She grew up in West Virginia not knowing she was royalty. The journey that followed — across continents, cultures, and questions of identity — became the foundation for one of the most human, applicable keynotes in the corporate speaking world. Here’s why organizations from the AmEx to Nestlé keep booking Princess Sarah Culberson.
Corporate community is one of the most talked-about priorities in organizational leadership right now — and one of the most poorly executed. It shows up in team offsites, engagement surveys, and culture decks. It rarely shows up in the day-to-day experience of the actual people doing the work. The gap between intention and reality is where most organizations get stuck.
Princess Sarah Culberson closes that gap. Not through frameworks borrowed from organizational psychology, but through something more fundamental: a story of belonging that is so unexpected, so specific, and so universally resonant that it recalibrates how an audience thinks about connection — both inside and outside of work.
A story unlike anything on the keynote circuit
A story unlike anything on the keynote circuitSarah Culberson was adopted as an infant by a loving white family in Morgantown, West Virginia. She grew up with questions about her identity — her biracial roots, her biological parents, who she was and where she came from. As an adult, she hired a private investigator to find her birth family. What she discovered changed everything: her biological grandfather was the Paramount Chief of the Bumpe Chiefdom in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Sarah was a princess.
She traveled to Sierra Leone to meet her father and the community that had always been hers by birth. When she arrived in Bumpe, the chiefdom granted her the title Bumpenya — Lady of Bumpe. She was welcomed into a family, a culture, and a sense of belonging she had spent her entire life searching for. That arrival — and what she chose to do with it — became the story of her book, A Princess Found.
But Princess Sarah didn’t stop at discovering her roots. She co-founded Sierra Leone Rising, a nonprofit dedicated to rebuilding education, public health, and female empowerment in a country still recovering from years of civil war. Through the organization, she has helped girls stay in school through sanitary pad programs, provided clean drinking water by building wells, and launched coding initiatives that bridge cultures through technology. Her work spans continents and touches thousands of lives — all because she chose to show up for a community that needed her.
“The room was completely captivated as she walked us through her personal story of discovery, self identity, and transformation. Her speaking style is incredibly engaging and her topic spoke to us in a way that made us take a moment of personal reflection and purpose.”
— University of Southern California
What “corporate community” actually means — and why it’s harder than it looks
Most organizations understand that belonging matters. Research consistently shows that employees who feel a genuine sense of community at work are more engaged, more productive, and significantly less likely to leave. The challenge is that belonging isn’t something leadership can mandate. It can’t be built into a policy or rolled out in a training. It has to be created — person by person, interaction by interaction — and it requires individuals who are willing to do the uncomfortable work of actually connecting across difference.
That is exactly what Princess Sarah’s keynote teaches. Her framework isn’t abstract. It comes from the lived experience of someone who had to build belonging from scratch — who crossed cultural divides, navigated assumptions on multiple sides, and found that genuine community requires both vulnerability and action. For corporate audiences, the translation is immediate: the same dynamics that make cross-cultural belonging hard in life make it hard in the workplace.
The “Better Together” and “Step into the Unknown” keynotes — what she covers and what audiences leave with
Princess Sarah’s keynotes, Better Together: How to Build a Culture of Belonging and Step into the Unknown, are both built around 3 core areas that she applies directly to organizational contexts. She customizes the content for each audience — adapting to leadership groups, sales teams, customer-facing organizations, and employee communities depending on what the organization is navigating.
The Better Together framework
The allyship dimension — why this matters for teams right now
One of the most requested elements of Princess Sarah’s keynote is her focus on allyship as a community-building tool. In an era where organizations are navigating complex conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion — often with teams that are uncertain how to participate meaningfully — Princess Sarah offers something rare: a way into those conversations that doesn’t feel threatening or performative.
Her approach centers on empowering the individual. Building a culture of belonging isn’t the responsibility of leadership alone, or of HR, or of the people from underrepresented groups who are most affected by its absence. It belongs to everyone in the room. That reframe — from institutional obligation to personal ownership — is where Princess Sarah’s keynote consistently shifts something in an audience. People leave not just inspired, but with a sense of their own specific role in making it happen.
What organizations say after booking her
“Princess Sarah was amazing — the audience loved her! I got a lot of great feedback about her keynote. She is both engaging and her story is powerful.” — Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
“Princess Sarah was FANTASTIC! She was engaging, a phenomenal storyteller, and I’ve received really great feedback about her presentation.” — Danaher Corporation
“Princess Sarah captivated us with her incredible story of overcoming adversity, prejudgment, and fears of the unknown. Her inspiring journey encouraged us to embrace change and never overlook opportunities to make a difference.” — Nestlé Nespresso USA
“Sarah was phenomenal! She did a wonderful job personalizing her story for our audience — so easy to work with and flexible with everything we wanted to do.” — Event Planner
The feedback pattern across organizations is consistent: audiences don’t just enjoy Princess Sarah’s keynote — they’re moved by it in a way that prompts genuine reflection. The Federal Reserve, Nestlé, Danaher, and USC are not organizations with identical cultures or audiences, yet the response is the same. That kind of cross-industry resonance is the mark of a speaker whose message is built on something universal.
Who books Princess Sarah Culberson — and for what
Princess Sarah is an exceptionally strong fit for any organization prioritizing culture, belonging, community, and the human side of performance. She works particularly well for corporate leadership events, diversity and inclusion initiatives, women’s conferences, association meetings, and annual gatherings where leadership wants to set a tone of connection and shared purpose for the year ahead.
She is also, by every account in her client feedback, one of the easiest speakers to work with on the circuit. She customizes her talk for each audience, arrives prepared, and treats every event with the kind of care that makes event planners’ jobs significantly easier.
Book Princess Sarah Culberson for your event
Princess Sarah Culberson is represented by Eagles Talent Speaker Management. If you’re looking for a corporate community keynote speaker who combines a one-of-a-kind personal story with a practical, immediately applicable framework for building belonging in the workplace, this is the conversation to have.
Check availability for Princess Sarah Culberson
Contact Eagles Talent to check her calendar, get speaking fee information, and talk through whether she’s the right fit for your event and audience.
