Lou Carter - Keynote Speaker
Founder & CEO of Rising Vibe | Leadership Facilitator | Culture Change Specialist
Lou Carter is the Founder and CEO of Rising Vibe, a powerful keynote speaker who uses emotion as a catalyst for meaningful change, in people, teams and organisations.
With over 25 years’ experience in operations, leadership and business coaching, Lou works with organisations who know that performance, culture and wellbeing are deeply human issues.
Her work centres on one simple but often overlooked truth:
How we feel shapes how we show up, and how we show up shapes everything.
Using Emotion to Drive Change
Lou’s mission is clear: to help people feel better, so they do better.
In a world full of mixed messages about whether emotions are “good” or “bad”, many people learn to suppress what they feel in order to avoid judgement. In her widely shared TEDx talk, Lou explores how “We Are Both Hard-Wired to Avoid Judgement and Hard-Wired to Judge,” which leads people to become, what Lou calls, “Functioning Fakeaholics” coping on the surface, while disconnecting underneath.
Suppressing emotion never ends well
Instead, Lou helps individuals and organisations change the language they use, their self-talk and how they speak to others, so that judgement no longer gets in the way of trust, safety and performance. Her work creates environments where people feel safe to be honest, real and human and where growth can actually happen.
What It’s Like to Be in a Room with Lou
Lou is an articulate, high-energy and deeply human communicator.
She connects quickly, speaks honestly and isn’t afraid to challenge, always with compassion, warmth and humour. Her sessions are often described as:
Raw, real and unfiltered
High-energy, practical and grounded
Emotionally safe, yet boldly challenging
You might laugh. You might cry. You will almost certainly leave changed!
Full of laughter, reflection and powerful moments of insight
Lou has a rare gift for turning complex psychology and neuroscience into practical, everyday tools, brought to life through real stories and lived experience.
Many describe her as an enigma in the room, someone who shifts the emotional temperature and creates connection fast.
Key Speaking Themes
Lou’s keynotes are tailored to the audience, but commonly focus on:
- Emotion as a driver of performance and behaviour
- Psychological safety and trust at work
- Authentic leadership in complex environments
- Allyship in all its forms: gender, race, power, voice and difference
- Creating cultures where people feel safe to be human
A significant part of Lou’s work centres on allyship, not as a tick-box exercise, but as a daily leadership practice. She has led large female leadership cohorts, helping women reconnect with their power without feeling they need to “lead like men,” and has created brave spaces for honest conversations around race, identity and belonging in the workplace.
Lou was the creator of Rising Vibe’s Race in the Workplace event, a bold, human-centred initiative designed to tackle conversations about race that many organisations avoid, but can no longer afford to. Bringing together high-calibre speakers, lived experience and senior leadership voices, the event created a psychologically safe space for honest dialogue, challenge and reflection. Its purpose was clear: to move beyond silence and surface-level action, and to build genuine understanding, allyship and momentum for meaningful change.
Experience & Impact
Lou is regularly invited to speak at:
- Conferences and leadership forums
- HR and Learning & Development events
- Organisational away days and summits
- Industry panels and facilitated conversations
Her work spans sectors and seniority levels, from emerging leaders to executive teams. What remains consistent is the environment she creates, one described by clients as “deeply safe, powerfully connecting and genuinely transformative”.
Feedback frequently highlights Lou’s ability to:
- Build trust quickly
- Hold challenging conversations with care
- Create spaces where people feel seen and heard
- Translate insight into meaningful action
One senior leader described Rising Vibe’s delivery as “creating a bond that usually takes years to forge.”
Why Lou as a Keynote Speaker?
If you’re looking for a speaker who:
- Goes beyond theory into lived experience
- Balances challenge with compassion
- Makes complex ideas simple and usable
- Leaves people thinking, feeling and acting differently
Lou Carter brings exactly that.
Her work reminds us that being human at work isn’t a weakness, it’s the foundation of strong leadership, healthy culture and sustainable performance.
