Chisholm’s “Unbought and Unbossed” and makes the case for the third word. With her own receipts, including the conference she paid her own way to speak at for free before coming home to an overdue light bill, she shows the room what free has cost and why “know your value” advice never produced a number.

YOUR ATTENDEES WILL BE ABLE TO

  1. List every place they gave their expertise away in the last twelve months, and who benefited from each.
  2. Recognize the polite forms an unpaid ask takes: the panel, the quick call, the pick-your-brain, the exposure offer, and the framework that outlives the contract.
  3. Answer the next request for free work in one sentence, without apologizing.
  4. Name the next decision where the free habit will cost them, who will be on the other side of it, and the date it lands.

BEST FOR · BLACK HISTORY MONTH, WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH, ERGs, ASSOCIATIONS · PAIRS WITH · EXPOSURE IS NOT A LINE ITEM

Off the Balance Sheet

Find the Money Your Work Made for Everyone Else Without a Finance Degree (Even If You “Don’t Think in Numbers”)

Somewhere in an annual report is a result an accomplished woman delivered. Her name is not in it, and neither is a dollar figure she can point to. Cynthia Barnes once kept a spreadsheet her employer never saw: about $3.2 million in value from her ideas, against a $2,500 bonus for frameworks that saved $800,000 in six months. In this keynote she puts the two numbers from The Extraction Report side by side and shows why that distance is an evidence problem before it is a negotiation problem.

YOUR ATTENDEES WILL BE ABLE TO

  1. Read their own career as a record of economic results instead of a list of duties.
  2. Tell the difference between what their work produced and what they were paid for it, and explain why those are two different numbers.
  3. Explain why the gap is an evidence problem before it is a negotiation problem.
  4. Name the next number they will have to say out loud, who will hear it, and when.

BEST FOR · CONFERENCE MAIN STAGES, FINANCE AND PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS · PAIRS WITH · TRANSLATE THE THANK-YOU

Who Owns Your Masters?

Keep Your Name on Everything You Build Without Fighting for Credit (Even If Someone Already Erased It)

For decades Black artists made the hits while someone else owned the masters. Accomplished women do the same with their careers. They build the program, the process and the playbook, and the record of it belongs to whoever signed the check. Cynthia Barnes, who watermarked everything she built in corporate America, shows how ownership of the work disappears in plain sight, from “the team did a great job” to the framework that leaves with the contract and never comes back.

YOUR ATTENDEES WILL BE ABLE TO

  1. Identify the programs, processes and frameworks they built, and which ones still carry their name.
  2. Recognize the moments ownership slips away: “the team did a great job,” the deliverable with no author, the framework that leaves with the contract.
  3. Describe their work as something they own, not something they once did.
  4. List what they need to settle before their next contract, proposal or licensing conversation.

BEST FOR · TECH, CREATIVE AND FOUNDER ROOMS, AfroTech-STYLE CONFERENCES · PAIRS WITH · LINER NOTES

Three working sessions. Each one pairs with a keynote.

Nobody in the room is asked to share their pay or put a price on anything. Every workshop ends with work on paper.

Exposure Is Not a Line Item

Count Everything You Gave Away Free This Year Without Feeling Petty (Even If You Called It Networking)

A working session for the woman who says yes to every “quick favor.” Participants list everything they gave away in the last twelve months, including talks, advice, introductions, frameworks and reviews, and mark who benefited from each. No one is asked to defend a yes or feel bad about it. The list does the talking.

YOUR ATTENDEES WILL BE ABLE TO

  1. Put a written count on everything they gave away free in the last twelve months.
  2. Mark who benefited from each item.
  3. Spot the requests they say yes to by reflex, and the ones that keep coming back.
  4. State plainly what the list proves, and the one thing it can’t tell them: what all of it came to in dollars.

PAIRS WITH · UNBOUGHT, UNBOSSED, UNBILLED

Translate the Thank-You

Turn Your Compliments Into Evidence Without Bragging (Even If You Were Raised to Let Your Work Speak for Itself)

For the woman with a folder full of praise and no proof. Participants pull real compliments (client emails, recommendations, “you saved us”) and translate each one into the outcome underneath it. It’s not ego. It’s evidence.

YOUR ATTENDEES WILL BE ABLE TO

  1. Turn five real compliments into outcome statements: what changed, for whom, and how it was measured.
  2. Sort each statement into provable today or not yet.
  3. Replace activity language (“I support,” “I manage,” “faster and cleaner”) with language a budget holder reads.
  4. Leave with three outcome statements ready for their next proposal, bio or introduction.

PAIRS WITH · OFF THE BALANCE SHEET

Liner Notes

Separate Your Results From the Team’s Without Throwing Anyone Under the Bus (Even If Every Win Says “We”)

Every win in her career says “we.” This session finds the “I.” Participants write the liner notes for their last three years, the way an album credits who played what: what she built, who else was on it, and where her name dropped off. This is attribution, not blame.

YOUR ATTENDEES WILL BE ABLE TO

  1. Write the credits for their last three years of work: what they built and who else was on it.
  2. Separate their own contribution from the team’s result without blaming anyone.
  3. Find the results that carry no name at all, including their own.
  4. Say “I led” with the record to back it up.

PAIRS WITH · WHO OWNS YOUR MASTERS?

Formats

THE SIGNATURE CLOSE

Every keynote ends the same way.

Every seat gets a receipt. Produced. Credited to. Paid.

Your audience can fill in two of those lines. The third is the reason they’ll remember the talk.

At the close, the room reads the bottom line together: Thank You; It’s True™.

How booking works

  1. 01 · CHECK A DATE

    Send the form at the bottom of this page with your date, your audience and the format you have in mind.

  2. 02 · A PLANNING CALL

    Cynthia reads every request herself and replies to set a short planning call. Come ready to say what decision your audience is facing this year.

  3. 03 · A TALK BUILT FOR YOUR ROOM

    Every talk names the decision your audience is facing: a proposal, a renewal, a retainer or an offer letter. Your attendees leave with something to act on, not just something to remember.

Once you book, you’ll receive her bios, emcee introduction, approved headshots and technical requirements.

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About Cynthia Barnes

Cynthia Barnes is the Founder and Principal Analyst of Black Women’s Wealth Lab®, where she shows accomplished Black women what their work produces in dollars.

Cynthia Barnes seated at a boardroom table.

About Black Women’s Wealth Lab®

Black Women’s Wealth Lab® produces clear, defensible financial valuations of accomplished Black women’s documented portfolios, with the evidence, assumptions and limits behind them. Its work includes the Value Audit; Decision Desk™, for women with a pricing, renewal, retainer, licensing or offer decision inside 90 days; and The Extraction Report, the Lab’s research series.

Visit the Lab

Rooms she speaks to

AUDIENCES

  • Employee resource groups: Black History Month, Women’s History Month, women’s networks
  • Professional associations
  • Conferences
  • HBCU and alumni organizations
  • Founder and consultant communities

RECENT STAGES

  • TEDxShawUniversity
  • 126th NBLC
  • Employee resource groups from Google to Salesforce

Questions organizers ask

“Can you tailor the talk to our audience?”
Yes. Every talk names the decision your audience is facing, whether that’s a proposal, a renewal, a retainer or an offer letter. The planning call settles which one.
“Will attendees have to share their salary or rates?”
No. Nobody is asked to disclose pay or put a price on anything in the room. The work stays on their own paper.
“In person or virtual?”
Both. In-person engagements travel from Raleigh-Durham.
“What do you need from us on the day?”
A microphone, a screen for slides, and a receipt on every seat. Cynthia supplies the receipts.
“Can we record the session?”
Recording terms are agreed at booking.
“How do fees work?”
Fees are quoted per engagement after the planning call.

Press kit

Bios are above, ready to copy. Headshots are below.

Headshots are approved for promotion of your booked event. Please do not crop, filter or alter them with AI.

February is closer than your planning committee thinks.

Black History Month and Women’s History Month calendars fill first. Check your date now.

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Which talk interests you? Optional