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Working With the Best Clients and Partners
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You Didn't Come this Far to Play Small
While everyone else was telling women athletes to move on from their sport, I was building a framework for moving forward with it. Your athlete identity isn't a chapter that closes when the season ends. It's the most powerful professional credential you have and most women athletes have no idea how to capitalize on it.
Through keynotes, workshops, and 1:1 coaching, I help women athletes build the network, brand, and career plan that holds everything they are. Not just the athlete. Not just the professional. All of it. The women who win after sport don't leave the field behind.
They find a bigger one.
Ready to have your breakout?
Alex Rodriguez
Sr. Manager GTM Operations at LinkedIn
What an incredible fireside chat with Shana Sumers! We had amazing conversational chemistry—super engaging and full of energy. The discussion was thoughtful and packed with actionable tips that left the audience inspired and ready to build authentic connections. Truly a session that combined insight, fun, and community!
Shana's Talks
Your Breakout Starts Now: Five Plays to Connect for Success
Most student athletes are preparing for the next season. Very few are preparing for the next chapter. By the time the final whistle blows, through graduation, injury, or retirement, they’re already laps behind in building the network that makes the transition seamless and successful.
This keynote meets student athletes where they are: still in uniform, still competing, and sitting inside the most valuable professional network they will ever have access to. Shana Sumers, professional tackle football player, former college soccer player, and entrepreneur, delivers a practical, high-energy talk that reframes the athletic environment as a career asset and gives student athletes a five-play framework they can execute immediately for professional success.
This talk doesn’t just highlight what happens after sport, but about what to build while you're still in the game.
The Breakout Leader: Unlocking Your Inner Competitor
Women who know how to perform under pressure, take hard feedback, and compete for what they want don't just become better professionals. They become the leaders who move your business forward.
In this keynote, Shana Sumers, professional tackle football player, former tech leader, and entrepreneur, draws on the one credential most leadership programs overlook: the competitive foundation already inside every woman at your company. Every woman who has performed under pressure, navigated rooms that weren't built for her, and kept building toward something that mattered has already been developing the leadership skills your organization needs most. This talk shows her how to stop leaving that at the door and start leading from it fully.
The result isn't just inspiration. It's a room full of women who show up differently by being more confident, more strategic, and ready to drive results.
Break the Box: Start Building Your Own Field
Once you choose your lane, you are handed a box. Athlete. Manager. Reliable Teammate. You’re then told to pick a lane and stay in it. For women who exist at the intersection, labeled as “too much”, “too complex”, “too bold”, the boxes multiply.
In this empowering keynote, Shana Sumers, professional tackle football player, community builder, entrepreneur and podcast host, draws from a lifetime of breaking boxes that didn’t fit to show women how to stop settling and start building the career and life they want. Whether it’s making a pivot, fighting for a role or starting a business, you weren’t meant to stay confined to limitations - you are meant to break the box that limits your strengths, and allows you to build your own field.
Breakout Connections: Your Network is Your Net Worth
85% of opportunities are filled through relationships, not job boards. Yet most professionals treat networking like an awkward obligation instead of the strategic business skill it is.
In this high-energy, interactive session, Shana Sumers, professional football player and community builder of 10 years, teaches you how to build relationship capital that drives measurable outcomes. Drawing from her experience scaling communities at HubSpot and launching networks for underrepresented professionals, Shana breaks down the The Five Plays to strategic networking: how to connect with intention, enter rooms with a strategy, and turn quick interactions into career-defining opportunities.
You'll leave with practical frameworks, conversation starters, and an action plan to grow your network with purpose, whether you're an introvert, a seasoned leader, or someone who's never felt like they "belong" in networking spaces - you’ll gain the knowledge and confidence to step into any room as your best self.
